Page 58 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

Paesha

H e’d fallen further and further and further with every second I let him hold my hand.

With every calculated step toward him. Each glance.

I could see how much he wanted these moments to be real.

He was desperate for them. For me. And maybe I was a little desperate for him too, but that wasn’t from my choosing.

Simply my fate, it seemed. Bound to him as his Ever, but also destined to trap him here.

He’d known his fate and still he let me guide him into a trap. Poor, poor god.

His thumb traced idle patterns on my hip, and I fought the urge to lean into his touch.

In this moment, I couldn’t tell if it was me that wanted it, or the Remnants, or even the siren, luring her prey.

This was dangerous. Not the stranger following us, but this manufactured intimacy, this pretense of protection that felt too much like possession. Like belonging.

Don’t forget what he is , Sylvie whispered, finally breaking her silence. What he’s done.

“Miss Paesha?”

The familiar voice shattered the tension like a stone through glass.

I shoved Thorne away, my eyes finding the figure at the mouth of the alley.

I could hardly believe it. Jasper. The whiplash of all my feelings for him came rushing back.

The burn of the flames from his poison. The capture by Ezra’s men.

Ultimately, Harlow’s death at their hands.

He was so, so guilty for so many things, but in his imprisonment, he wasn’t guilty at all.

Just as I’d had no choice when Alastor made a command, neither did he.

And the guilt must have eaten him alive.

He stood there, looking somehow both older and less substantial than when I’d last seen him, but it was undeniably him.

Still tall, still round in the midsection, with a curly brown mustache.

But the cherry red in the balls of his cheeks had gone.

The gentle light in his eyes had vanished.

There was no question as to how he got here, only fucking why.

“You banished him,” I snapped at Thorne, the Remnants responding to my fury, writhing beneath the cloak. “He didn’t have a choice in anything he did. He was bound to Ezra like Alastor bound me, and you threw him away like garbage.”

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 was not a 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.”

His expression darkened. “It’s the night you need to fear. Things come out. Things that hunger for more than memories.” He started walking, his gait uneven, as if he occasionally forgot how to place his feet. “I’ll show you somewhere safe. I think. Yes, I remember a place. Or maybe I dreamed it.”

We followed him through winding streets. Finally, he stopped before a building that might have once been an inn. The sign above the door was blank, its words long forgotten.

“Stay here,” he said, already turning away. “I’ll bring food. I remember where to find it. Usually.” He paused, looking back with that dreamy uncertainty. “Don’t go out after dark. And if you hear singing… cover your ears. Some songs aren’t meant to be remembered.”

As he disappeared into the fog, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d remember to come back at all.

Thorne placed a warm hand on the small of my back and led me into the old building. “The question is, who’s singing?”

“I don’t really see how that’s relevant when he’s warned you it’s something dangerous.”

“Oh, if it’s who I think it might be, she’s definitely something. Let’s get inside and try to settle in. We need a plan.”

I smirked. “It’s nice to see there were some moments of Thorne Noctus in Stirling that were exactly the same as Thorne Noctus in reality.”