Page 127 of Academy of the Wicked: Year Three

"Gone," I manage, voice rough from screaming I don't remember doing. "You destroyed them."

"Wedestroyed them," she corrects firmly. "Your frost was essential. Without it?—"

She stops mid-sentence, her eyes widening as she looks at me.

Really looks at me.

"You're fading."

The words are soft, horrified, and completely accurate.

I look down at my hands to find them translucent, the particular transparency that comes when a cat is between lives. I can see through my flesh to the floor beneath, and that floor is becoming more visible with each passing second.

"I think—" My voice cracks, and I have to swallow before continuing. "I think I used up a life."

The admission comes with exhaustion that makes even words feel too heavy.

"Eight left," I continue, trying for casual despite the situation. "Which is fine. Most cats only get nine anyway, and I've been lucky to?—"

"But you're fading," Gwenievere interrupts, and there are tears in her impossible eyes. "Why are you fading if you have eight lives left?"

The answer hurts more than the dying did.

"Because I'll forget," I tell her, and now my own eyes are burning with tears I refuse to let fall. "When we die in spaces like this—between dimensions, between realities—the transfer isn't clean. I'll wake up in my next life, but I won't remember this one. Won't remember the trials, the Academy..."

My voice breaks completely.

"Won't remember you."

The words hang in the air like a death sentence that's worse than death.

I see the impact hit her—the way her face crumbles, the way her hands tighten on my shoulders as if she can hold me in existence through grip alone.

"No," she says, and it's not denial but declaration. "No, there has to be something?—"

"A bond."

Mortimer's voice is tiny but carries scholarly certainty. He hovers near her shoulder, miniaturized but no less intelligent for his reduced size.

"A blood bond would anchor his consciousness, create a connection that transcends dimensional death."

"You don't have to," I tell Gwenievere immediately. "You already have four bonds, and adding another?—"

"Do you want to forget her?"

Atticus's question cuts through my protests with vampire directness.

I look at him—tiny, floating, but still managing to convey aristocratic judgment in miniature form. Then, at Gwenievere, whose eyes hold desperation that matches my own.

"No," I whisper, and the tears finally fall. "No, I don't want to forget."

They run down my cheeks in streams that feel like admitting defeat and accepting salvation simultaneously. I've never cried in front of others—cats have pride, after all—but pride seems insignificant compared to the possibility of losing these memories.

"Then do it," Cassius says from her other shoulder, his tiny form managing to project authority despite its size. "If you're both willing."

Gwenievere nods immediately, no hesitation, no doubt.

"Where?" she asks me, already reaching for my fading form. "Where should I?—"