I turn back towards him.
And then start in surprise when I realize that he is looking at me. Draven, who still has his arm around my waist, raises his eyebrows at the Unseelie King in silent question while all our other friends watch him as well. Even the two dryads study him curiously.
“For me?” I ask, glancing from side to side in confusion.
“Yes,” he replies.
The gravity in his tone sends a bolt of worry through my spine. Draven seems to feel it, because he tightens his arm slightly around me.
“While Galen and I were flying back here,” Orion begins as he holds my gaze with that serious expression on his beautiful face, “I thought about what you told us all while we were bringing our wounded back from the battlefield.”
My heart skips a beat as another flash of worry hits me. While we were working to clear the battlefield, I finally told them all about my struggles with the addictive side effects of my magic. How it started out manageable and then got worse after the grief and regret I felt when my parents died and then how it all culminated when Orion was forced to make me see those memories over and over again to save me from Kander von Graf’s magic. Orion already knew about it, of course. So I don’t know why he is bringing that up again.
Not that it matters. The only people who are still here are him, Draven, Alistair, Isera, Galen, and Lyra. Well, and the two dryads, the Soul of Trees, and that entire cloud of glowing golden orbs, of course. Everyone except the dryads and the floating spheres of light already know everything. But that serious tone ofhis voice is making me worried, so I detach myself from Draven’s embrace and straighten my spine to brace myself for whatever this is.
Orion holds my gaze. “And I realized thatIcan give you the answer you so desperately want.”
I jerk back in shock. Blinking, I just stare at him in silence while fighting down the treacherous burst of hope that tried to flutter in my chest. Because there is only one question that I desperately want an answer to. But it can’t be that question that he is referring to, because there is no one left alive to answer it.
“How?” I breathe, still trying to keep those fluttering wings of hope from taking flight. “I don’t know if I used magic to make my parents hate me, so there is no memory like that in my head. And my parents are dead, so you can’t access their memories.”
“Yes, there is a memory like that in your head,” he replies, his entire face full of sincerity. “You have just been watching it from the wrong angle all this time.”
Drawing in a shuddering breath, I swallow while my chest tightens with both hope and pain. If this is true…
“Would you like me to show you?” Orion asks.
Not trusting my voice, I only manage a desperate nod.
“Hold on to Draven’s wrist so that you don’t try to move around,” he says, nodding to where Draven is standing next to me.
I reach out and wrap my hand around his wrist, probably squeezing more than is comfortable for him. But Draven doesn’t say anything about it.
“Ready?” Orion asks.
I nod again.
The sunlit grass and my friends disappear from around me as a tidy but worn kitchen instead takes their place.
Agony stabs through my chest when I recognize the room. It’s my parents’ kitchen.Ourkitchen. And I recognize the memory too. It’s the one Orion has shown me many times by now.
However, this time, I’m not in my own body. Instead, Orion has put me inside my mother’s body and made me a spectator in my own memory.
For a few seconds, all I can see is the inside of a drawer as my mother searches for something. Then she casts a distracted glance over her shoulder, and I see myself.
A jolt shoots through me. Goddess, I look so young. In the memory, I’m leaning against the counter on the other side of the kitchen, watching my mother with slightly furrowed brows. It’s so strange to see myself from the outside like this.
My mother, whose eyes I’m still watching this memory through, raises a hand and points towards the cabinet behind the younger version of me.
“Selena, can you check the top shelf?” she says. “I’m sure I put it here.”
The younger version of me turns around and opens the cabinet before reaching towards the top shelf. I’m briefly forced to look down into the drawer again as my mother turns her eyes down to it and continues searching. Beside her, my father is peering into another cabinet.
Then my mother casts another quick glance over her shoulder, and I see the younger version of me standing on tiptoes, reaching for something on the top shelf.
I already know what happens next, because I have seen this memory from my own eyes, so it doesn’t matter that my mother turns back to the drawer. Because I already know that behind her back, I slip. Then I yank my arm down to catch myself on the wooden counter, but instead, I smack my hand into the edge of the dish rack. It flips over, sending the glasses that were drying on it crashing down on the floor.
My mother and father whirl around at the same time as the younger version of me does.
