Page 57 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

Chapter fifty-four

Mira

E very moment—every breath—of my final day of class, I hovered on the edge of tears.

It was absurd, I told myself, to feel this fragile.

Even in the raw, disorienting days after my parents died, I hadn’t unraveled like this.

I'd held it together then. But now, in this quiet goodbye to a place and a man who upended everything I thought I knew, I felt like I was splintering.

I tried to reason my way through it, blaming exhaustion, upheaval, the sheer weight of everything I’d faced since my parents had died, since I’d touched the portrait.

Of course I was emotional—it was the cumulative effect of grief and danger, of these revelations that rewrote my understanding of the world.

I missed my quiet life back home. I missed the person I used to be—logical, rational, grounded.

The girl who had a plan, who always knew the next step.

So why, then, did leaving feel like a loss I couldn’t quite bear? Why did the thought of walking away from all of this—chaotic, strange, extraordinary—leave me feeling more hollow than whole?

I still had a long day ahead of me, and no time to fall apart.

So I did what I’d always done when emotions threatened to overwhelm me—I pushed them down, willed myself into focus, and turned to the work.

The pendant sat before me, nearly complete, waiting for its final details.

There was comfort in the precision of it, in the quiet ritual of the bench.

I began by heating the thermal plastic fixing compound until it softened, the scent of it rising faintly in the air.

Once it was pliable, I pressed the pendant into the warm material, shaping it around the edges until it cradled the piece snugly.

As it cooled back to room temperature, it hardened just enough to hold the pendant firmly in place without damaging the delicate granulation pattern I’d spent hours perfecting.

Carefully, I set the whole piece into a pin vise, securing it with gentle pressure.

Only then, with the piece steady before me, did I allow myself to breathe deeply, to lose myself in the meticulous rhythm of setting the stones—one by one, in silence, as if anchoring myself with each deliberate touch.

I started with the largest emerald, the heart of the piece, cradling it gently between my fingers before placing it into the bezel.

The green shimmer caught the light, vivid and deep, like something alive.

My tools of choice for this part of the job—the old-fashioned hammer and bezel pusher—felt like an extension of my hands by now, and I began the delicate work.

I bent the edge of the bezel over one long end of the oval stone with a measured tap, then spun the vise and repeated the process on the opposite side.

Each movement was deliberate, precise. I alternated sides methodically, always working directly across from the last point of contact, ensuring the stone settled perfectly level, perfectly centered.

It was slow work, demanding full focus—exactly what I needed.

Once the emerald was seated just right, I continued with what felt like hundreds of tiny, careful taps, working my way around the edge of the bezel.

The soft, rhythmic sound of gold yielding beneath the pusher echoed in my ears like a heartbeat.

With every tap, I tightened the lip of gold around the stone, securing not just the emerald but, in a way, myself, if only for this moment.

With the main stone secured, I turned my attention to the four smaller round emeralds that encircled it, each one a delicate echo of the centerpiece.

I picked them up one by one with fine-tipped tweezers, their facets flashing as I nestled each into its waiting seat.

My hands moved with calm precision, years of practice guiding me through the sequence—set, check, tap, repeat.

These stones didn’t require the same weight of force as the central emerald, but they demanded just as much care.

Each had to be level, each perfectly aligned, their symmetry vital to the pendant’s balance and beauty.

Once all four were in place and snugly secured, I reached for my graver, the small tool gleaming in the overhead light.

With patient, practiced pressure, I traced along the inner lip of each bezel, refining the edges that held the stones.

The graver left behind a crisp, clean line—a subtle brilliance that caught the light just so, making the settings gleam with a professional, finished sharpness.

Satisfied at last, I powered on the heat gun again and gently warmed the thermal plastic until it softened. Slowly, I pulled the pendant free, lifting it from the vise like a precious relic. The gold was warm to the touch, the emeralds glowing like embers caught in sunlight.

The last step was always my favorite—the transformation.

With the stones set and the form complete, it was time to bring out the true beauty of the piece.

I set the pendant aside briefly as I prepared my tools: the bench polisher, the flex shaft grinder, and an array of polishing compounds laid out in their familiar order.

There was something meditative about this part, a rhythm I could lose myself in.

After covering the delicate emeralds with some protective tape and cutting around them with an X-ACTO knife to expose the metal, I began with the brown compound, pressing the pendant gently against the spinning wheel of the bench polisher.

The abrasive grit worked quickly, buffing away any fine scratches left from setting and handling.

Then I switched to the red—jeweler’s rouge—a finer polish that smoothed the surface and began to coax out a warm gleam from the gold.

With the flex shaft, I worked into the tighter spaces around the bezels and filigree, careful not to overheat the metal or mar the sharp lines I’d worked so hard to create.

Finally, I turned to the blue compound, the last and most delicate of the series.

As the soft wheel touched the pendant, a mirror-like shine began to emerge, the gold coming alive beneath my hands.

The emeralds sparkled, their clarity enhanced by the crisp, flawless settings.

By the time I was finished, the pendant gleamed with a brilliance that made my breath catch for just a moment.

It was complete—perfect, even—and for the first time all day, I felt the faint flicker of pride break through the heaviness that had lingered since morning.

With the final polish complete, I peeled away the now blackened protective tape that had shielded the delicate stones during the polishing process.

I carried the pendant to the sink and gave it a gentle but thorough cleaning with a soft toothbrush and warm water, working carefully around the bezels and under the settings to lift away any remaining polishing compound.

When I was satisfied, I patted it dry with a soft cloth, my fingers tracing the smooth curves of the metal like a quiet goodbye.

From my bag, I retrieved the 18 karat gold foxtail chain—substantial, sinuous, almost serpentine in its texture.

It was the perfect match for the pendant’s weight and dimensionality, each link catching the light in a subtle dance that echoed the flicker of the emeralds.

I threaded it through the bail at the top of the pendant, the motion slow, deliberate.

Then I sat back and simply stared at it.

The finished piece shimmered in my palm, a perfect union of my vision and the new technique I had learned.

Pride bloomed in my chest—sharp and bright—but it was tangled with something heavier.

Accomplishment warred with sorrow, and the ache of what came next.

It was beautiful.

It was done.

And I was miserable.