The Memory Puller (The Memory Puller Series Book 1)
The Memory Puller: Chapter 24

Mistress Eklan’s rasping laughter bounded through the atrium as Cassandra headed to her nightly kitchen duty. In the many years they’d known each other, Cassandra had rarely heard the old woman laugh so heartily.

As Cassandra passed under the archway and into the kitchen, she caught a glimpse of iridescent black wings.

Tristan was holding court at the workbench, chopping herbs with a fresh, licorice-like scent that Cassandra didn’t recognize, surrounded by the old woman and her entire staff. Even the livvies drifted nearer, as if detecting his magnetic charisma through the mists of their oblivion.

Cassandra didn’t spy her mother; she must be off duty for the night or working elsewhere.

As Cassandra approached the group, Tristan zeroed in on her.

“Daredevil!” he cried out. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?”

Tristan laid down his knife and waved his hand, sending the chopped herbs dancing on a gentle breeze into a merrily bubbling pot on the stovetop behind him. He’d removed his jacket and was sporting a loose white cotton shirt with an apron around his waist. His sleeves were pushed up, exposing the sculpted perfection of his forearms.

“I was here first. Stalker.” His eyes sparkled, and he gave her a crooked grin, exposing that lickable dimple.

Mistress Eklan doubled over with laughter that dissolved into a coughing fit so violent that one of her staff had to hold her upright, rubbing her back as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Stalker!” Mistress Eklan choked out. “Good one, Tristan.”

“Thank you, Eugenia,” Tristan said, nodding towards the old woman.

So Mistress Eklan was on a first name basis with him already. Fabulous.

Cassandra curtsied before the kitchen stewardess, not allowing the sight of the dashing Windrider to disrupt her manners. “What can I do for you this evening, Mistress Eklan?”

“Tristan,” Mistress Eklan cooed, curling her knobby fingers around Tristan’s immense biceps and blinking up at him through non-existent eyelashes.

Was she…was she flirting with him?

Cassandra dipped her head, biting her lip to stop her spreading smile.

Mistress Eklan continued, “Cassandra here can barely do a thing around the kitchen, she’s almost completely useless. Maybe you can show her how to mince an onion?”

Fudge, fudge, fudge. Cassandra reined in the urge to throttle Mistress Eklan for revealing her name.

Tristan’s eyebrows flew up his forehead, and an emotion that looked dangerously like recognition flickered across his face.

“It would be my pleasure,” Tristan said, clasping the old woman’s fragile hand between his two massive paws.

Mistress Eklan giggled.

The kitchen stewardess gained control of herself, removed her hand from Tristan’s grasp, and clapped. “Alright, enough chit-chat and lolly-gagging! Back to work, everyone! Dinner starts in an hour. Chop, chop!”

Tristan and Cassandra were left alone at the workbench as the staff scattered to their stations, many throwing fawning glances his way.

“Well,” Tristan smirked. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Cassandra.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What would you like me to call you? Sandra? Cassie? Sandy? Those don’t dance off the tongue as deliciously as Cah-sanh-drrrah.”

The way he rolled the r had her wondering what else he could do with his tongue. Sweet Amatu, she wasn’t going to survive this encounter. She decided that a change of subject was the best course of action.

“Mistress Eklan’s full of it,” she said. “I’m not that bad.”

“Prove it, Cassandra.” He held out the knife and a yellow onion.

“Are you going to address me by name every time you open your mouth now?”

“It’s a lovely name. Still can’t figure out why you were hiding it from me.” He bit his lower lip and cocked his head. “But I’ll get to the bottom of it, Cassandra.”

She scoffed despite the icicle of fear that crystallized in her stomach, then snatched both the knife and the onion from his outstretched hands.

Cassandra placed the knife down and attempted to peel off the onion’s crinkling skin, struggling to break through the dried outer layer with her fingernails.

“What are you doing?” Tristan asked, horrified.

“Uh…peeling the onion?”

“Give me that.”

Cassandra glared at him and tossed the bulb. He picked up the knife in his left hand and sliced off the stem end, then flipped the onion over, placing the cut end down, and cleaved it in half through the root. He handed her a half then cupped his own and peeled back the outer layer, raising an eyebrow at her. A challenge.

“Yeah, yeah,” she conceded, tearing the skin from her half. “Your method is better. I’m not too proud to admit it.”

“Do I dare ask you to show me what you’d do next to mince this?”

“Why don’t you just demonstrate?”

He chuckled and laid the onion cut side down. “First, slice horizontally through the onion at even intervals, but don’t cut fully through the root. Then, make similarly spaced vertical cuts, like this.” His skillful hands executed the cuts quickly and precisely. “Last, slice down like so and voila! Minced onions.” He created a gust that carried the pieces into a metal bowl beside him. “Your turn.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “You make it look so easy,” she grumbled, struggling to perform the first horizontal cut. “How do you even know how to do this?”

“I’ve been on my own for two hundred years since I arrived in the colonies in my twenties. Seemed like a good idea to learn how to cook. The slop they serve in the mess hall was excellent motivation.”

Cassandra read between the lines of his answer, but still couldn’t stop herself from asking the question. “No lover or mate to take care of you that whole time?”

Tristan stopped slicing to peer at her. “Nothing long-term enough to result in home-cooked meals.” He returned his focus to his task. “You curious about my love life, friend?”

She didn’t know why she’d even asked. Well, she did, but now she felt foolish. “Just making polite conversation,” she mumbled as she continued to struggle with her onion.

He leaned in, dropping his voice to a whisper. “You seem to be overly curious about that sort of thing for someone who’s taken a vow of chastity. Did you always want to be a Shrouded Sister?”

“No.” The answer ripped out of her more forcefully than she’d intended. “I mean, I didn’t really have a choice.”

He hardened into a terrifying stillness, his knuckles whitening as he gripped his knife. “Are you being forced to stay here?”

“Mighty Anaemos, no!” she choked out. “Calm down, killer.” His grip on the knife loosened. “All I meant was, I was young when I joined the order and didn’t have any other options. The Sisters have taken care of me for the past eight years. I’d be dead or destitute without them, I’m sure of it.”

She took a deep breath, unsure of how to continue.

He waited patiently for her to speak. Didn’t push.

“I…I’m grateful for everything they’ve done for me, but I can’t… I know life is different outside these walls. Messy and dangerous and more. Sometimes I can’t help wanting the more.”

He surveyed her face for a beat too long, his expression inscrutable, before resuming his chopping. “My life before I came to the colonies was full of rules too. Not as overt as those of your order but no less suffocating. And there were consequences for stepping out of line.”

She wanted to pry, but his faraway look discouraged her. “What did you want to be when you were younger? Did you dream of coming to the colonies and rescuing helpless damsels from venomous Fae jerks?”

He chuckled, a comforting warmth returning to his golden-brown eyes. “You are far from a helpless damsel. But to answer your question, no. I wanted to be a chef.”

“You did not.”

“I’m serious! As a boy, I used to spend every free moment in the kitchen. Sauces were my specialty.” He winked at her.

“Not what I would have expected from a Vestian Guard,” she grinned.

“Seems that we’re both defying each other’s expectations, Daredevil,” he grinned back.

Her stomach fluttered at her nickname. She was worried he’d stop using it once he learned her real name. She’d never admit it to him, but she loved it.

She’d always thought of herself as a maverick, a rulebreaker, even if no one in the world saw her that way. The robes and tattoo allowed people to categorize and dismiss her, never recognizing the complex person underneath. But he’d seen through all that, even in the short time they’d known each other.

She glanced up at him, momentarily distracted by her thoughts and his easy smile, and sliced right into the pad of her thumb.

“Son of Stygios!” she cried, dropping the knife.

Tristan moved so fast with his Fae reflexes that she barely noticed. He lifted her hand towards his face and her pulse skyrocketed as she realized what he was about to do.

Tristan wrapped his lips around the pad of her thumb and sucked gently, his mouth warm and wet. The contrast between the softness of his tongue and the sharpness of his teeth made her knees buckle, and she had to grip the workbench to steady herself.

His lips curved in amusement, his eyes boring into hers as he sucked the wound dry. He flicked his tongue over the pad before pulling her thumb from his mouth and examining the cut.

“A mere flesh wound,” he smirked, stroking her palm. “I think you’ll survive. Although you do look rather flushed. Do you need to sit down?”

Bastard.

Cassandra snatched her hand away and held it against her chest, scanning the kitchen and relieved to replace not a soul looking their way. Everyone was absorbed in their own tasks. “I’m fine,” she whispered sharply.

He untucked his shirt to tear a small strip off the hem, revealing those mind-melting, V-shaped muscles at the edges of his waistband.

“Eyes up here, Sister. And give me back your hand.”

She scowled at him but complied, unable to deny the command in his voice.

He wrapped the torn cotton strip around her thumb, and a spot of red bloomed into the cloth before he tied it off. She could feel her pulse throbbing in the digit. And in other places she was trying to ignore.

Tristan gingerly plucked the knife away from her. “How about you stick to something less hazardous? I wouldn’t want you to lose all your fingers and become useless to the investigation. Funny that you’re so skilled at slicing up Deathstalkers but so shit at cutting onions.” He tossed her a sack of potatoes and a peeler. “Why don’t you peel these instead? Pass them to me as you finish, and I’ll do the chopping.”

Cassandra exhaled an irritated breath but didn’t object. She opened the sack of potatoes and began peeling. “So, are you helping in the kitchen to recapture your childhood dream? I would’ve thought you have more important things to do.”

“Just trying to earn my keep. Plus, it helps me relax after a stressful day.”

“And what was so stressful about your day?”

Tristan lowered his voice. “Cael and I went down to the Empress’s Lap after we left the library this morning. The Broker was exactly where you said he’d be, stuffed into that barrel.”

Cassandra swallowed. “What did you do with him?”

“Took his body and the barrel back to headquarters. The team there is examining both.”

“Did they replace anything in the barrel?” she managed to ask over her heart’s hammering. The rational part of her mind assured her the answer would be no since Opheron had already admitted to replaceing the necklace. But on the off chance that he’d been lying…

“Nothing substantial.” Relief washed over her. “But there were traces of Thalassium in the residue on the bottom.”

“What’s Thalassium?” she asked.

He leaned across the workbench, motioning for her to do the same. “It’s an extremely rare mineral, found only in a few locations throughout Ethyrios. And it also happens to be one of the base ingredients in Delirium. It stabilizes the mixture, keeps it from deteriorating before consumption. There’s a seam running beneath the mountains along the Dordenne River. Trophonios himself discovered it.”

“Why would there be traces of it in a bourbon barrel?”

“The High Gods only know,” Tristan shrugged. “Perhaps the barrel had been used to transport it before being refashioned for the booze business.”

Cassandra thought that unlikely and was beginning to worry about what object had shed those traces of Thalassium. But she wasn’t about to share her suspicions with a member of law enforcement. No matter how appreciatively he was regarding her.

Besides, traces of some rare mineral used in Delirium production appearing in that barrel weren’t concrete proof that the necklace was connected to her Sisters’ disappearances.

Were they?

“We should ask Xenia to look into it,” she said with a swipe of the peeler.

“Five steps ahead of you, Daredevil. She and Cael are at the library researching it as we speak.”

“Oh.” Cassandra didn’t know how she felt about the two of them being there alone together; she wasn’t sure the library would survive it. “What about the rest of the scene? Were there any traces of Opheron in the street outside the alley?”

“Nothing. The rain must’ve returned overnight and washed everything clean after he healed and dragged his sorry ass away.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you—when I stabbed him with the dagger, his wound didn’t close up right away. Why is that?”

“The traces of dragon-fire that linger on Typhon steel slow our healing powers. If you’d stabbed Opheron in the heart with that blade, you could’ve ended him for good.”

“Typhon steel is forged in dragon-fire? I thought that was a myth.”

“There are many uncomfortable realities of the continent that humans have falsely classified as myth.”

Cassandra shivered as monstrous visions from her father’s childhood stories crunched, ripped, and smashed their way through her mind. Her mother had been right to scold him.

She concentrated on peeling while her goosebumps faded. Then, tentatively, as if she were afraid of the answer, “Do you miss it? The continent?”

Tristan exhaled slowly, put down his knife and raised his head. A complicated mix of indecipherable emotions swirled across his handsome face.

“Sometimes I miss the powerful magic. Mine’s weaker here since the Fae are less concentrated. But I’ve lived in the colonies for far longer than I ever lived on the continent. There’s a brutal simplicity to life here that I appreciate. You have to work harder to achieve things. The payoffs are more rewarding.”

“Why did you leave in the first place?”

“That, Daredevil, is a story for another day.” His sad smile nicked her heart, and she noted that faded scar on his left hand as he picked up his knife and resumed chopping potatoes.

She felt an overwhelming urge to bring the light back to his eyes. “So what did you and Cael decide are our next steps?”

He chuckled. “As impressed as I am by your eagerness, I still need to clear your cooperation with the Vicereine. I’ll head over to see her tomorrow morning and ask her to alert the abbess as soon as possible. Based on everything we’ve learned, the two most urgent questions are one, where is Sister Kouris being held? Hopefully Cael was able to locate that pleasure house today. And two, which of the Broker’s clients was after the Delirium formula? And is that the reason Opheron killed him? I have an idea of how we can figure that out. I’ll need your help though.”

“You will?” she said, excited though apprehensive.

“Oh yes, Cassandra. I intend to use you as bait for Opheron. You’re going to pull his memories.”