I sink down beside her, my hands shaking as I press them against my thighs. The fabric of my uniform still smells faintly like him—smoke and sulfur and something underneath that I recognize even though I shouldn't.
"Tell me," Nimae says quietly. "Everything."
So I do.
The words spill out in a chaotic rush—the dreams that have been plaguing me since I arrived at the estate, the strange familiarity I feel toward Azhrael, the way Malrec's presence makes my body respond with recognition my mind can't explain. I tell her about the kiss at the auction, about the full memory that crushed me in the corridor days ago, about how being near him feels like returning to something rather than discovering it for the first time.
"The dreams and flashbacks," I say, my voice cracking slightly. "They're about him. Malrec. I keep seeing us together—not like strangers, but like..." I struggle to find words that capture the depth of intimacy those memories contain. "Like we loved each other. Completely. For a long time."
Nimae doesn't interrupt, just listens with the same focused attention I've seen her use when observing the stable operations. Her silence feels supportive rather than judgmental, creating space for me to continue.
"I don't understand how any of it's possible." My fingers twist together in my lap, seeking something to anchor to. "When I first came here, he was so cold. Harsh and distant and quick to anger. He looked at me like I was just another disposable human laborer who would probably get killed within the week."
"But he doesn't look at you that way now," Nimae observes.
"No." The admission comes out barely above a whisper. "Now he looks at me like—like he's trying to solve a puzzle he doesn't have all the pieces for. Like I confuse him as much as he confuses me."
I think about the way he touched me tonight, reverent and desperate in equal measure. The way he begged me not to run. The broken sound of my name falling from his lips when he came apart in my arms.
"He's nothing like the version of him I see in my memories," I continue, frustration bleeding into my voice. "That Malrec was warm. He laughed easily. Touched me constantly, like he couldn't help himself. Looked at me like I was the center of his entire world." My throat tightens with emotion I can't fully contain. "This Malrec is so withdrawn. Controlled. He barely smiles. And when he touches me, it's like he's fighting against it even as he's doing it."
Nimae's hand finds mine, her fingers squeezing gently. The simple gesture of comfort nearly undoes me.
"But tonight—" I stop, searching for how to articulate what happened in the pasture. "When we were together, it feltright. Like my body knew exactly how we fit. Like we'd done this a thousand times before. And afterward, standing there in the moonlight, for just a moment he felt like the person from my memories."
"What happened then?" Nimae asks.
"Nothing." The word tastes bitter. "We got dressed. Said goodnight. I walked away and came here, and now I'm sitting in my room trying to understand what any of it means."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with implications I'm not ready to examine. I can still feel him inside me, still taste him on my lips, still sense the phantom weight of his hands on my skin. My body hums with satisfaction even as my mind churns with questions that have no answers.
"Do you want him?" Nimae's question cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "Malrec. Not the version from your memories, but the actual demon who runs these stables. The onewho reassigned you to kitchen work. The one who just had sex with you in the feeding pasture. Do you wanthim?"
I open my mouth to answer and realize I don't know. The truth is more complicated than simple desire or rejection.
"I want to know the version of him I keep seeing," I say slowly, working through the admission as I speak it. "The one who looked at me like I mattered. Who made me feel safe and cherished and—" My voice breaks. "And loved. I want to understand how that person connects to this one."
"But this version?" Nimae presses gently. "The real one you're actually dealing with?"
I think about Malrec's harsh authority during my first days here, the way he dismissed my presence as irrelevant. The cold efficiency with which he reassigned me to kitchen work without explanation or discussion. How every moment of warmth or vulnerability from him feels like he's fighting against his own nature to show it.
But I also think about the way he watches me when he thinks I'm not looking. The protective impulse that flickered across his face when Damiros suggested removing me from the stables. The genuine confusion in his eyes when he touches me and feels the same impossible recognition I experience. The way he held me tonight like I was something precious he'd thought he'd lost.
"I don't know," I admit finally. "He's guarded and distant and sometimes cruel in his practicality. But underneath that—" I struggle to articulate what I sense beneath his controlled exterior. "There's something else. Something that responds to me even when he's trying not to. Like parts of him remember me even if his conscious mind doesn't."
Nimae is quiet for a long moment, her violet eyes studying my face with an intensity that makes me uncomfortable. When she speaks, her voice carries the weight of difficult truth.
"You need to talk to him."
"I know." The acknowledgment comes easily, but the thought of actually doing it makes my stomach clench. "But what do I say? 'Hello, Beast Master, I keep having vivid memories of a life we supposedly shared, and I think someone deliberately removed them from both of us'? He'll think I've lost my mind."
"Maybe." Nimae's expression doesn't shift. "Or maybe he's experiencing the same thing and is just as terrified to say it out loud."
The possibility hadn't occurred to me—that Malrec might be having his own version of these memory fragments. That his dreams might mirror mine in ways he can't explain or ignore. The thought makes something twist in my chest, hope and fear tangling together until I can't separate them.
"What if he doesn't want to know?" The question emerges quietly, carrying the full weight of my uncertainty. "What if he's content with his controlled, structured life and doesn't want me disrupting it with impossible suggestions about shared pasts we can't remember?"
"Then you'll have your answer." Nimae's voice is firm but not unkind. "But Len, you can't keep going like this. Caught between memories that feel real and a present that doesn't make sense. Sleeping with him while pretending you don't know there's something deeper happening. It's going to destroy you."
