Page 100 of Evermore

Jasper stepped forward, pulling his weathered hat from his head. His remaining arm moved with that same fluid grace I remembered from his days in the kitchen, but there was something dreamy and uncertain in his gaze. “Not at all, Miss Paesha. This was mercy.”

“Mercy? This place is no mercy, Jasper. No matter what your memories might tell you. You can’t trust them. You’re living in a prison.”

Thorne sighed. “Ezra would have kept using him, forcing him to commit increasingly horrific acts until there was nothing left of the man he used to be. I couldn’t send him anywhere else because my brother would have found him out of spite alone.”

“So you trapped him here instead?”

“He gave me a choice,” Jasper interrupted. “Fight the binding until it destroyed everything I was, or fade away on my own terms.” His smile was sad but certain. “I chose peace. The things he would have made me do… This was mercy. True mercy.”

The truth of it hit me hard. I looked at Thorne, really looked at him, and saw the weight of that decision in his eyes. “You let him choose?”

“Yes.”

I turned back to Jasper. “He can twist your memories. He can make you think you’ve done things you haven’t. You may even have memories of him that aren’t real. You understand that, right? You chose this life as an option given to you by a corrupt god and now you’ll fade away into this place forever. I can’t believe you’d choose this.”

A flicker of clarity crossed his face, and he shook his head. “I never wanted my arm cut off. I knew it wasn’t going to work. It was the first thing the God of Unmaking made me do. He thought if you believed me free of the prince, you’d trust me. And you did. That wasnota choice.”

I stepped closer to him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re likely going to forget this, but know that I forgive you. I can’t speak for Archer. I can’t release you from the guilt of Harlow’s death. But I’m sorry you have to sit with that.”

His eyes flickered back and forth between mine before they filled with tears. “Miss Harlow? She’s dead?”

I whirled to face Thorne, ready to explode because we can’t just walk around tampering with people’s memories, but the raw pain in his eyes stopped me cold.

“I took that memory from him,” he said softly. “That and others. The weight of what he’d done under Ezra’s command. It was destroying him. I thought at least here, he deserved some peace without those particular horrors haunting his dreams.”

The shame hit me like a physical blow. Here I was, so quick to condemn, when he’d been trying to grant what mercy he could. And I’d shattered that. I’d given him back the pain he didn’t need.

Jasper’s broken whisper made my heart clench. “Was it me? Did I… did I kill her?”

The torment in his voice, the way he stumbled backward with the weight of that possibility. I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t breathe. Jasper had loved Harlow so much. They’d sat together and laughed together. She’d cooked beside him. And he’d been infinitely kind to me. He was likely the same with her. She’d loved him.

I needed a breath. A moment. But there was none. Not when he looked at me with those tear-filled eyes, knowing the truth before I could say it. This truth would poison whatever peace Jasper had found here. It would eat at him until there was nothing left but guilt and regret, and then he would be completely forgotten. And that was no way for anyone to go.

“Thorne,” I said quietly, the words fighting their way past the lump in my throat as I moved away from Jasper and back to Thorne’s side. “Take it again. Please.”

He studied my face for a long moment before nodding. Stepping forward, he placed gentle fingers against Jasper’s temple. Golden light spilled from his touch, and I watched as the anguish melted away from Jasper’s features, replaced by that dreamy uncertainty.

I retreated into that quiet corner of my mind where the voices couldn’t reach, where I could feel my own emotions without the influence of others. It was a kindness, what Thorne had done. A mercy I hadn’t recognized until now. Taking memories didn’t have to be about control or manipulation, but rather granting peace to those who would never find it otherwise.

Jasper blinked at us, his smile vague but genuine. “I was thinking about sweet rolls,” he said. “The little one used to love them so much. There was a kitchen once, wasn’t there? I remember… spices. And a little girl who liked sweet rolls.”

My throat tightened. “That was Lianna.”

“Lianna,” he repeated softly, testing the name. “And Reuben.”

“Yes. You remember them, don’t you? Reuben has bright red hair?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. Things blur here, you see. Like water in the rain.” He glanced between Thorne and me, as if realizing for the first time what our presences in this dark realm meant. “You shouldn’t be here. Neither of you. This place… it takes your memories. If not by magic, then the creatures that lurk in the darkness.”

Use him, Sylvie urged.He knows the way through this cursed city.

Let him help, Winter agreed, softer than the others.Before you forget why you came. You cannot trust the Keeper’s word.

But in that small corner, where there was peace and warmth from a kinder Remnant, a past life that hadn’t come for vengeance, I thought maybe I could trust Thorne’s word when it came to my safety. He was far too invested in all these years and all these lives. In all his lies and all his games, minimally, I believed in my soul he meant to keep me from physical harm. The mental anguish? That was a different story.

“Is there somewhere here we can find food and shelter?” Thorne asked. “We’re looking for someone, but we need to rest.”

Jasper’s brow furrowed. “It’s hard to remember where we stay from one night to the next. Sometimes I wake up in a baker’s shop, sometimes in what might have been a brothel.” He gestured vaguely at the twisted architecture around us. “But there are rooms. Always rooms. The people here are mostly harmless. They forget too much to hold grudges. Though watch for thieves. They remember enough to be crafty.”