“Is he okay?” Pane asks.
“Hell if I know. Hercules, come!”
The lambicorn leaves the grass and trots over. Pane watches him closely. “Does he have magic?”
“Not that I know of.”
“That’s what the piggycorns did when their magic first showed up. Their horns glowed.”
I bend down and pat the lambi on the back. “You feeling okay, bud?”
“Baaaaaaa.”
He lowers his head, touching his horn to my wrist. A line of light flashes under my skin. At the same time, I feel the ley lines throb with power.
I exhale a gusty sigh. Electricity surges through my veins, burning like lava. It hits me—hot, sharp, like my insides might explode.
The air’s knocked from my lungs, and I struggle to catch my next breath. Everything in my head goes silent, still, like I’m suspended in midair, waiting for gravity to grab me with its unyielding hand and drag me back to Earth.
Then my veins open. Air surges into my lungs. Blood rushes in my ears.
And I remember everything.
Who I was before the amnesia. The pain my mother caused by keeping our father from us. My initial rejection of Hercules and all his sunshine.
And I remember how I threatened to blackmail Coco.
My body hurts, the musclesachingfrom losing her. Coco’s voice echoes in my mind—how she feltseen. I remember the night in the meadow, and feel her breath on my neck, taste how she kissed me like she believed in us.
I remember the lie my mother told and how much pain it gave me, and how Coco’s betrayal hurts all the more because of the past that’s chained around my ankle like an iron ball.
All that pain crashes down, threatening to choke me.
So I wall it up because I know who I am now, and I remember everything.
What happened with the lambicorn hits me. Hercules ate the potion Coco had made to fix me, and somehow harnessed its magic. Now I’m free.
Am I? Or am I chained to the past?
The past is what made me who I am. The past is an anchor that doesn’t shift or change.
So many emotions and thoughts flood my mind. It’s like I’m two different people—thebeforeme and theafterme. The person I became because of Coco, because of the amnesia, is compromised. He believes people too easily. He trusted the wrong person. That Stone was a sucker who doesn’t deserve respect.
So I shut the door on him.
“You okay?” Pane asks.
“Never better.”
My gaze washes over the site, and all I see is limecrete, red earth, and grass. No more ley lines. They’ve vanished from sight because the spell Coco cast no longer strangles me.
I’m glad they’ve vanished. I didn’t need them anyway.
“The materials,” I tell Pane.
“What about them?”
“What would you think about changing them?”
