When he pulls away, there’s something like regret in his eyes. “How intriguing you are like this. There is something disarming and downright appealing to this side of you. But you are as much a panther as I am. It is time you remembered.”
My own power sparks to life at those last words. “Memnon,” I say in warning, “don’t make me your enemy in earnest.”
“Oh, it is too late for that, little witch. Much too late.” He leans in again and whispers, “I still have not had my vengeance. Not until now.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, not until the two notebooks on my desk lift into the air, his indigo magic twisting around them. Then I start to have an idea.
“I think it is poetically fitting that you be lost in this world,” he continues, “just as I have been lost.”
“Memnon,” I caution him.
“Gods, but how I have always enjoyed it when you turn my name into a threat,” he says. “But I don’t want your anger right now, Empress. I want your panic and your desperation. I want you to come groveling back to me. I want you to need me the way I have always needed you.” He backs up as he speaks.
“Memnon,” I say again, “give me back my notebooks.” I feel my own magic stirring to life.
“Maybe if you beg for mercy nicely,” he says, “I’ll spare you the worst of my wrath.”
“You motherfucker.”
“That’s not begging nicely,” he says, grinning, like this is all fun for him. Seven hells, I’m sure it is. Memnon is one part violence and one part vengeance. “Try again.”
“Memnon, I swear to the goddess—”
My two notebooks go up in flames. Right in the middle of my sentence, as the sorcerer’s eyes brighten with devilish delight, my notebooks go up in flames.
I suck in a breath.
My memories.
My magic lashes out of me, winding around the journals, desperate to smother the flames. I yank on my power, trying to bring them to the ground, but they continue to hover in midair, burning.
“Memnon!” I practically cry, scrambling onto my desk so I can try to snatch them out of the air myself. “I depend on those.”
“It’s a terrible thing to see your entire life’s work go up in flames, isn’t it?” As he speaks, the rows of notebooks that fill my bookshelf catch fire.
I scream, the sound mingling with his laughter.
Years of work is literally going up in smoke. But it’s not just my memories he’s burning.
“I need these notebooks for the Politia,” I say, trying another angle. “They’re my alibi.” And thus my ticket off the suspect list they have me on.
“You won’t need them once you have your memories back.”
Ignoring Memnon, I put a hand to my head as I search my mind for a spell strong enough to put out these flames. Desperation is making it hard to think.
I close my eyes and drop my hand. I don’t need a freaking spell. I have all the raw power right at my fingertips.
Memnon wraps his arms around me in some sick simulacrum of a hug, stopping my spell in its tracks. It’s not love, or care, or reassurance he has to offer.
His lips brush my ear. “Your efforts are wasted, Empress. You have felt my power. You know you will not be able to put out my fire. Not today.”
I open my eyes and turn my head to glare at him, a tear slipping out. “Fix this. Please.”
He wanted me to plead with him. I’m giving him exactly what he wants. Right now, I don’t care.
Memnon holds my gaze, his smoky amber eyes taking in my reaction. There’s a moment there where he looks almost perplexed, as though he’s not sure what he’s doing. The flames around us dim, and I think he will in fact fix this. But then his features turn resolute once more.
“No.”
Memnon releases me, moving his gaze to my bookshelf, where my life is burning away. Many of the memories in those books have already been eaten up by my magic. Those notes and drawings were all I had left of them.
Despite his words, I do try to use my power to put out the flames. Just like he warned, my magic does nothing but momentarily make the flames flicker.
The acrid smell of smoke fills the air, the plumes of it mingling with Memnon’s magic. Despite that, the fire doesn’t seem to be spreading. My shelved novels and textbooks—and hell, the shelves themselves—sit there intact. Only my precious journals burn.
I stare up at the two notebooks still in midair, watching page after page blacken and char, scorched bits flaking off and fluttering to the floor.
In the distance, I can hear another woman saying, “You smell something?”
Her companion replies, “Probably just Juliette burning another spell.”
My cheeks are wet. I didn’t even realize I was crying. “Why are you doing this?” I say to Memnon. My life was already a dumpster fire before he entered it. “Not even my queen gets away with ruining my life.”
I feel myself shaking, though everything else in me is disturbingly calm.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
I really do.
A muscle in his jaw jumps, but his eyes look confident, certain. “Only because you cannot remember that you once loved me,” he says.
Does he not see? He is standing in my room, ruining my life, and breaking my heart, and he thinks some lifetime thousands of years ago matters to me?
“Fuck the past, and fuck you.” There is so much more bottled up in me, so many emotions I can’t put words to.
Memnon must feel them churning inside me through our bond because he says, “Do you think this is the worst I can do, little witch?” His eyes are sharp as knives. “I have watered entire fields with the blood of men I’ve killed. This is the least of my vengeance.”
His eyes flick to what’s left of my two journals that hover in the air.
“Let’s see how well you fare without your precious books. You have until the Samhain Ball.”
I have until the Samhain Ball to what? Beg some more? Come groveling his way? Whatever he wants, hell will freeze over before he gets it.
“You made a mistake crossing me.” The words come from deep within me, my power swirling out of me as I speak.
The look Memnon gives me blazes with satisfaction. “There’s my queen.”
I grimace at him. “I would rather spend a thousand lifetimes forgetting my past than spend one remembering yours.”
I think I might’ve imagined it, but I swear I saw him flinch.
“You can rot, Memnon.”
He steps up to me, his eyes stormy. A muscle in his cheek clenches and unclenches. “Tough words, witch. Let’s see if you can stand by them.” He moves to the door, even as my notebooks continue to burn.
“I’ll see you at the Samhain Ball, Empress.”
And then he’s gone.
CHAPTER 38
It takes only a handful of minutes before the crackle of fire quiets.
Smoke drifts from the notebooks that now lie in scorched heaps on my shelves.
My levitating notebooks fall to the ground, disintegrating into ash when they hit the floorboards.
I make a small noise at the sight. I can still feel wetness on my cheeks, but I’m too determined to see what’s left of my journals to pay much attention to my emotions.