Because at the end of the day, without our memories, none of this was ever going to feelreal, at least not for me. If I was going to decide totryto do anything about this, I needed to know first. I needed to be whole.
It was Damon who answered me this time. “Youcan’t.You can’t even get close to them, especially now when you’re wanted, and…” His voice trailed off as he threw a look at Kohen, who had yet to raise his head. “I doubt you can actually get your memories back,” he said, and my heart fell and fell. “She most likely erased them.”
There it was.
Just like that, it felt like my life had been indeedstolenfrom me for real because my hope was gone, down the hole, too fast for me to catch. It had stuck with me until now, and it had been great. I had never-ever-reven even considered the possibility that I wouldneverget my memories back, and now I was spiraling. My mind twisted, my thoughts all over the place, as if it was giving it one last try to remember.
One last try—and failing, and failing, and failing, and?—
“No.”
No.
I blinked, looked at March as he leaned back in his chair and looked at my hand, played with my fingers, traced the shape of my nails with his fingertips.Calm.
No.
“She didn’t erase anything. The memories are still here.” He raised his finger and touched his temple for a second. “I feel them. I remember the echoes of them. They’re still here, only…”
“Out of reach,” I breathed.
That was it—that was the answer. He spelled it out for me perfectly—my memories werethere. They were in my mind somewhere, hidden underneath a veil, waiting for me to uncover them.
“I draw. I drew all of you even when I didn’t know your faces. Ialmostremember.” And that was proof, wasn’t it? That was proof enough so that the hope could climb back up that hole and stay with me again.
“I dreamed of how each of you laughs. I knew without thinking which sound belonged to who,” said Mimi.
“And I knew your voices.” Levana.
“I know how all of you dance,” said Cook, then looked at Silas as if expecting an approval.
To my surprise, Silas nodded. “You did dance with all of us a few times.”
I danced with Cook.
The thought didn’t surprise me in the least.
“There’s…there’s a story in my head that isn’t mine,” said Seth, eyes on Levana. “I think it’s…it’s you. I see you near water somewhere. I can’t…I can’t explain it.”
“It was a game,” said Silas, a bitter smile on his lips as he shook his head. “We had to exchange memories in the veryfirst game. They stayed with us even though they weren’t supposed to—a glitch in the game’s magic. But they stayed. I still have Reggie’s.”
My poor heart.
“When memories are erased, nothing remains behind. It’s how extraction works. They don’t leave any kind of feeling behind, let alone fragments,” March said, and he sounded so sure. He sounded so calm. So very confident in every word he spoke that I melted on the inside even in the state I was in. There was something about this Heart boy that called out to every part of me, in every situation.
“Exactly,” Levana said with a shaky breath. “And when memories are erased, they don’t just disappear. They have to be extracted. They have to be putsomewhere.There are devices made specifically for that.”
“Heartlocks,” said March with a nod.
“Heartlocks,” Levana confirmed. “Memories don’t just disappear. Even if they’re not here”—she touched her chest, not her head—“they aresomewhere.”
“Unless someone destroyed the heartlocks, that is correct,” Master Talik finally said.
A long, loud breath left me and expelled all that fear from my body at once. “So, we find the Red Queen, and we get our memories back.” It sounded simple enough to me.
“Two problems with that,” the Timekeeper Kohen said, clearing his throat. “You can’t get anywhere near the Red Queen without a hundred soldiers seeing you first, and if they see you, they won’t be merciful. It’s standard protocol to attack to kill any threat to the queens as soon as they are identified. You won’t stand a chance.” Shivers broke down my back. “And second—even if you do somehow manage to get in front of the queen, you can’tforceher to give you your memories back.”
“She’ll kill you thrice before she can even begin to workthe magic required for that,” Damon said. “It’s impossible. Truly—impossible.”
