Page 55 of Mantle

“Fine. I hear what you’re saying. But I need to remember. And I can handle it now. I’m much stronger now.”

“You most definitely are,” he agreed easily, pushing off the door and coming into the room. “That’s not in question at all.”

“Then you’ll lift the spell? So I can remember and we can figure all of this out?”

“No.”

I blinked. “What? You just said—”

“I won’tlift it,as you put it.”

“Kai, this is my decision. I love you for wanting to protect me, and always so fiercely at that, but I can’t just sit back and—”

“It will break you.”

“You just admitted that I’m not some weak-willed—”

“You’re not hearing me. It will fracture your mind, Nyx.”

I jolted. “What… no…”

“You didn’t useOblivisca?”Ariana queried. “It’s for targeted memory wipes, but in several doses, combining interconnected spells, it should technically have been viable.”

Kai shook his head sadly, his gaze flicking to me. “The trauma was too severe, too deep. It wouldn’t respond to that.”

“God,” she breathed.

Kai sat down on my other side and weaved his fingers with mine on the bed covers. “I had to employ darker magics and infuse it with the essence of a Dark Fae spell that had the ability to violate free will through remaking somebody. I had to essentially reshape his mind… but engineer it to only target that portion of his memory.”

Silence filled the room.

A heavy, weighty silence.

And then Kai turned to Ariana. “You’re not going to condemn me?”

“You can’t,” I cut in. “I begged him to do it. Really begged him. I was in a really bad place. I couldn’t take it back then, the memories of what had been done to me.” I squeezed Kai’s fingers, as I told her, “He risked himself in so many ways to find a solution for me. And he only did it to spare me, because I needed it so badly.”

Ariana lifted her arms and wrapped one around each of us. “Iknow.It’s okay. There’s no condemnation coming. I know who you both are. I get where it came from, how it happened. And allI see is the love that was behind doing this, the protectiveness.” She smiled. “If anything, it makes me adore you even more.”

I saw Kai getting choked up at the way she was taking it.

He had to shift his weightandeven clear his throat just to hold it together, and get his next words out. “AlthoughIcan’t lift the spell, the fact that you’ve had a flash of a memory from that time due to the triggering element that Ketheron functioned as means that it has substantially weakened the spell. It will fall. But you need to let it do so naturally. No magical enhancements, no asking Ariana to use her Celestial coercion to see into your mind and try to extract them that way. After what I did to wipe the memories in the first place, any other interference could be catastrophic. It could leave you catatonic at best and dead at worst. Andnothingis worth that.” His gaze burned into mine. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” I assured him. “I promise. Now I know they’ll come back on their own, it’s only a matter of time anyway.”

“It’s something you need to prepare for,” he warned.

“I will… I am.”

“Donotdo it alone. All right? Especially after last time. I know you’re a great deal stronger now, but it will still be a lot—it would be for anybody. You come to us. Are we clear about that, too?”

I grinned up at him in spite of the awful subject matter. “I love you, too, brother.”

He grinned back. “Damn fucking straight.”

“How’s it going with Arcanum Order?” I asked, wanting to change the subject and wanting to hear him talk about something he was so over the moon about being a part of. Although, he’d never outright admit that. It was Kai after all. But I knew. All three of us did.

He’d had his induction a few days ago and he’d been heading out every day since as well, meeting at their secret location, wherever that happened to be.

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