Page 38 of Stolen Magic

The pieces felt fragmented, the details vague—flickers of a pressed flower, a lullaby, the voice of a goose girl that felt hauntingly familiar. They seemed real, like memories I’d lived. But whenever I reached for them, they frayed at the edges. Thedetails blurred the closer I drew, like sunlight catching dust on glass—there, but impossible to grasp. Every time I tried to follow one of the threads to its end, my mind veered away.

Why couldn’t I remember clearly? Worse, why did it feel like something was missing?

My gaze drifted back to the woman lying in the bed. Gwen, the fiancée I’d hoped would be different from the court’s endless masks—so far she still felt like a stranger wearing the shape of someone I should already know. Every time I thought I was finally catching a glimpse beneath the veneer, she withdrew. Despite her reticence, I still found myself wishing I could have more deep conversations with her and come to better know her, wondering what it would be like to fully open up to each other, to take the first steps of our lifetime together.

Her breathing suddenly hitched, piercing the silence and pulling me from my musing. “No—Mama, don’t—run—” Her voice cracked and her body twitched, her fingers clawing weakly at the sheets as her eyes flew open, unseeing. “Please—don’t take her—please.” The final word escaped around a sob.

She bolted upright with a gasp. I moved instantly, abandoning my chair to steady her. I sat on the edge of the bed and gently took hold of her trembling shoulders. “It’s alright, Gwen. You were only dreaming.”

She shook her head, eyes wild. “No, not a dream. It was real. Mama. She’s—” A sob wrenched from her throat, swallowing the remainder of her quivering words.

“It’s alright,” I repeated softly. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

Her gaze snapped to mine, wide and unfocused. For one breathless moment she looked truly afraid—not of whatever vision had haunted her sleep, but ofme. But as quickly as the confusion settled over her, it softened into relief.

She slumped back onto the pillow, turning her face away, as if ashamed of her outburst. “I’m fine.” Her voice trembled, exposing the cracks beneath her fragile composure.

I kept hold of her hand and shifted closer. “Do you remember what happened? You suddenly fainted, then in your sleep you called for your mother.”

“Mother…” With a whimper her body sagged forward, curling against my chest, the sudden intimacy a contrast to her usual carefully guarded distance.

She leaned into me, trembling and quiet. I hesitated only a moment before wrapping my arms around her and holding her close. She stiffened, as if to pull away in protest, but quickly surrendered with a weary sigh. In my arms, she seemed so weak and vulnerable, nothing like the poised, confident woman I was slowly coming to know.

My hand moved in slow, absent circles along the small of her back, instinct guiding each motion. She melted further into me with another sigh, enveloping me in warmth, her weight soft and trusting against my chest. Her hair brushed against my chin—fragrant and familiar.

Lilacs?I stilled, my fingers halting mid-circle. I’d meant to show her the lilac hedges during our first garden stroll after her arrival, where I’d planned to give her the fleur-de-lis pendant I’d carved. Hadn’t I planned on that being our first courtship outing?

My brow furrowed. I couldn’t remember walking with her in the gardens…and yet the thought lingered like an echo, as if I’d lived it once but misplaced the memory.

A soft murmur interrupted the questions that seemed to have no answers. “You're holding me.” Afraid the closeness was unwelcome, I began to pull away, but she pressed herself closer. “No, please. It’s been far too long since anyone held me. Not since…”

Her voice trailed off, but her arms came around me, returning the embrace. My own instinctively tightened around her in response. “Is that alright?” I asked softly.

Her rapid breath brushed the hollow of my throat as she laughed. “I’m just surprised. First it was holding hands, now you’re holding me. But I suppose this is the next step. For all my intentions, our relationship seems to be progressing beyond my control.”

I stilled, confusion clouding my thoughts. “We’ve…held hands?”

She nodded against me. “Just before I fainted.”

I searched my mind for any hint of recollection, but nothing surfaced. The harder I tried, the more the edges of my thoughts frayed. A dull pressure built behind my eyes. “I don’t remember that,” I admitted carefully, feeling increasingly troubled. Why did it seem that all the details of my time with my fiancée were murky or uncertain, rather than bright and clear?

Her fingers curled around my tunic as she tensed. “Perhaps…it was from my dream.”

A dream that had turned into a nightmare, not an encouraging sign for our courtship. That discouraging thought aside, the explanation should have satisfied me, but something about it felt wrong, though I couldn’t pinpoint what.

Deep down, I sensed this wasn’t our first shared intimacy; we had crossed the delicate line between acquaintances and the beginning of becoming a couple once before—not in letters or polite dances, but in something quiet and real. I couldn’t recall the scene itself, only the feeling of growing closeness, the sense that reaching for her hand had once been the natural progression in a quiet, shared moment as our hearts slowly began to open to each other.

Now it almost felt like a betrayal, as if I’d skipped a step, borrowing a moment that didn’t belong to us—at least notthisversion of us. Though the thought was irrational, the strange feeling still tugged at me. I was almost certain I hadn’t held her like this before. It didn’t feel like a missing page in our story…but an entirely rewritten one.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I shouldn’t have touched you without?—”

“No.” She lifted her gaze, her usual hardness softened into something new I couldn’t name. “You’ve done nothing wrong. If anyone has, it’s me.” She heaved another sigh, more resigned than the last. I pulled back to better study her face, the flickering candlelight highlighting the regret and fatigue etched in each line.

I hesitated to break the reverent stillness that had settled around us, but as much as I longed to remain in this moment, something about her behavior was too uncharacteristic to ignore. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

She didn’t immediately respond before she eventually nodded with a shuddering breath, but the tremble in her body as she leaned against me left me unconvinced.

“You were calling for your mother,” I reminded her gently. “Are you concerned for her?” I hoped that encouraging her to talk of her family might help her to process her emotions, as well as giving me a better understanding of the woman I planned to marry.

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