The Memory Puller (The Memory Puller Series Book 1)
The Memory Puller: Chapter 4

Cassandra closed the box and placed it atop her satchel in the damp grass. The Fae warrior before her was ferociously lethal, armed with both a dagger and stun pistol hanging at his hips. Though she thrilled at the few blows she’d managed to land, she was no match for him physically.

But there was a gentleness in his expressive, honey-brown eyes that she’d never found in the eyes of other Vestian Guards. He hadn’t explained his hesitation to arrest her, had looked away instead, as if trying to hide the truth within his gaze.

For some unfathomable reason, she felt safe enough to share her secret. Felt he might understand.

Years of viewing memories had given Cassandra a depth of insight into people’s thoughts and motivations. Her instincts about whom to trust had rarely been wrong. True, he was Fae, not human, but judging an individual based solely on species would make her no better than the intolerant humans and Fae that she, well, judged.

Cassandra never dwelt on her decisions. Once made, she plunged ahead fearlessly, consequences be damned. And since she’d decided, maybe foolishly, to trust this Fae male, she held nothing back.

“I didn’t steal the necklace for me. I’m planning to sell it and give the spoils to a young mother in the slums. Her husband died recently and she’s running out of money. She’s been visiting the Temple to sell her memories far too often. I’m afraid she may be one extraction away from obliviation.”

The Guard’s eyebrows raised at the mention of obliviation, the cruel result of excessive memory extractions that transformed a human into a mute, mindless shell.

“The payout from this necklace will guarantee her family’s future,” Cassandra said. “She’ll never have to visit the Temple again.”

She refused to look away as her confession spilled from her lips. Searched his face for any sign of condemnation or disgust. She found neither, only a hint of sympathy and, even more surprisingly, concern.

“Did you consider that this necklace belongs to someone else?” he asked.

“What of it? There are hundreds of jewels in that woman’s overstuffed closet. She’ll likely never even notice it’s gone.”

The Guard’s frown signaled he didn’t replace that likely at all.

“Even if she did, how is it fair that she and her husband can hoard this wealth when there are human families starving not miles from this street?”

“Dangerous things to be questioning, tiny thief,” he admonished, and Cassandra held her breath. Maybe she had been wrong about him. “But I admit I often replace myself wondering the same.”

Shock parted Cassandra’s lips, and the Guard’s gaze darted to her mouth as he lowered his wings. As if unable to bear the conversation’s heavy turn.

“I’m stunned you would admit that, especially to a human stranger,” she said.

He shrugged. “I replace your honesty refreshing. Especially after the lies you started with. Figured I could reward it with some of my own.”

“I can’t imagine there are many of your species who would agree.”

“You’d be surprised. The tensions between us are rising. Maybe not as bad as before the Accords, but close, if the stories I’ve heard of that time are true. There are enough of my kind who lived through those days and are not anxious to repeat them. Not to mention those of us who see your kind as more than cheap labor or the source of a quick fix.”

She gaped at him. Of course, she could sense the tensions. She’d seen gruesome sights lately within her supplicants’ extracted memories. Fae hunting humans, forcing them into non-consensual emotion feedings in flagrant violation of the Accords.

But to hear there were Fae who supported the mortal cause, believed human existence was worth preserving? A spark of hope kindled in her chest.

“Perhaps it is not our species that differentiate us, but our principles,” she pondered. “There are plenty of humans who would prefer to keep the balance of power in their favor by aligning themselves with the most vicious Fae.”

“Too true. The house you burgled tonight belongs to the Pagonis family, the most influential in Ethyrios. The husband, Alcander, is practically the Vicereine’s right hand. He’s depraved, selling out his own people to stay in the Empire’s good graces. If he discovers what you’ve done, he will bay for your blood, even over an inconsequential piece of jewelry. His kind don’t take lightly to other people touching their things.”

The color drained from Cassandra’s face. She’d heard rumors about Alcander Pagonis, whispers of the blood-soaked ways he’d earned his power, the trafficking dynasty he’d built to service the Fae’s basest needs at the expense of his own species. She’d known the manor’s owner had vast amounts of wealth and influence, but in her haste, she’d failed to put the pieces together. She hung her head, eyes stinging.

The Vestian lifted her chin with a graceful index finger. “Look, despite my occupation, I’m sympathetic that these noble actions have landed you in a heaping pile of shit. Your motives touch even my cold, black heart,” he said with a lopsided grin and a hand on his chest, the statement about his heart contradicted by his earlier confessions. “Lucky for you, I am also motivated to keep tonight a secret.”

“Why?”

“I pushed back on the Vicereine when she asked the Vestians to patrol Heronswood tonight. Told her it would be a waste of resources. She forced me to come anyway, alone, and threatened me with a month of sewer patrol if anything went wrong. A sticky-fingered Shrouded Sister robbing the home of Ethyrios’s most dangerous mortal was not how I saw my night playing out.

“So, tiny thief,” he continued with a rueful smile, “it seems you have landed us both in heaping piles of shit.”

“Then why are you grinning like that?” she shouted, incredulous, unable to figure out how he was so flippant when all she wanted to do was seize up in panic, curl into a ball, and let the consequences trample over her.

“Because I know how we can fix this,” he smirked, as if acknowledging a new co-conspirator. “In a way that allows you to achieve your plans for this necklace—which I hope you do, just to stick it to that Pagonis asshole—and gives me an untroubled conscience for not arresting you. Not to mention, spares me from lying to the Vicereine if she asks me to recall any criminal activity tonight.”

“Enlighten me, Birdman,” she deadpanned.

His raucous, infectious laughter bounced through the quiet night, and it took all her willpower to stifle her own. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Not yet.

His eyes glittered as he surveyed her face, then he leaned into her, the soft strands of his hair tickling her cheek. “Take the memory from me,” he whispered. Goosebumps shivered down her neck as his warm breath caressed her ear.

She jerked away. “You’re insane.”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest, staring at her with a calm smile on the tempting lips she was trying, and failing, not to gawk at.

“Are you afraid to try? Performance anxiety?” He flared his wings in a cocky taunt.

“No! It’s just—is it even possible?”

“It’s possible,” he said, melancholy dampening his mocking grin. “I’ve had them extracted before.”

Cassandra kept her voice level to mask her surprise. “When? And why?” In her eight years at the Temple, not a single Fae had graced her extraction chair.

The Guard stared down at a faint red scar bisecting his left palm.

“Some memories are meant to be forgotten,” he murmured, closing his hand before composing himself. “Besides, I don’t know you quite well enough yet to share my sob stories. And if you’re able to pull this off, soon I won’t know you at all.”

An unexpected pang of sadness crumpled Cassandra’s chest, as if something was ending before it had scarcely begun.

“Come on, Sister. Save us both from the piles of shit?”

She snorted a reluctant laugh—despite his swearing—and placed the jewelry box inside her satchel. “Alright. But we need to go somewhere else to perform the ritual. If you wake up here, you might be able to piece together what happened.”

“I’m flattered you think so highly of my investigative skills.” He aimed a smug smile at her, then, without warning, swept her into his arms and blasted into the sky.

Her stomach dropped to her ankles as the ground rushed away, and she bit her lip to muffle the involuntary scream that tore from her lungs. Squeezing her eyes shut as the wind ripped at her braid, she clutched her satchel against her chest, needing something, anything, to cling to other than the powerful male body cradling her. She hadn’t been in a male’s arms since her father had carried her around as a child. This was a much different, though hardly unpleasant, sensation.

“You’re missing the view,” he shouted over the rushing wind and his wings’ rhythmic flapping.

“I’m good!” she squeaked.

“Open your eyes, tiny thief,” he whispered. She squirmed at the heat of his lips so close to her cheek. “When are you ever going to be up this high again?”

She cracked open a cautious eye to replace him staring at her face.

“Gonna need to use them both to take it all in.” He flicked his chin towards the disorderly grid spreading out below them. “Look.”

She opened her other eye and her fear gave way to wonder. She’d never seen the city of Thalenn from any perspective other than street level.

“It looks so small from up here,” she marveled.

From Dienses Square, downtown Thalenn’s bustling central district, streets flowed in every direction and at all angles. Though most of the city was bathed in the soft, muted glow of flame-lit streetlamps, bursts of multicolored light from magically powered Fae signs peppered the darkness. The uncanny touches of modernity only made Thalenn’s squat brick buildings seem all the more antiquated. Certainly nothing like the glass and steel towers that dominated the continent’s gleaming, orderly metropolises.

Hard to believe that such a concentrated area could be home to so many, more than half of Ethyrios’s human population. Plus the smattering of Fae who lived here, both the colony officials and continental exiles.

Cassandra had never stepped foot out of the northern colonies, had barely been outside Thalenn proper, save for a few trips with her parents when she was younger. She wondered what it would be like to visit the other three islands of the colonies that housed the rest of Ethyrios’s humans, not to mention visiting the continent itself. Though it was extremely rare for a human to be granted that privilege.

How different had the world been before the Accords? Before the humans were forced to relinquish the continent to the Fae?

She gazed down at the rippling, inky waters of the Sea of Thetis splashing along Thalenn’s northern and eastern boundaries, then toward the Temple of Letha, the oldest, grandest structure in the city. The red-roofed Temple loomed atop a high hill on the western border, an ever-present reminder of the promises the humans had made to the Fae Empire.

In order to save their species from outright slavery or worse, extinction, the humans had abandoned their continental lands and agreed to sell their memories, the raw materials for Delirium. The liquid elixir replicated the high experienced by a Fae while feeding on a human’s emotions and was the most prized substance in Ethyrios. And the only thing keeping the peace between the two species for the past five centuries.

Cassandra’s political ruminations evaporated as the Guard banked, aiming for a dark, crooked street just inside the wide avenue that ringed Dienses Square.

Her stomach had calmed, and as the Guard touched down on the cobblestones, Cassandra was surprised to replace herself crestfallen that the flight was over. Flying was far more exhilarating than she’d expected. A small, wicked part of her insisted that the vehicle itself might have had something to do with her enjoyment.

He set her on her feet across the street from a sleepy tavern, a Fae-only establishment based on the sign’s harsh yellow glare and indecipherable symbols.

The Vestian nudged her toward a shadowy alcove underneath the awning of a clothing boutique long since shuttered for the night. “Wait here,” he whispered.

As he strode across the street, Cassandra smothered her rising anger that her kind was not welcome within the tavern. She watched through the window as his beautiful wings weaved through the sparse crowd of Fae.

He emerged a few moments later, gripping three bottles of silver liquid in his enormous hands.

He crossed the street to Cassandra, then twisted off the caps and handed her a bottle.

“Am I supposed to drink this?” she asked, cocking a skeptical eyebrow at the luminescent elixir.

“High Gods, no,” he laughed. “Have you had Delirium before?”

“Shrouded Sisters aren’t allowed to ingest intoxicating substances,” she said primly.

“And you always play by the rules.” His wink caused her insides to glow as brilliantly as the drink in her hand. “But in the case of Delirium, I’d agree with the order’s caution. It has interesting side effects for humans.”

“Like what?”

“The few humans I know who’ve tasted it say it’s like living a hundred lives at once. Like the memories inside the drink come alive and take over your mind and body.”

“That sounds…intense.”

“Indeed,” he answered. “Just pour it out. And scatter the bottles around me after. Hopefully this evidence will inspire me to assume my memory is gone for an entirely different reason.”

Both Cassandra and the Guard emptied the Delirium bottles into the street, and the glistening fluid flowed along the cobblestones into the sewer grate. Cassandra darted a wary glance towards the tavern, but no one was looking their way.

The Guard laid the empty bottles at his feet, then turned and knelt on the ground before her, flaring his wings to give her access between them. He tilted his head back, straining the muscles in his thick neck, and his teasing smile returned.

“Be gentle.”

She shook her head, laughing quietly. “Extracted memories need to be sealed in a vessel within thirty seconds of removal or they dissipate and are lost forever. I have nothing to contain this memory in, so once I pull it, it’s gone. Are you sure you want me to do this?” Cassandra asked, disturbed by her sudden, desperate wish for him to say no.

His honey-brown eyes bore into hers and she could’ve sworn she saw regret flash through them. He nodded solemnly.

“You’ll remember this night, tiny thief. When we see each other again, you choose whether to remind me or not.”

She pulled her hood over her head and stepped between his wings. With one final peek towards the tavern to ensure they lacked an audience, she lowered her voice to the dulcet tones she used with supplicants.

“Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” she whispered, watching his broad chest rise and fall. “That’s it. Now another. Focus on the memory you wish to sacrifice.”

The rhythm of his breathing slowed and steadied. She paired her index and middle fingers together, and as soon as she touched them to the warm, smooth skin of his temples, he grabbed her wrist, and his eyes snapped open.

“Wait. What’s your name?”

She angled her hood just enough to see his face. “What does it matter now?” she whisper-shouted, Temple-soft vocal inflections discarded.

“I need to know what to call you when you haunt my dreams,” he said, flashing her his widest, most charming smile yet.

Her annoyance melted away with a quiet chuckle. “You should be so lucky. It’s Cassandra.”

“Mine’s Tristan,” he responded in a low voice, even though she hadn’t asked. “It’s been a pleasure to know you, Cassandra.” Her stomach fluttered as he purred her name, rolling it off his tongue and savoring every syllable. “However briefly.”

They stared at each other for a beat too long before Cassandra cleared her throat and tugged her hood down. “Right. Let’s get on with it.” She repeated her instructions and his breathing deepened. Massaging his temples in slow circles, she chanted the words that would draw the memory out of his head and into her hands.

“Lui ganeth, lui cathona. Lui ganeth, lui cathona.” Out of body, out of mind. Words composed in an ancient Fae dialect.

The tingling memory crept up her fingers and gathered in her palms, cool and bubbly like fizzy water cascading over her fingertips. So different from human memories, which were warm and viscous like cupping a handful of heated honey without the stickiness.

She continued to chant until Tristan’s lips parted, releasing the long exhalation that signaled the ritual’s completion. Cassandra stepped back, holding the shimmering, pale-gold light between her palms.

Tristan’s eyes remained closed, and he swayed for a moment before collapsing onto his wings, hitting the ground at her feet with a heavy thud. The specks of light in her hands floated away, scattering in the night’s soft breeze.

Tristan’s breathing had slowed considerably, and he looked so peaceful—like a dark angel fallen from the skies. She leaned down to brush a strand of ebony hair off his forehead, drinking in his handsome face before securing her satchel and scurrying down the street.

After one final glance toward the unconscious Fae warrior sprawled on the sidewalk and gilded by the moonlight, Cassandra began her long walk back to the Temple and, hopefully, to the welcome oblivion of sleep.