CALISTA'S POV
"Don't shoot him," I say, my voice surprisingly steady. "If you kill him, I'll never get answers."
Sera—or whoever she really is—doesn't lower the crossbow. Her whole body has changed. She stands taller now, more dangerous. The gentle maid act is completely gone.
"He's lying to you," she says, eyes locked on Theron. "That memory serum was poison. I just saved your life."
"Funny," Theron replies calmly, hands raised. "I was thinking the same thing about you."
"Both of you, STOP." I step between them, my heart pounding. "Someone explain what's happening. NOW."
They stare at each other over my head, like I'm not even there. Like I'm just a thing they're fighting over, not a person.
That makes me angry.
Really angry.
"GET OUT!" I scream at both of them. "Both of you! Get out of my room, get out of my life, and leave me alone!"
Sera flinches. The crossbow lowers slightly.
Theron's face softens. "Calista—"
"No." I'm shaking now, my hands curled into fists. "I don't know who you are. Either of you. You," I point at Sera, "have been lying to me for six murders. And you," I turn to Theron, "show up yesterday with magic memory potions and old pictures, expecting me to trust you because you claim we were friends. Well, I don't remember ANY of it. So until I figure out who's telling the truth, everyone needs to LEAVE."
Silence.
Then Theron bows—actually bows—with real respect this time. "You're right. I apologize. I'm pushing too hard, too fast." He backs toward the door, keeping his hands visible. "But Calista? Don't drink the tower water. That part's real. Please."
He leaves.
I turn to Sera, who's finally lowered the crossbow completely. She looks sad again. Tired.
"Agent Nighthollow?" I ask. "Is that your real name?"
"It's one of them." She sets the crossbow on my table. "I'm sorry, my lady. I've been protecting you the only way I know how. But Lord Theron is dangerous. He's the Queen's spymaster. Nothing he does is simple."
"Then why are you here? Who sent you?"
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Then: "Someone who loved your mother very much. That's all I can say. If I tell you more, they'll kill us both."
Before I can ask what she means, she's gone too.
The door locks.
I'm alone again, surrounded by broken glass and shattered trust and a puddle of clear liquid that might have been salvation or death.
I'll never know which.
I spend the rest of the morning doing what I always do: searching for clues.
My tower room isn't large. One bed, one desk, one wardrobe, one fireplace. A bathroom through a side door. A balcony I'm not allowed to use—it's locked with magic stronger than the door.
I've searched this room a hundred times. But every time, I hope I'll find something new.
Today, I start with the wardrobe.
Five wedding dresses hang inside like corpses. White, cream, ivory—I apparently got married in slightly different shades of pale each time. I run my hands along the hems, checking the seams, looking for hidden pockets.
Nothing in the first three.
The fourth dress—Julian's dress, I think—has something sewn into the lining near the waist. My fingers find it: a small, hard lump.
I tear the stitches.
A ring falls out. Gold, with a black stone.
I don't recognize it. But when I slip it on my finger, it fits perfectly. And suddenly, my head feels... clearer. Like someone turned off a radio that was playing static in my brain.
The fog lifts just a little.
I can think.
I stare at the ring, my heart racing. What is this? Some kind of protection charm?
With the ring on, I turn back to my desk and open the journal again. The pages where I found the coded message are still blank, but now—with this clearer head—I notice something else.
The handwriting changes.
Not dramatically. But it's there. The first entry about Lord Marcus is written in careful, neat letters. By Lord Edmund's entry, the writing is shakier. More desperate.
I'm getting worse. Each reset is taking more from me.
And after Ashton's name, in the margin, there's a tiny note I didn't see before:
Six down. One to go. Then it ends.
My blood runs cold.
What ends? The murders? My life?
Both?
I flip frantically through the journal, looking for more hidden messages, and that's when I see it—the inside back cover has a strange texture. Like something's underneath the leather.
I grab a letter opener from my desk and carefully pry up the corner.
There's a false bottom.
Underneath is a folded paper covered in symbols that make my eyes hurt. But with the ring on, I can almost—almost—make sense of them.
They're not random. They're a code.
My code.
I invented this, didn't I? Before they made me forget?
I grab a quill and fresh paper, trying to decode the symbols. My hand moves automatically, like it remembers even when my brain doesn't. Letters start appearing:
C-A-L-I-S-T-A
Y-O-U
A-R-E
N-O-T
Then my hand stops. The ring on my finger starts burning—actually burning, getting hot enough to hurt.
I yelp and yank it off.
Immediately, the fog slams back into my brain. The symbols become meaningless again. The decoded letters blur.
What was I doing? Looking at my journal? Why?
I blink, confused. There's a paper with random letters on my desk. Did I write that?
The ring sits on the desk, innocent. Black stone, gold band.
Pretty.
I put it back in the wardrobe lining, sewing it in carefully so I don't lose it.
Wait.
Why did I just hide a ring I was looking at two seconds ago?
My head hurts.
Lunch arrives. Sera brings it—she won't meet my eyes again. There's bread, cheese, fruit, and a pitcher of water.
I remember Theron's warning. Don't drink the tower water.
But I'm so thirsty. And the water looks clear and clean and normal.
Sera lingers at the door. "My lady? You should eat. Keep your strength up."
"Why?" I ask. "So I can kill my next husband more efficiently?"
She flinches. "That's not fair."
"None of this is fair." I gesture at the food. "Is the water drugged?"
Her silence is answer enough.
"Get out," I whisper.
She leaves.
I stare at the pitcher for a long time. Then I pour the water down the drain in my bathroom and drink from the tap instead. It tastes metallic. Strange.
But my head stays clear.
That night, I can't sleep.
I keep thinking about the ring, the code, the messages from myself that I can't quite remember. It's like being haunted by your own ghost.
Around midnight, I hear something.
A soft scraping sound.
Coming from my balcony.
But the balcony is locked. The magic is too strong. No one should be able to—
A shadow moves outside the glass doors.
Someone's there.
I grab the letter opener—my only weapon—and press myself against the wall, heart hammering.
The lock clicks.
The impossible lock that never opens.
Someone just opened it from outside.
The balcony door swings open, and a figure slips inside wearing dark clothes and a hood.
An assassin.
Here to finish what the curse started.
I raise the letter opener, ready to scream, ready to fight—
The figure pulls back the hood.
It's a girl. Maybe sixteen. With familiar dark hair and eyes that look exactly like mine.
She stares at me with tears running down her face.
"Sister," she whispers. "You don't remember me. But I'm Lyra. Your little sister. And I need your help. They're going to kill me tomorrow because I know the truth about who you really are."
My brain short-circuits.
I don't have a sister.
Do I?
"I don't understand," I manage.
"Your name isn't Calista Ravencross," she says, urgent and desperate. "It's Elara Ashenmere. You're the queen's niece. The true heir to the throne. And the Queen has been making you murder everyone who knows you're still alive."
The world tilts.
The letter opener falls from my hand.
"That's impossible," I whisper.
"Is it?" Lyra pulls out a locket and opens it. Inside is a miniature portrait—two girls, maybe ten and six years old, laughing together. One looks like the happy Calista from Theron's portrait. The other is clearly a young Lyra.
Sisters.
We were sisters.
"Tomorrow they're executing me for treason," Lyra says, grabbing my hands. "Because I found Mother's journals. Because I discovered what happened to you. You have to remember, Elara. You have to remember before—"
The door crashes open.
Guards pour in—six of them, armed.
Lyra whirls, but she's just a kid. They grab her easily, yanking her away from me.
"No!" I scream, lurching forward. "Don't hurt her!"
"Forgive the intrusion, Lady Calista," says the lead guard. "This criminal broke into your tower. We'll remove her immediately."
"She's not a criminal! She's—"
My what? My sister? A stranger who claims to be my sister?
I don't know.
I don't know anything.
Lyra fights against the guards, eyes locked on mine. "Check the ring! The black ring in your wardrobe! It's a memory anchor! Wear it and read Mother's name—ELARA ASHENMERE—and you'll remember everything! Don't let them kill me for nothing! Don't—"
A guard shoves a gag in her mouth.
They drag her away.
I stand there, frozen, as the door locks behind them.
Then I run to the wardrobe.
I tear through the dress lining, find the ring, shove it on my finger.
The fog lifts.
I grab my journal with shaking hands and write in the margin, as clearly as I can:
ELARA ASHENMERE
The moment I finish the 'E', my hand spasms. The quill breaks. Pain shoots through my skull like someone driving nails into my brain.
I collapse, gasping.
But before the darkness takes me, I see something impossible.
The letters I wrote are glowing.
Burning themselves into the page.
And in that golden light, memories start flooding back—not all of them, not even most of them, but enough.
Enough to know Lyra was telling the truth.
Enough to know I've been living someone else's life.
Enough to know that tomorrow, they're going to execute my little sister for trying to save me.
The last thing I think before I black out is:
I have to stop them.
Even if I can't remember why.