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Chapter Sixteen

The bride came upon an enchanted pool in the dark woods.

To look into the pool was to see one’s fate and then have one’s memories erased.

The bride, unknowing of this curse, peered into the depths of the enchanted waters and saw the king’s death.

Her king... the one she had grown to love as she learned to love his creatures and his forest. But just as soon as she realized she would lose her beloved king, all memory of it was taken from her.

—Anon., Tales from the Twilight Court

K ate woke up, her bedsheets twisted, pillows scattered everywhere. The tattered strands of a vast and terrible dream hung at the corners of her mind.

What had she been dreaming about? Her heart was pounding hard enough to bruise her ribs.

Kate caught her breath and stared around the moonlit bedroom.

She took comfort in the sight of her familiar textbooks, the jewelry music box her mother had bought for her, the photos of her friends she’d taped to the edges of the mirror on her desk. She was home. She was safe.

Yet she couldn’t shake the strange feeling that something was missing. Something was wrong. It was like she’d gone to bed without locking the front door, or perhaps someone had left the oven on? It was that sense of something left unfinished, something out of place.

She climbed out of bed and walked down the hall to Caden’s bedroom. Her little brother was asleep, one arm curled around a dinosaur stuffed animal. Kate let out a breath of relief.

He was safe.

But why wouldn’t he be? There was no reason he wouldn’t be safe in his own room in his own house. Yet for a moment, she’d been certain that he’d been in danger.

It must have been tied to whatever she’d been dreaming about. The threads of that dream had pulled loose the moment she’d woken, and she could not recall anything about it. Only the feeling that she’d lost something. Something precious that she could never get back.

Standing on the threshold to her brother’s room, she realized part of what it was.

She felt as though she was in between worlds, neither in his room nor out.

Yet the sense of this in-between was vast, as though she’d stepped out of time itself.

It reminded her of those moments she’d had when she didn’t feel like herself, as though she was a stranger in a strange body and nothing around her seemed to feel right.

Desperate to rid herself of the unsettling, out-of-place feeling, she closed her brother’s door.

The house was quiet, and the grandfather clock ticked away in the hall downstairs.

She went back to her room, standing barefoot beside her bed, unable to shake that sense that she’d forgotten something important. But what?

She noticed a book lying on the floor by her bookshelf. Curious, Kate walked over and picked it up. It was her mother’s favorite book of fairy tales.

“ Tales from the Twilight Court ...” She read the faded gilt title on the spine and traced the lettering with a fingertip. It was an old book, based on the style of its binding. She thumbed through the pages, her eyes taking in the lines of the fairy tales and their half-forgotten stories.

The path through the dark woods led to the center of the forest. The bride turned every which way, seeking a continuation of the road... but the road was at its end.

“So you found me at last...” The king of the dark woods emerged from the hollow of a rowan tree.

The bride gasped. “Why are you here?”

The king smiled and replied, “Did you not know that your path always led to me? And I have loved you as you have cared for my trees and my dark and wonderful creatures. You have been my queen all along... and I would give you the world if you would ask it of me.”

The bride shook her head. “If you love me, then that is all I would ever wish for.”

The words choked on Kate’s lips, tears blurred her eyes. She couldn’t continue to read. Why did this little childhood story tear at her soul? As she closed the book, something white and gold fluttered from the pages and fell to the floor.

It was a feather.

Kate picked it up, running her fingertips over the delicate thing. How long had it been inside the book? Where had it come from? It was clear by its size it was a feather from a large bird. It shimmered faintly as she examined it.

Kiss me, Kate. The words that echoed in her mind were not from the childhood story her mother used to tell her. No... she’d heard these words spoken by a deeper voice, a voice that held a universe of love within it.

“Kiss me, Kate...” She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a sob. Those words seemed to rip apart the universe around her as a tear fell from her face, landing upon the feather. She was supposed to remember something very important.

“I wish I could remember...”

She had a right to remember what she couldn’t, but a voice whispered in the back of her mind that it would hurt. Hurt more than anything else in her life. Whatever it was she desperately needed to remember, it would be worth all the agony that came with it.

“Give me back my memories!” she demanded of the night, and she could feel the magic winding its way around her. “They are mine .”

The feather suddenly sparkled, as though dipped in diamond dust. Kate’s heart stopped.

Moments later she gasped as images, voices, sensations, and emotions whirled around her, engulfing her in a torrent of joy and grief.

When the storm of memories subsided, she sat alone in the thick silence of her bedroom, a river of tears flowing down her cheeks.

“I remember ,” she whispered, her fingers clenched around the feather. “I remember you...”

She could see his face so clearly now. The long silver hair half pulled back from his face. The bright-blue eyes that burned with such fire. The sensual lips she had first thought so cruel, then come to love more than life itself as they’d whispered words of adoration across her body.

She had failed to save him, her Lord of the Labyrinth. Thalia had lied to her. The queen had promised Kate she would be able to save him, and she hadn’t. He’d sent her away as he died so she would not be trapped in his world without him.

But Roan had left her trapped. Her without him was a fate just as cold and numbing as any prison. He’d had no right to send her away.

“I made my choice,” she said in the moonlight. “I chose to stay with you. Nothing else should matter.”

She got to her feet and walked over to her desk, setting the feather down.

When her gaze lifted, she stared at her face in the mirror.

Her skin was splotched with red, and her eyes were bloodshot and swollen.

She was just Kate again... no longer Kate of the Winslows, no longer the love of a dark Fae king.

A breeze drifted through the room like music from a summer night when the world was new and life held every possibility.

“Is that all you are?”

In the reflection of the mirror was a woman clothed in starlight and silk. She stood behind Kate, glowing softly. Kate spun around, but no one was in her room except her. When she looked back in the mirror, Thalia Moondove was still there, staring back at her.

“You are more than just Kate,” the woman said. “You have always been more. The moment you were born you had the wild within you, as all humans do. But like so many, you’ve forgotten that deep and most ancient magic that you were gifted with. It’s time that you remember.”

“The wild?” Kate asked, her body trembling. She wasn’t quite sure she understood.

“Yes. You may know it by its other name. Love . Not all magic is love, but all love is magic.”

Kate wiped at her tears as she glared at Thalia.

“You lied to me! You said I could save him. But love couldn’t bring Roan back.”

Thalia’s summer-blue eyes were solemn. “In our realm, a great many things are possible, if one has the strength to believe in them. The question is... do you believe?”

“Do I believe in Roan?” Kate asked.

“Do you believe in you ? You must believe in yourself. We are all here waiting... hoping that you do.”

Thalia’s face faded from the mirror. Kate stared at herself for a long moment. She jumped when her bedroom door suddenly opened. Caden stepped inside, rubbing a fist at his sleepy eyes.

“Kate? Who are you talking to?”

“Go back to sleep. I was just talking to myself.” The last thing she needed was her brother hearing her talk about fairy queens. He would think she was crazy, because there was no way his memories would be left if hers hadn’t been.

“Are you going to go back?” the boy asked.

Kate’s mouth parted. “Back? Back where?”

Caden gave her a puzzled look. “To save the king.”

“You remember?” Kate was stunned. She hadn’t remembered, not until she found the feather and made the wish. Why had he left Caden’s memories but taken hers?

Because if she had remembered... the pain would be worse, and she would try to find her way back when he didn’t want her to.

The only way he thought he could control her, even in death, was infuriating.

He couldn’t keep doing this to her. She had a right to remember, had a right to feel every moment of joy or pain that came from loving him.

Caden stared at her in concern. “Of course I remember. You don’t?”

“I do now,” Kate admitted.

“So, are you going to go back?” he asked again.

Kate swallowed hard. Going back meant leaving Caden and her family forever. She hadn’t even considered that until she found herself staring at her little brother for perhaps the last time.

Caden’s smile quivered as he came over to her. “It’s okay, you know. It’s okay for you to leave.”

But how could she leave him? He was her brother. He needed her.

“If I left, I don’t know if I could ever come back, Caden. It might be forever.”

Something shone in her brother’s eyes. “Forever is okay as long as you’re happy, right?” he asked. “Because you were happy there, I think. You were different.”