Page 39 of Accidentally Ever After
Once we were alone, he turned to me, his carefully maintained composure cracking. “Blake, I am so sorry. This is my father’s final attempt to separate us before the conjunction. I should have anticipated it.”
“It’s not your fault,” I assured him, reaching up to touch his face. “And it won’t work. I’ll go through their ritual, spend a day on Earth, and come straight back to you.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, distress evident in his voice. “The Unbinding Ritual doesn’t just temporarily suspend the bond. It erases all memory of it.”
I stared at him, stunned. “What?”
“For twenty-four hours, you will have no memory of the past two months,” he explained, his wings drooping. “You will remember everything up to the wedding, then nothing until you find yourself back on Earth. To your mind, no time will have passed.”
The implications hit me like a physical blow. “So I won’t remember you? Us? Everything we’ve shared?”
“Not during those twenty-four hours,” he confirmed, pain evident in his eyes. “The ritual creates a window of pure choice, untainted by experience or magical influence.”
“That’s not fair,” I protested. “How can I choose based on something I can’t remember?”
“That is precisely my father’s point,” Caelen said bitterly. “He believes that without the memory of our time together, you will have no reason to return.”
I paced the small courtyard, trying to process this new information. “So I’ll just… what? Wake up on Earth thinking I somehow got home after the catering job? Won’t I be confused about the missing time?”
“The ritual includes a temporary memory substitution,” he explained. “You’ll believe you simply returned home after the event and continued your normal life. Only when the twenty-four hours expire will your true memories return—if you have chosen to return to the fairy realm.”
“And if I don’t?”
His expression grew even more pained. “If you choose to remain in the mortal realm, your memories of this time will remain suppressed permanently. You will continue your human life believing these two months never happened.”
The cruelty of the arrangement took my breath away. “And you? What happens to you if I don’t come back?”
“I would retain all memories,” he said quietly. “And live with the knowledge that, given a true choice, you preferred your former life.”
I stopped pacing and moved to him, taking his hands firmly in mine. “Listen to me, Caelen. That’s not going to happen. I am coming back to you. I choose you—now, when I have all my memories, and I’ll choose you again when I don’t.”
“How can you be certain?” he asked, vulnerability evident in his voice. “Your life will be there, waiting for you. Your business, your friends, everything you missed. And you’ll have no memory of what we’ve shared to draw you back.”
I considered this, trying to think of a solution. “Can you leave me some kind of message? Something that will explain what’s happening?”
He shook his head. “The ritual prevents external influence. Any attempt to circumvent it would invalidate the test.”
“Then I’ll have to trust myself,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Trust that whatever drew me to you in the first place—whatever the matchmakers saw—exists independently of our shared memories.”
He didn’t look convinced. “My father has arranged for the portal to return you to your apartment in the mortal realm. You will simply wake there, believing you never left. What would possibly compel you to seek return to a realm you have no memory of visiting?”
It was a valid question, and one I didn’t have a good answer for. How would I, with no memory of the past two months, knowto look for a way back to the fairy realm? Why would I even want to?
“There has to be a way,” I insisted, unwilling to accept defeat. “Some loophole, some…”
A thought struck me suddenly. “The Festival of Lights. You said we had a convergence—that parts of us merged permanently.”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “The star essence created a permanent connection between us. Even in different realms, you would sense me on some level, though without your memories, you might not understand what you were feeling.”
“That’s it, then,” I said, hope rising. “I’ll feel the connection. It might not make sense to me, but I’ll feel something pulling me back to you.”
“Perhaps,” Caelen conceded, though he still looked doubtful. “But would it be enough to make you seek a way back to a place you don’t remember?”
I thought hard, trying to put myself in the position of my future memory-wiped self. What would make me believe in fairy realms? What would convince me to seek a way back to a place I had no memory of?
“The fairy circle,” I said suddenly. “In Richmond Park. That’s how I came here the first time, right? After the wedding?”
“Yes,” Caelen confirmed. “It’s one of the stable crossings between realms.”
