Page 118 of Aïdes the Unseen
And somewhere—far away—Mara’s voice faded like a tide pulling out.
Irina…
I exhaled.
Then looked at Graven again.
“I need to keep going,” I said. “But you?—”
“I stay,” he interrupted. No hesitation.
Even the dog pressed up against my side again, as if to underline it.
The light beneath us brightened once more.
A name reclaimed.
A door opened.
The boundary held—just barely.
The light steadied, the blood stopped. I took another breath, not to ground myself but to let go. Weirdly, Mara reaching out had reminded me of the city, of the Annex, of my work—but also of reality, like this was some kind of fantasy.
I blew out another long breath.Let go, I reminded myself. Let go of logic, of resistance, of the instinct to just understand everything. I wasn’t a scientist here.
Correction, I didn’tneedto be a scientist here. Graven shifted next to me, moving so he was slightly behind, present but protective. The dog moved up to flank me on my other side, his lanky limbs as awkward as his head was noble.
Melinoë stood in the center, waiting so patiently I imagined she could wait an eternity if I needed it. Had waited.
“Will it hurt?” The quiet question escaped me. The pain wouldn’t stop me, but there were all kinds of pain.
“Some of it,” she answered in the same soft voice. I’d prefer honesty to lies, right?
Still, I hesitated. “Is it all true?”
“Truth is a prism. Memory is the light that passes through.”
“Great,” I muttered. “Cryptic me issohelpful.”
Yet, I still smiled, despite myself—literally. I was stillmeafter all, no matter what layers had been peeled back. I wasn’t lost.
Extending a hand, Melinoë said, “Come.”
No time like the present. Girding myself, I stepped forward and clasped her hand. I fully expected the floor to fall away. For the world to shatter. For everything to just spin wildly. Something.
Nothing broke, though the spiral shifted slightly, bending downward into a sloping stairway. It wasn’t just stone or air or dream, but all three at once.
We descended. The light changed as we moved. Amber to violet to the color of dawn before the sun began to stretch his arms upward. Each step was a pulse beneath my feet, a reminder of being touched by me before.
My fingers tightened on hers.
“Why don’t I remember being her?”Why don’t I remember being you? Being me?All three were the same, right?
Melinoë didn’t glance back at me. “Because your body wasn’t built to hold this essence. Your mind was never meant to carry this many lives at once. That’s why the forgetting was sacred. Necessary.”
“And now?”What aren’t you telling me?Even though I hadn’t said those words aloud, I suspected she heard them. Or maybe, since we were a “we,” she heard them or thought them herself.
Myself.
