Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (49 page)

“That’s what the fae call it — cold iron. And yes, the one time I have held your knife it did warm me. In fact it relit my Spark of Connection after it had been shut down.” Eloryn bit her lip, staring intently at Memory, her eyes and eyebrows twitching with thought and the edge of a smile on her lips. “It’s only forged iron that harms the fae. Raw iron is like a conductor of magic, of life, in our blood and the composition of our earth. What if when iron is worked by man, it somehow becomes affiliated to man, and becomes a magnet for magic?”

Memory’s eyes grew wide. “Drawing magic into humans?”

Eloryn nodded in return. “And out of the fae. Magic is their life force. And if forged iron also steals that from them, that’s why it hurts them.”

“So I’ve had my knife for who knows how long, just soaking up all this magic?”

Eloryn’s eyes sparkled as she paused to think. “For at least sixteen years within the Veil. That we know.”

Memory smiled, enjoying bouncing ideas back and forth. They were getting somewhere, assuming they were right, and Memory was happy to assume.

“And that’s why my magic’s all messed up. I’m not accessing magic like others by using the Spark of Connection. I just use the magic within me that I’m full of.”
A vessel too full, ready to spill and spoil everything.
Memory scowled.
The damn fairies already knew.
“What if it wasn’t just my knife? There might be more iron in the rest of the world. Why wasn’t everyone over there all magicked up? Will said there was no magic there.”

“No Spark of Connection. Maybe you need that, to attract the magic into you through the iron, like calling to like.” Eloryn looked away for a moment then back to Memory. She’d grown serious. “If this is the case, it explains the ritual. Thayl sent you to the otherworld, to build up all that power, so he could steal it and use it for himself. That’s why he had to twist time to find you when you were sixteen, when you’d had those years to absorb so much power.”

The air huffed out of Memory and she stared out the window. The rain splashed onto the roses, knocking loose petals to the ground. “It was never about me. I was just a tool, a battery to charge up and steal the power from. And with the magic, my memories.”
My soul.
“Why? Why did I lose them too?”

It was Eloryn’s turn to shrug.

Memory kept pondering out loud. “What if it all just gets jumbled up together?”
Like Hope, created from my magic and memories and soul all messed up.
“When he took all that magic out of me, it took everything else? Then why don’t I lose memories now when I use my magic?” Memory clutched the book on her lap, pulling it up like a shield. “What if I am and I just don’t know it?”

Eloryn shifted closer to her, putting a hand on Memory’s knee. “If Thayl took nearly everything you had, we could surmise all the magic you have now was channeled into you while you were within the Veil, when you formed no new memories for the magic to become attached to. But I’d have to say it might be best to be careful when and for what reasons you use your magic, just in case. As you form new memories now, we aren’t to know the magic within you won’t become tangled with those, and be lost as you expend it.”

Memory put her head back into the pile of pillows with a prolonged groan. “Yeah, like I can control when and for what reasons my magic splurts out. You’ve got so much control and power. You can ask anything of anything and just, bam, done. My magic is more bam, HAHAHA DID SOMETHING YOU WEREN’T EXPECTING LOLZ.”

Eloryn blushed. It was all too easy to make her blush. “It’s not really that powerful. I can talk to animals or speed up natural processes, but not a lot more. To be honest, the most exciting thing I ever did was have some wood rot and break under a guard’s foot when fighting Thayl.”

“But that’s cool. That was being creative. I bet if you thought about it, you’d have the power to do almost anything if you’re creative with it. Like doing your hair.” Memory eye-balled Eloryn but didn’t get a reaction to prove her suspicions so she continued. “Me and Thayl, we’re just human-shaped blaster-guns. Okay smart girl, here’s one for you. How come Thayl didn’t run out of magic after all those years blasting stuff?”

Eloryn looked like a kid who finished her exam before everyone else. “The basic rule. Like calls to like. Having that much magic within may have made him a powerful magnet for more. The growth would be exponential, almost uncontrollable at times.”

I know that feeling.
All the information swirled in Memory’s head, picking up more and more details as it went, a tornado sweeping up debris. Each time she’d had a memory come back to her she’d been near iron or holding iron. If her magic and memories were out in the world, lost when she cut off Thayl’s hand, tangled together still, maybe some were coming back into her through the iron?
But aren’t they in Hope now? Or is Hope just made from my soul?
Memory’s theories started colliding and getting confused, and she started to lose confidence in them.

Eloryn sighed and half smiled. “But this is all really just theory, based on your wild notion that those items were all iron.”

Memory opened her mouth and almost told Eloryn everything, but something held her back. Not quite her own voice, the voice of Hope, warning and whispering. She’d gotten so caught up exchanging ideas with Eloryn, but even now what was Eloryn doing? Telling her not to use her magic.

She closed the book and stood up, the desire to leave taking her. “I guess we all believe what works best for us, right?”

Eloryn stood up right after her. “We have made a start though. The theories are promising. I swore to you once I would help get your memories back, and I still wish to uphold that. But only if it is what you still want.”

“Of course it’s what I want,” Memory snapped. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and looked away. Eloryn genuinely seemed to want to help, but Memory’s defenses had gone back up. She felt like a wild dog, at once ready to snarl and attack and yet desperately wanting affection, unsure which direction to run. “Is it what you want? Do you even want me to get my memories back?”

“If I had the power I’d have done so already, I would give you back everything that was taken from you.”

Memory’s eyes narrowed, and she walked away without another word.
Everything that was taken from me. Everything... She knows. She does know my soul is broken.

When Roen opened his door, his hair was tussled like he’d just woken up. He squinted at Memory and tugged a shirt on.

“Did I wake you up?” she said.

Roen panted like he’d run to the door. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”

“I just came to ask a favor.”

Roen winced, looked into his room and back at Memory. “At two in the morning?”

“What? Really? Sorry, I haven’t been sleeping much lately. I didn’t realize.” Memory wondered if that was why all the bodyguards that followed her down from her chambers were looking so amused.
They could have said something.
She glared back at them where they stood out of earshot down the hall.

Roen shook his head and chuckled. “I thought there was some danger, or, at the very least, hoped for a more entertaining night call.”

Memory stuck her tongue out at him. The joke made her feel awkward, but the favor she was about to ask felt even worse. She’d decided to ask for Roen’s help to steal after all since she’d made no progress on the heist on her own. With her recent breakthroughs about her magic, she needed to know more and felt Alward’s notes might hold more clues.

Memory took a deep breath and spilled out all her words with the next. “I want to get Alward’s notes off the Wizard’s Council, but to do it I need two keys and two people to turn the keys, and I have one key but still need to get another one and I’m just not as good at that stuff, you know, as you are.”

Roen frowned as he buttoned up his shirt. “Alward’s notes? They’re important to Eloryn aren’t they?”

“Well yes, and to me. A lot of the research was about trying to find me through the Veil. I’d try and get it myself, but I haven’t seen the inside of the safe room, so I can’t Veil door in, and if I try and use my magic some other way I’d probably just blow everything up. I know it’s asking a lot from you, and I didn’t want to—”

“I’ll do it, Mem,” he said, cutting her off with a warm smile. “For you.”

Memory nodded, looking at her feet.
For me, or for her?

“I’ve got a plan and it shouldn’t be difficult. But, um, maybe I’ll tell it to you when it’s not two in the morning?”

“I wouldn’t mind, if you wanted to come in.” Roen opened his door a little more.

To hear my plan, or…

Roen’s shirt was still only half buttoned, his hair mussed, and a sleepy smile on his lips. The whole look was undeniably sexy, and a flush of warmth ran down Memory’s back. Even if it started with planning, she didn’t think it would end there.

Memory gave herself a mental cold shower and pointed with a thumb at the guards watching from down the hall. “The walls have ears, and eyes, and great big gossipy mouths.”

“Your faithful protectors. I didn’t see them down there.” Roen nodded solemnly. Then a smirk cracked the expression and he grabbed Memory around the waist and pulled her two steps back into his room. Out of sight of the guards, he bent and gave her a long kiss on the corner of her lips, then let her go again.

“Sweet dreams, princess,” he said, and smiling cheekily, closed the door between them.

Memory touched the place he kissed her with her fingertips.
He always used to call Eloryn ‘princess.’
Even without the risk of a scandal, Memory wasn’t sure she’d have gone in. She wasn’t sure what she wanted at all.

Late in the evening Memory left her quarters, telling her bodyguards that she wanted to go to the kitchens again for another culinary experiment.

“I’m going to cook up some doughnuts even if it takes me all night.”

Memory strolled into the hazy, clanging kitchens and frowned when one of her guards followed her in. A chef soon chased him back out again to wait at the entrance as he had last time. Memory smiled wickedly.

Dodging the cooks and kitchen hands, she made her way into one of the larger pantries and pulled the door closed behind her. On a shelf lay her boy’s clothes, delivered there earlier by Clara. Memory quickly wriggled out of her night gown and tailored robe and dressed in her Tristan disguise.

Memory stepped back out and grabbed a cupcake decorated in delicate sugar roses. She winked at one of the chefs who watched her, the one who’d helped her make burgers. He winked back in return and went on with his work. A couple of servants were leaving with silver trays of food and Memory slipped out of the kitchens with them, straight past her bodyguards who didn’t look at her twice.

The plan is rocking so far
.

Memory had to resist the urge to skip, she felt so free. It was the first time for a while she wasn’t being trailed by burly soldiers. But skipping while dressed as a boy would probably draw too much attention.

When she reached the meeting point, Roen was there waiting for her.

He held up his hand, dangling a key on display.

Memory high-fived him. “Nice work. I hope it wasn’t too hard to get.”

“For me? It was a piece of cake.” Roen said, ducking past Memory and revealing her half-eaten cupcake stolen in his hands. She grabbed for it, but he popped it in his mouth.

Memory smiled, relieved Roen was in a good mood. She always thought his skills were something to be proud of. Maybe he didn’t mind so much anymore.

“The hardest part is next though. The old safe room is at the top of the western tower, but there’s a guard at the bottom of the stairs.” Memory pointed with her thumb around the corner to the arched doorway down the hall, blocked by its sentinel.

Roen looked quickly. “I could probably sneak through while he’s looking the other way. But getting us both through without a distraction could be difficult.”

Memory put a finger on her chin, pretending to think. “A distraction you say?”

Giggling fluttered down the hall to them, and they both peeked around the corner again. Clara leaned against the wall next to the guard. The maid’s uniform she wore was a size smaller than usual and the guard leaned in toward her. He stepped out of the doorway, sliding an arm around her waist.

Memory whispered dramatically, “The dove has taken position! Go, go, go!”

She dashed down the hallway, keeping as quiet as she could. She grimaced whenever her feet hit the ground, still sounding so loud. She expected the guard to hear her at any moment and started to reconsider her tactic. Memory couldn’t even hear Roen behind her and was worried he hadn’t followed when she made a run for it.

Roen’s hands wrapped around Memory’s waist and lifted her. She silently squealed. Carrying her, Roen slipped passed the guard without a sound. He put her down just up the stairs, out of sight around the spiraling column.

Standing a step up from him, they were nose to nose. Her heart raced and her face felt flushed.

Roen lifted his chin and looked up the stairwell. Memory nodded and they continued to the top. A small antechamber opened up, revealing a massive door of solid metal, bronze banding and studs reinforcing its strength. To each side, further apart than a normal human could reach, were two keyholes.

Memory pulled Bedevere’s key from her pocket and Roen took his, and they turned them in the lock simultaneously.

Gears clicked and rolled, and with a push, the door swung open. The room was small, just enough to fit a couple of tight rows of bookshelves and tables which overflowed with badly sorted and stacked volumes.

Memory punched the air with a silent woot. “That all went surprisingly easily! Let’s grab these notes and get back out before that poor guard proposes to Clara and has his heart broken.”

Roen pushed the door closed until it was just slightly ajar. He threw Memory the second key, and she pocketed them together, then they went seeking Alward’s documents where Waylan’s letter had said he left them.

“Which ones are they?” Roen asked, stepping over stacks of books on the ground. The room smelled of powdery paper.

Memory had made her way to the back and stared dumbfounded at the table there.
Papers
, Waylan had called them.
Notes
. What she had imagined as a journal or two to snatch and run with turned out to be crates full of hand-bound tomes stacked one atop another amid mountains of loose leaf parchment and scrolls.

Memory blew out a sigh. “We might have a problem.”

“They can’t all be his, surely,” Roen suggested, whispering.

Memory checked through some of the unsorted papers and books that were strewn amongst the more regimented ones. All had the same handwriting, the same topics, same style to the scratchy diagrams. Sixteen years’ worth of research.

He must have been trying so hard to get me back.
Memory felt guilty about assuming there would be so little.

Memory kicked the table leg. “We’re screwed! We can’t exactly do multiple trips to carry all this out.”

“I’m sorry. I know this was important to you.” Roen moved next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Could we remove it all some other way? Could you use a Veil door?”

Memory twitched, the thought of using her magic giving her goosebumps. She wasn’t sure whether this research would have any of the information she really needed, but if it did, it was worth the try. She had to, for her, and for Will.

“You’ll have to do the heavy lifting, Roen. I need to concentrate.” Memory imagined her own chambers, and pinched the fabric of reality with her fingers, opening a door through the Veil. “I’ll keep it open. You take everything through.”

Roen nodded and moved fast, loading up an armful of books and carrying them through. Even this way, only moving the books a few steps, it would take a lot of trips.

As Roen went back and forth through the door, he took a moment to catch his breath and balance. He started to look gray from the effects of the Veil. The books weren’t so much placed as dropped onto the floor in Memory’s living room.

Memory focused on keeping the door open and tried to shuffle the remaining books around on the desk to hide what had been taken.

Roen gathered up the last few books when they heard men’s voices on the stairwell.

“I hear movement. Someone is in there,” one man cried.

Roen froze, a look of terror on his face. Memory looked from him to the door as the footsteps grew closer. The agitation in the approaching voices was clear. Memory and Roen were going to be caught. They could both go through the Veil door, but then there would be no answer to what had occurred there. There might be an investigation, and the Wizards had magical ways of finding out who did what and where. Memory had dragged Roen into this, and the prospect of being caught here, stealing, had left him looking shattered.

Memory charged him, pushing him through the Veil door into her room. She let the door close between them. Grabbing the nearest book, she hopped up onto the desk and shook herself into a casual expression just as Hayes burst in, followed by Bedevere and another Councilor.

“And here we have our culprit,” Hayes declared.

Memory looked up from the book she pretended to read. “What brings you all up here? I was just doing bit of light reading, myself.”

Hayes marched up to her. “Madoc here discovered his key missing, and when we checked around it turned out Bedevere’s had also gone astray. And here we discover – ‘Tristan,’ is it? – at the scene of the crime.”