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He felt awful. He didn’t know why; he couldn’t remember why!

But he felt it all the same. Guilt flooded his senses, thick and suffocating, as the man—twice Jamie’s size—collapsed upon him, causing them both to fall despite Jamie’s best efforts to keep his feet.

With shaking arms, Jamie shifted Fawkes off him.

The man rolled onto the ground, and for a moment, Jamie thought—or more wished —that perhaps he could be healed. Saved.

But it was too late. By the time Fawkes fell onto his back, his eyes had already glazed over, and he had released his last staggered breath.

“FAWKES!” Ezra screamed again, her purple eyes welling with tears as she shoved Jamie roughly aside and shook the man’s broad shoulder. “Fawkes, speak to me! SPEAK TO ME!”

The blood was all over Jamie’s hands. A sense of dull panic began to rise up within him as he looked down at it, surrounded by the fire and ash and smoke, with his head pulsing and his lungs aching and his heart pounding against his chest. How had things gone so wrong, so fast?

He had never meant for any of this to happen!

“You!” growled Ezra, turning her tearstained face to Jamie as rage and bloodlust filled her purple eyes. “This is YOUR FAULT! I’m going to fucking KILL YOU! ”

She lunged forward, her movements driven by hate and fury. Bloodied hands pushed hard against soot-stained arms as she wrestled Jamie forcefully to the ground—but before she could strike the killing blow, she was sharply kicked away by Eleanore.

Time seemed to slow as Eleanore knelt down by Jamie.

The fire, the smoke, the roof overhead giving out, Ezra stumbling to her feet—it all decelerated to a crawl, as Eleanore placed one trembling hand on Jamie’s shoulder as if to comfort him, and pressed the other firmly against his head.

“I will find you,” she promised, her voice raspy and urgent and thick with emotion.

“What—”

A stab of ice-cold pain was fired through his head—and everything blurred, consumed by a burst of golden light.

* * *

Eleanore

Eleanore was exhausted.

She’d been scouring the surface of the Earth for months, searching high and low for Jamie as the guilt consumed her. She hadn’t meant to take this long to find him, and with every day that passed her by, she grew more and more afraid that she wouldn’t make it in time.

Worse than that, she’d known that he would be lost, confused, and stranded out here in a strange and dangerous world, without any memories of who he was and any way of defending himself.

Her mind had plagued her with visions of Jamie cold and hungry and afraid, and worse of all, alone.

She had never wanted such a thing for him, and even though she knew it had been the only way to save him, the very thought of it made her feel like an utter failure.

Ezra sealing away Jamie’s powers had been the worst thing she could do, but it had presented a sudden opportunity.

Without his powers, Ezra shouldn’t have been able to sense him.

She shouldn’t have been able to track him down.

Sending him to another world to protect him from Ezra while her own injuries healed had been Eleanore’s best and only option—and locking away Jamie’s memories so that he wouldn’t give his position away trying to fight his way back home was just an extra layer of security.

And yet, it had all gone so wrong.

Somehow, Ezra had managed to travel to this world herself and had then found Jamie first. Whether it was because Eleanore had taken too long to recover before she was able to come searching, or because Ezra had just got lucky with it, Eleanore didn’t know.

All she knew was that when she had finally found Jamie about two weeks ago, she had seen him talking to Ezra.

She’d nearly panicked at the time; she had been seconds away from rushing to the two and attacking Ezra right then and there, but if there was one thing Eleanore knew about this world—and it truly was only this one thing—it was that getting yourself noticed and causing chaos in public could lead to being attacked by humans with ferocious weapons the people in her own world couldn’t even fathom.

She had been forced to stay her hand, wait, and gather information instead.

At first, she had tried to follow Jamie; but he seemed to ride the metal carriages everywhere, and she’d had trouble trying to track them.

And with him being in safe form all the time, it was near impossible to sense his location, even with the deep bond between them.

So she had given up on it and started following Ezra instead; careful to hide her presence as much as possible.

It was clear that Ezra was playing some kind of game; dressing up in the strange fashions of this world and using her powers to manipulate the humans into thinking she belonged there, all so that she could speak to Jamie for an hour once a week.

At first, Eleanore had had no idea what Ezra got out of it.

But, no matter what her plan was, Eleanore had finally got her chance to approach them.

She’d broken into the studio where Jamie spent most of his time in search of any information on where he might be living, and had stumbled upon a sheet of paper with his picture on it, as well as several others, over a date, time and place, promising he would be performing there.

As strange as it was to imagine Jamie Auralie performing as a dancer, Eleanore had resolved to meet him here—only to see him with Ezra once again.

This time, she hadn’t been able to just walk away. She had known Ezra long enough, and had recognized the look on her face, even from a distance.

Ezra was nearly done playing.

If Eleanore hadn’t acted now, she might never have had the chance.

Yet, being attacked by Jamie himself had been the last thing she’d expected.

She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised.

Since Ezra had apparently convinced him to think they were friends, there was no telling how many lies she’d been implanting in his mind, all while Eleanore had been bumbling around the world in search of him.

Eleanore was just lucky that Jamie still hadn’t got all of his powers back. If he had been fighting at full strength and had remembered how to unleash his actual skills, he very well could have killed her. So all she could do in the battle was try to stop him from fighting, for his own good.

Even now, as she carefully knelt by his still form where he lay on the ground, the young man having fallen unconscious due to the impact of having the memory seal broken, she knew she had to be careful waking him up.

His powers were great and he was clearly volatile at the moment—and Eleanore knew more than anyone how truly dangerous he could be.

Cautiously, she put a hand on his chest, and transferred some of her energy to him, his spine arching a little under the force of it.

It wasn’t enough to heal any injuries—she wasn’t a healer, after all—but he fortunately didn’t seem to have been badly hurt.

Ezra had been too busy fighting Eleanore to do anything to Jamie, and Eleanore had been careful not to do anything that could actually cause harm.

His scraped cheek, from where he’d hit the concrete, was nothing that wouldn’t vanish on its own within a week or two.

No, the only plight from which Jamie suffered was power exertion and the general strain of having his mind manipulated.

A bit of extra energy was all he needed to regain consciousness now.

Slowly, Jamie stirred. He let out a groan, dizzily putting a hand to his head as he pushed himself up on the concrete. Then, everything seemed to catch up to him. He drew in a gasp and stumbled to his feet, raising his hands and casting a wild look around as if searching for something to fight.

“Jamie,” Eleanore tried quietly, holding her own hands up in surrender and looking searchingly into his face. “Do you remember what happened now?”

Jamie turned his gaze to her, his icy blue eyes widening as he slowly let out a deep breath.

“…Y-yes,” he muttered. “I remember… ever ything.” His face contorted into pain and anger, and he flashed Eleanore a deep glare.

“You did not have permission to seal away my memories!” he snapped, blinking back sudden tears.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?! ”

“Jamie, I understand you’re upset,” Eleanore told him.

“These past few months, I know things must have been frightening and confusing, and I never meant to leave you this long. But it was the only thing I could think of to keep you safe from Ezra. I know if you kept your memories, you would have just tried to get back into the fight, powers or none.”

“I’m not talking about being confused or frightened!” Jamie exclaimed. “I’m talking about being in love!”

Eleanore’s heart stopped. “…What?”

Jamie let out a deep groan, wiping at the blood on his cheek in clear agitation as he began to pace. “What am I supposed to do now?!”

“Jamie, what are you talking about?!” Eleanore demanded. “You can’t be in love!”

A low, weak laugh sounded nearby, Eleanore turning to see that Ezra too was stirring awake, humor lining her face even as she rubbed at the fresh wound on her head.

“You didn’t hear the glorious news?” the young Fire wielder said, her tone laced with mockery, despite clearly knowing that she was well and truly defeated.

“Jamie’s got himself an oh-so-sweet human boyfriend.

You know, Eleanore, you tried your very best to save him from me, but…

” she flashed Jamie a hateful, triumphant grin. “The real danger was his own heart.”

“Be silent,” Eleanore growled to Ezra. “I don’t know exactly what lies you put in his head, but once I get them all sorted out—”

“This isn’t a manipulation!” Jamie exclaimed. “What I have with Jesse is real, we were in love long before she got in my head!”

Eleanore couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Of all the things she had imagined these past few months, all the horrors she’d thought Jamie might be experiencing, all the pain she might have caused him, she’d never once imagined that he would fall in love!

And Ezra was laughing again. “You made it so easy, Jamie,” she gloated.

“Visiting a doctor without bothering to make sure she was who she said she was, spilling your heart out and telling me all your fears and secrets and desires, mindlessly listening to everything I told you to do— You know, when I first chased you to this miserable world, I only intended to finish what I’d started.

But how could I resist such strong temptations?

You were putty in my hands, Jamie Auralie, and I found ways to break you that I never could have imagined!

It’s just too bad you didn’t manage to kill your oh-so-loyal Protector.

” She cast Eleanore a glare of red hot hate.

“That would have avenged Fawkes rather nicely, wouldn’t you say? ”

A wave of deep, crushing bitterness swallowed Eleanore at the mention of Fawkes. “He chose his own fate,” she growled to Ezra. “Something you will not have the luxury to do. You can look forward to a long sentence when we get home; it’s about time you answered for your crimes.”

Ezra pursed her lips, the rage in her purple eyes intensifying. “If choosing me was ‘choosing his fate,’ then you never deserved him!” Ezra’s features twisted into something evil, her lips curling into a wicked grin. “But, speaking of crimes—you know exactly who broke rule number one.”

Before Eleanore could formulate another response, Jamie stepped in.

“Shut the fuck up!” he roared, his voice raw with fury as he loomed over Ezra.

Triumphantly, Ezra fell into loud, cruel laughter—cut short when Jamie lashed out and struck her hard against the face, the power behind his strike enough to knock her out.

Jamie’s chest was rising and falling with ragged, unsteady breaths, his hand trembling as he pressed it to Ezra’s forehead to put her to sleep.

“…We will take her home,” he told Eleanore hoarsely once he was finished. “And she will pay for what she has done. ”

Eleanore nodded, a deep relief taking hold of her.

An hour ago, when she had snuck into the strange amphitheater and watched Jamie perform for the crowd, she had been taken aback by how different he seemed here.

The way he had acted with the humans he was dancing with, the soft way he’d spoken, the smiles he had given them…

it had felt like she’d been seeing the ghost of who Jamie had once been.

But now, it was gone again, and he was back to the old soul he’d been before.

Something in that made her sad… But it was not their lot in life to be soft. To be happy. They had a duty to uphold. If this was what Jamie had to be in order to do his duty, so be it.

“I’ll open the gate at once,” she said. “We’ll take her through and get this all sorted out once and for all.”

Jamie pursed his lips, his whole body tensing as he glanced over his shoulder towards where he had frozen one of the metal carriages solid right before the fight.

And, perhaps it was a trick of the neon lights that surrounded them in this strange city, but Eleanore thought she saw that same gentle ghost light Jamie’s face once more.

A sudden unease began to crawl up Eleanore’s spine at the sight. It looked as if he was slipping away. “Jamie…” she said quietly.

Jamie looked back at her. His face contorted into pain once more, his haunted icy blue eyes misting over, as if he was realizing only now what he had done.

“What am I… supposed to do now?” he asked again, his voice almost toneless.

Eleanore didn’t respond right away. A heavy guilt settled on her, but in the end, they both knew there was no way around this.

“You know what you have to do,” she then told him, trying to keep her voice as calm and gentle as she could, as she knelt down to lift Ezra’s unconscious form in her arms. “I’ll be back for you in two hours.”

Jamie made no reply.

He just took in a deep breath, wiping at his eyes before squaring his shoulders. Then, he started off across the parking lot without looking back.

And even though Eleanore had finally found him, protected him from Ezra’s designs against him, and restored his memory, she felt as though she had failed him a thousand times over.