Wait. Is the afterlife supposed to hurt this much?
Time stutters. Reality cracks.
Then voices cut through the darkness.
Rude.
“… you have any ideas? She’s been through so much already, and now we’re about to shatter her reality,” a familiar, slightly accented male voice says.
“Fuck if I know,” an unfamiliar woman snaps, her strong Cockney accent thick with frustration. “I really messed up. I was supposed to protect her, and I didn’t. I knew that asshole was dangerous, but I let her go. Why?” The woman’s voice wobbles, guilt tangled in every word.
“You did nothing wrong,” the smooth male voice says. “I had a similar experience while I watched from the edge of the property. He felt dangerous, and yet I walked away. I think he had some sort of protective spell or artifact on him that shrouded his true intent. It’s really quite clever. It shows you the truth but convinces you that what you’re sensing can’t be true. It’s powerful magic, so this Jameson fellow must have been fairly high in their ranks.”
Okay, who the fuck are these people?
First, I get fucked up by a cultist, now I have to endure some shitty BBC drama recounting my life while I’m trying to peacefully fucking die?
Unbelievable.
Fucking spells? Goddamn artifacts?
Wait … Jameson?
My stomach lurches, gutted and heaving, like a fish belly splitting open.
And then that Mr. Darcy-sounding motherfucker decides it’s time for questions.
“I need to ask you something … something you won’t like.” He pauses, then says with careful precision, “You were trapped in the house, clawing at the door. Why didn’t you use your hellfire to burn it down?” He pauses again. “I don’t make a habit of pissing off hell-beasts, but if we’re going to protect her, I need to know what we’re dealing with.”
There’s a long, awkward silence before Turkish-with-tits responds quietly.
“I-I forgot I could do that. I guess I forgot a lot of things. My job is to protect Aurora. Until you approached me in the woods and spoke to me, called me a hellhound, I forgot what I was, that I could speak.
“You scared the shit out of me, and I wasn’t going to let you see how weak I was at that moment. I suppose the same is truefor the hellfire. You mentioned it when you brought Aurora in earlier, and suddenly all them memories came back. Not sure I could actually use it at the moment, though. I wonder what else I forgot. What the hell is wrong with me?”
Bitchy Bullet-Tooth Toni sounds sad.
Like, actually sad.
Like, “I forgot who I am and now I’m emotionally vomiting my soul onto the carpet” sad.
I don’t know this woman, or why she’s apparently supposed to protect me, but my heart breaks for her.
“There is nothing wrong with you a quick trip to a wrakh won’t fix. I think you’re both being held under a forgetfulness spell of some sort. And speaking of spells, Aurora thinks she got you only a few years ago, but I’m almost certain she’s wrong,” Mr. Darcy says, leaving the unasked question in the air.
I’m so confused.
I struggle to move or to ask one of my millions of questions, but my body won’t cooperate.
“Holy shit. I’ve been with Aurora since birth. How did I forget that?” The fight club version of Eliza Doolittle pauses here, choking back her ragged breath.
“Her mum—her fucking mum—put a time-reset spell on us. Every fifteen years, her mind resets. It’s not just her. Everyone around us forgets, too. It spreads like a virus. Ellie was determined to keep Aurora away from magic and creatures, but I can’t leave her side … ever … so she asked a wrakh to place that spell on us. Shit, do you think that wrakh placed a forgetfulness spell on me, too?”
If spells exist, and I’m almost certain they don’t, this one must be really powerful if the woman already forgot what the man with the sexy voice just told her.
Mr. Darcy chuckles and says, “I think you may be on to something, little puppy.”
If the woman is planning to respond, I don’t give her a chance.
