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Mira stirred sugar into her coffee. “It just feels like something is missing. And not just my memories. I mean something…more.”

Something in the fabric of her soul.

Ella squeezed her hand. “I’m sure that feeling will get better over time.”

“I was just hoping my potion against memory erasure would have worked.”

“It did. Your memories weren’t erased, right? They are just…hidden.”

“Same difference. I can’t get to them.”

“You didn’t get any memories back?”

She shook her head. “Only one moment of Dawson standing in front of me. But the image washed away quickly and then nothing. I still don’t know how I gained my signifiers, or defeated Rakkley. And I don’t know how to wield Dark Magic.”

Perhaps none of it mattered in the end. She had accomplished what she came to Ivercrest for. Her scar was gone.

“You just need training again on your Dark Magic powers. And can we talk about the fact that your potion might get licensed? That’s incredible!”

They talked for hours, and Ella caught her up on her relationship with Oliver. How they met. What her parents thought of him. Mira had missed out on so much.

They coin traveled back to Ivercrest. Some students had already ditched their winter jackets. Spring sunrays shone through the tree branches that were no longer bare. Small flowers had started to blossom. Leaves had begun to sprout. And Mira wondered if Aidric Dawson was truly dead or just in hiding.

“Do you think Dawson transmuted my emotions?” she asked Ella as they walked through the gate into the building.

“I don’t know. But he couldn’t have transmuted his feelings. He was besotted with you.”

Impossible. The memory of Dawson standing in front of her with cold, hateful eyes was vivid in her mind.

—

After her meeting with Ella, Mira went to classes—demonology first, then signifiers—before she went to Dawson’s friends again, hoping they could help her reconnect with her Dark Magic. They set up a target practice in Harrington’s garden, far away from anything breakable this time. The objects she was trying to shoot at varied in size, starting with a tree.

Rylan stood next to Evren as they watched Mira practice.

Amelia talked her through the process of connecting with her control signifier again. “Try to form your shadows into something.”

Mira closed her eyes. The different strands of her Dark Magic sprawled high and wide in her mind. They were just as powerful as her White Magic, yet she had no recollection of ever wielding them. Where would she even begin? She reached for a strand, and the moment she had a grasp on it, Dark Magic pumped through her like a heartbeat.

Suddenly, a memory popped up of her wielding dark shadows and throwing Dawson against a tree with full force, holding him by his neck.

Him grinning at her with blood on his lips.

She opened her eyes, and power exploded out of her. Shadows lashed out in different directions, cutting down a tree on her left while the one in front of her remained unharmed.

Harrington laughed. “Wild. I love it.”

Mira’s heart raced, the memory in her mind still fresh.

“Let’s go again,” she said.

She kept trying until she was too exhausted to lift her hand anymore. But no other memories came back to her.

Mira let out a frustrated scream. At this rate, she would never regain her memories. Obryn and Rylan hadn’t found out anything so far. Perhaps she had to accept it.

“You’re not getting any better,” Amelia bemoaned.

“She’s trying,” Evren amended.