“You told me about it after the retreat. After we bonded.” His voice was careful, gentle in a way that made her want to look away. “Your grandmother’s kitchen. Making dumplings together. She’d let you fold the edges even though you got flour everywhere. You said the pendant was a gift that day. That she put it around your neck and told you…”
“Told me what?”
He reached out, fingers brushing the jade at her throat. “That you’d never be alone as long as you remembered where you came from. That the pendant would remind you, whenever you felt lost.”
Ava waited for the grief to hit. For tears, or anger, or the ache of something precious ripped away.
Nothing came.
“Shouldn’t I be—” She stopped. She didn’t know what she should be. The word for it was gone too.
“That’s the cruelty of it.” Victor’s hand dropped to cover hers. “You can’t grieve what you never had. The memory is gone so completely that there’s nothing left to miss. Just… absence. A shape where something used to be.”
She looked down at their joined hands. His skin was warmer than it should be; the demon blood running hot beneath the surface. She could feel his pulse through the bond, faster than usual. His fear for her. His rage at Samael, at himself, at a universe that would let this happen.
“Was it worth it?” she asked. “What I learned?”
Victor didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Ava set down the coffee and closed her eyes. Reached inward, searching for the memory the way you’d search for a word on the tip of your tongue. Her eighth birthday. Her grandmother’s kitchen. Flour and dumplings and a warm voice teaching her to fold the edges just right.
Nothing.
She tried harder. Pushed past the blankness, looking for any scrap, any echo. There had to be something left. Memories didn’t just vanish completely. They left traces: smells that triggered feelings, songs that brought back moments, the way certain foods tasted like childhood.
The jade lay cool against her collarbone. She wrapped her fingers around it and waited for the comfort that should come. The connection to her grandmother. The promise of never being alone.
Still nothing.
“It’s like trying to remember a dream,” she said finally, opening her eyes. “I know there was something there. I can feelthe shape of where it used to be. But when I reach for it, there’s just… empty space.”
Victor’s expression was carefully controlled, but through the bond she felt the crack running through him. He kept looking at her like she’d lost a limb and didn’t know it yet.
“The memory wasn’t just taken,” he said quietly. “It was erased. Root and branch. Every neural pathway that connected to it, every associated feeling, every way your mind might have found its way back… all of it, gone.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
“Because I’ve seen Samael’s work before.” His voice went distant. “Centuries ago. A demon who traded his memories of joy to escape a binding. He got what he wanted. But afterward…” Victor shook his head. “He could still feel pleasure. Still laugh at jokes, enjoy good wine, appreciate beauty. But he couldn’t remember why any of it mattered. The emotional weight was gone. He spent the rest of his existence going through motions he no longer understood.”
Ava absorbed this. Filed it away with everything else she was learning about the cost of deals in this world.
“I still feel things,” she said. “The bond. You. This.” She gestured at the morning light, the silk sheets, the impossible view. “It’s not like that. It’s just… one specific thing. One memory. One piece.”
“One piece can be enough to change you.”
She met his eyes. “Then I’ll have to make sure it was worth it.”
By noon,they’d reconvened in Conference Room Three.
Derek arrived with bags of takeout and an expression that suggested he’d been stress-researching since dawn. His tie was already loosened, his sleeves rolled up, and he’d surrounded himself with enough coffee cups to caffeinate a small army.
“I come bearing sustenance and terrible news,” he announced, dropping containers on the table. “The sustenance is Thai. The terrible news is about ancient demonic contract law. Eat first. Trust me.”
He paused mid-motion, takeout container in hand, and really looked at Ava for the first time.
“You’re different.”
“I’m fine.”
