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Aimelia. A name no one has called me since…

“A-Artemis?”

A female silhouette takes shape beneath the boughs and leaves of the interlacing cork oaks. Her stance is so familiar, the cant of her head as she looks down her nose at me. “Once upon a time. Once upon a different time, you called meadelfí. When my name was Xyla Bakas. Before we swore ourselves to the Lyra code.

Faces attached to those names smile at me, aunts, uncles. Cousins. A man and woman swing me between their hands, two people I can’t believe I ever forgot. My mama. Papa.

Stinging squints my eyes.

No. I won’t cry.

But the woman steps into the light and all my control implodes. My legs give out, the stone cobbles catching me as I slump to the ground, my gun sliding from limp fingers.

“How?”

Artemis looks weathered. She was older than me by a few years.

I’ve lost track of my birthdays, but she can’t be more than thirty. Yet the lines on her face age her ten years at least.

“You’re dead,” I whisper, suddenly terrified that I’ve lost the last shred of my sanity. “I watched you fall.”

“And I watched you take a bullet to the head.” She shrugs. “It appears someone lied to us. Manipulated us.”

“Ananke.”

“She saved me, Circe. Like she saved you.”

“Where have you been?” And why would Ananke do this? Keep my only family member alive and not tell me…

Through the shock, the bitter thought still almost makes me laugh. Of course she would. To use her to keep me focused on my grief.

“I’ve been all over the world. Doing everything she told me to do. Until about a year ago. I met someone I knew from before.A close friend Ananke convinced me was dead. I escaped and he sheltered me.”

“Who?” I may be missing portions of our past, but somehow I doubt she knew that many people I didn’t.

“Haru.”

“So you were …”

“Yes. That’s how I found out you were alive. Him too.”

“He didn’t say anything.”

“We had to be careful. And I couldn’t risk Ananke finding out where I was. But I also couldn’t stay away once I knew you were out there, working for her. Controlled by her.”

Numb. I’m fucking numb. I can’t make my stress-addled mind put the fragments back into place. All I can do is stare at her, my cousin by blood, my sister in soul.

“You must resist her, Circe. Come with me tonight.”

“I c-can’t.”

“Yes you can. It’s only your belief and fear that chains you to Ananke.”

“No … I want to, but?—”

“Ero. Oh, sister. Do not tell me you fell in love.” Her face softens, her eyes still dark and petrifying. “Circe, you cannot trust that man. He’s too far gone.”

“If he is, then so am I,” I breathe, curling in on myself.