“I’m not his biggest fan, either,” Ellie muttered. She looked at Axell then, as if no one else was there. “Are you okay?”
Axell’s expression was tense. He looked at Prospero. “Take this memory. I do not want to know this is here.”
And Dan was impressed by his audacity. “I’ll keep mine. Not to visit but because… I want to remember how much I hated this.”
“I can do that.” Prospero paused, looked at each of them, and said, “Thank you for the bravery, gentlemen.”
Then she erased Axell’s memory of the drug dealer’s den, and Dan led his beloved to the tavern for the drink they both wanted after that encounter.
29Ellie
Ellie marveled at the way that things so impossibly odd only a few weeks ago seemed normal now. She watched Dan and Axell walk away and said, “If it’s not poison, then what?”
Prospero extended her elbow to Ellie. Her body was tense enough that Ellie could feel the muscles as firm as bone in her forearm. “I will figure that out,” Prospero said mildly. “I don’t have an answer yet, though.”
“I feel like the chief witch puts too much pressure on you,” Ellie muttered.
“He trusts me.”
“He abuses your loyalty,” Ellie countered. “Whatever you did to upset him isn’t reason enough to allow it.”
Prospero’s lips pressed together as if to bite back a retort. “I visited a witch who was not yet a witch.”
“I remember that,” Ellie said quietly. “Is it so bad that you came to my library?”
As they walked, Ellie weighed her recent discoveries and conclusions. She still was unresolved as to what she intended to say to Prospero. Theattempt to talk to both Dan and Maggie had been futile, but Ellie still now knew things she’d not known yesterday.
“I don’t recall the last time I wanted something for me. Someone,” Prospero said. “Then I saw you. There was a prophecy about you… and I knew you were a witch, but you had not yetbecomeso.”
“I kissed you,” Ellie whispered. “I knew you were mine. I didn’t know anything about magic or witches or here. I just knew that you were mine.”
“Oh, Ellie…” Prospero glanced over at her. “Why can’t any of this be simple?”
“It can.” Ellie looked back at the castle that loomed behind them like a stone guardian, and for a moment, she had the sense that she’d walked this path with someone else.Maggie.The question was whether it ultimately mattered. Sure, Ellie wanted to figure it all out still, but the important part was that if Prospero truly hadn’t wanted her to know, she could’ve erased the memories of those whodidhave clues.
“Do you know that Daniel Monahan and Maggie Lynch were in my Missing files?” Ellie asked.
“I did.”
“I knew that before, and I know it now.” Ellie glanced over at Prospero. “I think you expected me to figure everything out. All the things I’m forgetting. All the things that happened. It’s piecing together, and I think that’s what you wanted to have happen, isn’t it?”
Prospero was quiet until they were alongside the stretch of woods beside the path. Then she said, “I did not agree with the decision to alter your memory. I just wanted… I wanted to talk and explain and—”
“I was in the other world. I left.” Ellie felt like she’d had an espresso shot, heart racing too fast, as she was hoping she was right. Maybe Prosperocouldbe trusted. Ellie barreled forward. “With her. Monahan boosts magic. He boosted yours, and you erased my memory.”
“I am not allowed to tell you what happened,” Prospero said after a quiet moment.
“I figured that much out by piecing things together. What I don’t know is if… did I… I don’t think Maggie is lesbian.” Ellie took a deep breath and blurted, “I kissed her.”
Prospero said nothing.
“I kissed Maggie,” Ellie repeated.
“I heard you.” Prospero’s expression was unreadable. “Do you often kiss other women?”
“No. I had memories of her, though, and—”
“Memory of kissing her?” Prospero asked, voice as calm as an undisturbed lake.
