Page 42 of Mirror of Vanity

We turned, our hands clasped tightly, drawing strength from each other as we faced the looming presence of the Grimoire. Its ancient pages rustled with malevolent glee as if it relished the anguish it was about to inflict.

Garrick came up alongside us, his shoulders slumped under the weight of his own impending loss. The wind whipped his hair across his face, but it couldn’t hide the anguish etched into every line of his features. I knew that look all too well. It was the same devastation clawing at my heart.

A horrible thought entered my mind, one that made my blood run cold. What if it wasn’t Maci or demons that had erased Maggie’s memory of Garrick? What if it was this vile creature before us, twisting their love into hatred, forcing them to become enemies? The idea was like a knife to my gut.

The Grimoire stretched out its gnarled hand, the ancient parchment of its skin crackling with power. “Are you ready to give up a memory?” it rasped, its voice like the whisper of a thousand forgotten souls.

“Yes,” we muttered in unison, the single word heavy with the pain we didn’t want to acknowledge but were forced to bear. I squeezed Justice’s hand, trying to pour every ounce of my love and devotion into the touch. I wanted him to feel the depth of what I felt for him, to carry that warmth with him.

Beside us, Garrick squared his shoulders in grim determination. He was steeling himself to lose Maggie all over again, to watch the love they’d fought so hard for ripped away.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. But life rarely was, especially in a world where ancient magic and supernatural creatures held sway.

The Grimoire’s power crackled around us, the wind howling its glee, the pages rustling with a sinister purpose.

Then, with a blinding flash and searing pain, the world went dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

My mind swirled as if my memories were jumbled, desperate to stay with me. A cold brush of air rolled over me, and I shivered. My eyes fluttered open, and I lay there gasping for breath. Overhead, a thin veil of dust danced in the slivers of light that managed to sneak through high, arched windows, casting long shadows across the room.

I blinked against the dimness, my head throbbing with a hollowness that seemed to echo through my mind. Where was I? The last thing I remembered… No, there was nothing. Only a blank space where memories should have been.

As I pushed up from the cold stone floor, my gaze wandered the vast expanse of the room. Towering shelves loomed over me, stuffed with books whose leathery spines whispered secrets of ages past. Scrolls and maps spilled over the edges as if desperate to share their contents with anyone who dared listen. The air was thick with mildew and magic, a pungent reminder of the room’s ancient heritage.

“Justice,” I whispered, my voice cracking on the syllables. Silence was my only answer, the emptiness echoing in my chest like a hollow wound.

Tears streamed unchecked down my face, blurring my vision until the world was a wash of muted colors. I couldn’t stop seeing him in my mind’s eye. The tender curve of his smile, the way his strong arms felt wrapped around me, the adoration that shone in his eyes when he looked at me. The Grimoire hadn’t stolen those memories, and I clung to them like a lifeline, terrified they might be all I had left of him.

What if the Grimoire had taken Justice’s memories of me, though? The thought was a vicious twist of the knife already embedded in my heart. The idea of him looking at me as an enemy again, all the love and trust we’d built erased, was a pain sharper than any hunter’s arrow.

I was a supernatural hunter, born and raised to see creatures like Justice as nothing more than targets. He was a vampire, one of the beings I’d been trained to destroy without mercy. We’d defied every rule, every expectation, to find love in each other’s arms. Now, with a single cruel act, the Grimoire might have undone it all, leaving us stranded on opposite sides of an ancient divide.

Instinctively, I reached for my bow, seeking the comfort of its familiar weight. Yet, as my fingers closed around the riser, a jolt of wrongness surged through me. The bow felt alien in my grip, the curve strange and unfamiliar, like a word on the tip of my tongue I couldn’t quite remember.

With rising panic, I snatched an arrow from my quiver and nocked it to the string with trembling hands. The motions were clumsy, uncoordinated, lacking the fluid grace of years of practice. The head of the arrow wavered, refusing to find its mark, and a cold realization settled in my gut.

The Grimoire had stolen my memories of hunting. The skills I’d honed since childhood, the instincts that kept me alive in a world full of supernatural threats, had been stripped away, leaving me defenseless.

I couldn’t even remember who taught me those skills, but something told me someone had. I couldn’t remember a single hunt I’d been on. It was as if a void had replaced those memories.

“Shit,” I whispered, my voice high and thin with dawning horror. “I’m so screwed.”

I was a hunter who couldn’t hunt, a warrior without her weapons. In a world where danger lurked in every shadow, where the things that went bump in the night saw my kind as mortal enemies, I was a sitting duck.

And if Justice no longer remembered me, if I was only another hunter to him now… The thought of facing him like this, helpless and heartsick, was a nightmare I couldn’t bear.

A broken sob tore from my throat as I sank to my knees on the cold marble floor, the bow falling from my nerveless fingers. The Grimoire had taken everything from me. My love, my purpose, my sense of self.

I didn’t know how I could possibly go on, but some stubborn spark in me refused to surrender. I would find a way to get my memories back, to make Justice remember me if I had to. I would relearn every skill, every strategy, every secret of the hunt.

I was a survivor. If it took my last breath, I would find a way to remember those skills, even if I had to learn them all over again. My memories were gone, but not my determination.

I drew a shaky breath, picked up my bow, and swung it over my shoulder. I put the arrow back in the quiver. If the bogeyman jumped out at me, I had no way to defend myself. Maybe try to stab it with an arrow, but then I’d have to be close up and personal.

My arm burned, and I pushed my shirt up to look. I had a rose tattoo. I couldn’t remember getting it or why it was burning. Whatever that meant, it was bad. Was it infected?

I tugged my sleeve down and glanced at my surroundings. To my left, a massive globe of the otherworld spun gently in its stand, the lands of the Unseelie and beyond painted in dark hues and gilded scripts. The ceiling was a mosaic of dark stone inlaid with crystals that glimmered like distant stars, casting a soft, eerie glow.

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