The Memory Puller (The Memory Puller Series Book 1)
The Memory Puller: Chapter 5

The peal of the Temple’s first morning bells roused Cassandra from her fitful slumber far too early.

Last night, she’d climbed through the window to her quarters as a lavender glow kissed the edges of the awakening sky. She guessed it was past four in the morning, confirmed by the clock on her nightstand. It was the latest she’d ever returned from a mission, due to all the distractions.

Well, there was really just the one distraction.

One very tall, handsome, muscled distraction that had monopolized her thoughts during the long walk back to the Temple grounds.

Exhaustion weighing down her limbs, she crept into the modestly sized and sparsely furnished room she shared with her fellow Shrouded Sister and closest friend, Xenia Cirillo.

Two double beds framed the tall window at the back of the room, followed by two pine armoires containing everything in the world Cassandra and Xenia owned. Which was not much, given the Sisters’ stance on material possessions.

On Cassandra’s side, a door opened into a spacious bathing chamber with the one luxury the order allowed: a white marble bathtub that ran the entire length of one wall, sizable enough to fit four people. The two women shared it often, their sisterly bond suppressing any embarrassment they might have felt over seeing each other naked.

Branded into the exterior door, impossible to ignore, was the sigil of the Shrouded Sisters—the two stacked, wavy lines of the tattoo on every Sister’s right wrist encircled by the order’s code: Modesty. Chastity. Service. As if the High Gods, or at least Mother Superior, knew Cassandra and Xenia needed reminders of their vows before they exited their sanctuary.

Xenia slept like the dead, a trait Cassandra had long envied. And true to form, as Cassandra tip-toed into the room, Xenia snored softly, her tight blond curls splayed across her pillow.

While attempting to hide the pilfered necklace among her stash of stolen memories, Cassandra’s tired, clumsy hands dropped the velvet box and it clattered against the glowing, glass vials. Xenia barely stirred. Sucking in a wet, shuddering snore, Cassandra’s roommate flipped over and smacked her arm across her face.

Not that Cassandra worried about Xenia catching her in the act. Xenia was privy to all Cassandra’s questionable activities and even acted as an accomplice for the felonious endeavors. Who had been the original bad influence? Neither woman knew.

Xenia was a year older than Cassandra, already a novitiate when Cassandra and her mother had arrived at the Temple eight years ago, having nowhere else to turn. Xenia had taken Cassandra into her care, her cheerful energy coaxing Cassandra out of the hard shell she’d built around herself to survive the most difficult year of her life.

Xenia had shared everything she was learning with the timid, angry girl. When Cassandra had started showing an interest and some aptitude for the work of the Shrouded Sisters, Mother Superior had given in to the girls’ request that they room together. Cassandra was certain the abbess now regretted that kindness.

The two young women had been inseparable ever since.

Groaning into her pillow as the bells continued their melodious assault, Cassandra pulled the soft cotton blanket over her head.

Xenia ripped the blanket away with a dramatic flourish, and Cassandra yelped, exposed to the cool morning air.

“Wakey, wakey, snowflakey!” Xenia leapt onto the bed, jostling Cassandra between her long, skinny legs.

“Snowflakey?” Cassandra grumbled, pushing Xenia away as she sat up and ran a hand through her tangled hair. “That’s new.”

Xenia flopped down cross-legged at the foot of Cassandra’s bed, her voluminous flaxen mane rising in chaotic tufts. “It’s because you’re one-of-a-kind! And stone-cold. And it rhymed.”

Xenia’s emerald eyes glinted with coiled energy, like a spring poised to explode into another carefree day.

Cassandra chuckled despite herself, her irritation with Xenia’s silly wake-up call fading. Xenia was the only person who could disarm Cassandra so effectively, her boundless optimism a counterweight to Cassandra’s cynicism.

“What happened last night?” Xenia asked, wrapping a blond curl around her finger. “I waited up for you but must’ve passed out around one. You’re usually back before then. I was getting worried.”

“Yeah, I could hear the concern in your snores when I finally did get back.”

“For the last time, snowflakey, I do not snore!”

“My ears would beg to differ. Also, that nickname’s gotta go.”

“Whatever. You’re avoiding my question. Did you get what you were after?” Concern tightened Xenia’s typically wide-open features. Though Xenia never accompanied Cassandra during the robberies, at Cassandra’s insistence, she was no less invested in the outcomes.

“I did. But there were…complications. I got caught by a Vestian Guard.”

“Oh, shit!” Xenia raised a hand to her bow-shaped lips.

Xenia did not share Cassandra’s aversion to cursing, though her friend was careful in front of the other Sisters.

Given all the vulgarity Cassandra had seen and heard in extracted memories, her reluctance towards swearing might have seemed strange. But why ding her virtue with a swear word when there were far more appealing ways to tarnish it?

Cassandra was saving up for bigger sins.

The intimate, limb-tangling sins she’d witnessed in that titillating cache of purloined memories beneath her bed.

Her chastity vow didn’t expressly forbid watching.

“Wait,” Xenia said, eyebrows creasing in confusion. “If you’re sitting here right now, that means—Bloody Stygios, Cass, did you kill a Vestian? You are such a badass!”

“Of course not,” Cassandra chuckled, running a sphere-shaped golden pendant along the chain around her neck—a gift from her father before he’d died. Cassandra never wore it during her missions, for fear of losing it. She’d put it on the moment she’d returned last night. She guarded this only memento of her father fiercely. “Though it warms my heart that you believe me physically capable of such a thing.”

“You’re the strongest person I know. If anyone could take down one of those self-righteous, winged pricks, it’d be you. Was it male or female?”

Cassandra barked out a laugh. “Would the answer change your reaction?”

Xenia shook her head. “Never. I know your capacity for violence is gender-neutral.”

“The Guard was male,” Cassandra blurted, crossing her legs and facing Xenia. She’d been dying to tell her friend about the encounter, and had only waited until now due to her dogged exhaustion and unwillingness to disturb Xenia’s slumber the night before. “But he was different than any other Vestian I’ve ever met.”

“In what way?” Xenia asked.

“Well, as you can see, he didn’t harm or arrest me, even though he witnessed me breaking at least five of the Empire’s laws. And he had some unexpected opinions about relations between Fae and mortals. When I told him what I was planning to do, he…he didn’t balk. He encouraged me to go through with it.”

Cassandra drifted off and Xenia snapped her fingers. “Hello? Where’d you go, Cass? Let me guess. He was also gorgeous. And now you’re fantasizing about having a tryst with a sensitive Fae warrior.”

“What? No!” Cassandra protested. Too quickly, based on the knowing grin pulling at Xenia’s lips. “I mean, of course he was gorgeous. All Vestians are. But it doesn’t matter. You should’ve seen his face when he saw my tattoo and realized I was a Shrouded Sister!”

Both women shrieked with laughter, then Xenia’s hilarity sputtered as she grabbed Cassandra’s shoulders. “If he knows you’re a Shrouded Sister, he knows where to replace you. Maybe he let you go last night so he could arrest you in broad daylight, make a spectacle of you. And me! By the High Gods, do you think he knows I help you? That I pull your memories after? I can’t go to Tartarus. I look terrible in gray!”

Cassandra swept Xenia into her arms, trying not to chuckle at her friend’s priorities. “I would never let anything happen to you, Zee.” Cassandra rested her chin in Xenia’s unruly hair, the curly strands tickling her cheeks.

Cassandra was grateful for the risks Xenia took on her behalf, pulling all Cassandra’s memories of the planning and execution of her completed robberies. As a precaution, the only detail Cassandra shared was the specific night of each robbery, mainly so Xenia wouldn’t worry about where she was.

Xenia did not know what Cassandra was stealing, nor the intended victim, nor the recipient of the payout. And Xenia did not view the memories, letting them evaporate as soon as she pulled them from Cassandra’s mind.

Xenia did have to leave a few memories in place to ensure the continuation of their good works. The first was the initial conversation between Cassandra and Xenia when they’d come up with this plan.

The rest were Cassandra’s exchanges with the Broker, the mysterious and well-connected figure who ensured Cassandra got a fair price for the lifted treasures and that the goods couldn’t be traced back to her.

Xenia had no knowledge of that process other than it was taking place.

And Cassandra had orchestrated it so that she herself only needed two key pieces of information: where to drop the goods, which she concealed from herself by wrapping them beforehand, and where to pick up the drachas. Cassandra tallied robberies by counting the number of exchanges she could remember.

She and Xenia recognized and accepted the danger in their actions, and Anaemos spare them if they ever got caught or if Cassandra were ever obliviated. But they took comfort in knowing that many details of the crimes had dissolved along with Cassandra’s extracted memories.

Cassandra lifted Xenia’s tear-soaked face. “Besides, Tristan will never share what I’ve done with anyone.”

Xenia scoffed, pulling her face from Cassandra’s hands. “Tristan? Well, if he trusted you with his name, then certainly you can trust him with our lives.”

“That’s not what I meant, Zee. He made me pull his memory.”

“Oh, thank the High Gods!” Xenia fell back onto the bed with a melodramatic exhale.

Not the reaction Cassandra expected. “You’re not shocked? I had no idea we could pull memories from the Fae! Why did you never tell me?”

“You never asked.” Xenia shrugged.

“How did you even—”

The Temple bells clanged again, signaling quarter past the hour, and Xenia sprang from the bed. “To be continued. We’re going to be late for fitness training!” She rushed to her armoire to grab her black training attire, the same style as the attire Cassandra had worn last night.

And would be forced to wear again this morning, she realized with a sigh, since she’d not yet retrieved her other set from the laundry hall.

As she plucked the garments from the floor, Cassandra hoped the other Sisters wouldn’t notice how rumpled her thick leggings and skin-tight, long-sleeved shirt were.

At least the bulk of the stains were on her cloak, which she’d have time to wash before wearing again. She brought the cloak to her nose, and as she closed her eyes and inhaled, she caught a scent she hadn’t noticed until now.

An aroma of spicy woods filled her nostrils—like aged oak sprinkled with pepper.

Ancient and wild.

And newly familiar.

Perhaps she wouldn’t be washing the cloak after all.

Cassandra’s stomach rumbled as she and Xenia left the training ring, strolling beneath the path of honeysuckle-covered trellises connecting the Cloisters to the Temple.

Catching the thick, fruity scent of the trumpet-shaped flowers, Cassandra felt serene and settled despite her growing hunger and the sheen of sweat coating her skin.

This morning’s training, the Flow, consisted of a series of poses combined with deep breathing that quelled Cassandra’s racing thoughts and made her feel present in her body.

As vessels of the Goddess Letha, Shrouded Sisters were expected to keep their bodies healthy and high-functioning. As such, they followed a regimented fitness schedule—body-weight calisthenics four times a week, the Flow twice a week, and the seventh day at rest.

Whenever possible, Cassandra arranged her robberies on a night before the Flow, knowing she’d need the peace of mind provided by the slow, graceful movements and meditative atmosphere.

Falling behind the other Sisters to continue their interrupted conversation, Cassandra sidled up to Xenia, her head level with her friend’s chin. “How did you know we could pull memories from the Fae?”

Xenia kept her eyes on the path, whispering out of the corner of her mouth, “There’s this big room inside the Temple, full of these things called books? They come from all over Ethyrios. Maybe you’ve heard of them?”

Cassandra snickered, elbowing her friend. Of the two of them, Xenia was by far the more studious, spending nearly all her limited free time reading.

Whenever Cassandra couldn’t replace Xenia, the library was the first place she looked. Nine times out of ten, Cassandra discovered her friend sprawled across an armchair, her long, slender limbs draped over the sides, nose-deep in a thick tome.

Cassandra liked the idea of reading, but every time she cracked open a book, her mind took it as a challenge to distract her with the most out-of-the-blue thoughts it could conjure. She’d read the same sentence ten times before growing frustrated and giving up.

“Seriously though,” Xenia continued, “I’ve come across several accounts of Fae memory extractions, especially in the years just after the Accords went into effect. It was done as a punishment. A criminal would be brought to a Temple, and a Sister would extract all memories except for the crimes, forcing them into obliviation with nothing to recall for the rest of eternity but their own brutality.”

Cassandra shuddered. No one deserved such a fate.

Xenia shook her head, frizzy ponytail swaying, as if she could cast the gruesome image from her mind. “The only other examples I’ve found are when a Fae had experienced something so damaging that to leave the memory in place would’ve resulted in madness.”

Fantastic. So, Tristan was either a deranged criminal or just deranged. But if either were true, what would he have been doing serving among the Vestians in the colonies? And if the former were true, how had he de-obliviated himself?

Not that any of these questions mattered. It was unlikely she’d ever see him again. And even if she did, he wouldn’t remember her. Best to push the thoughts of him from her mind.

Thoughts of his wicked grins and intense stares. Thoughts of his breath against her ear, his strong arms cradling her during that too-brief flight. Thoughts of the way his tongue had caressed her name with such sensual promise.

“Wow, the Flow must’ve been harder than I thought,” Xenia said, breaking Cassandra’s trance. “You’re so shiny.”

“I’m fine,” Cassandra grumbled, wiping the gathering sweat from her hairline and picking up her pace. “Let’s just get to breakfast. I’m starving.”

Xenia rushed forward, looping an arm through Cassandra’s and raising a golden eyebrow. “I know what you’re hungry for, dirty birdy.”

Both women broke apart into a fit of giggles, earning sharp looks from the other Sisters. They continued arm-in-arm down the path, buttery sunlight caressing their skin as they walked between the trellises.

At barely half-past seven in the morning, Cassandra could tell by the few gentle gusts of heated air that today would be a scorcher. Glancing up to the azure sky, she spied not a hint of cloud to soften the sun’s glare.

Cassandra was grateful the buildings on the Temple grounds were blessed with Fae magic. Lights illuminated a dark room with the flick of a switch, water heated the instant it poured from a faucet, and spaces stayed blissfully cool or cozily warm regardless of the temperature outside.

Such comforts were rare in the colonies, a luxury only offered at the Temple, the homes in Heronswood, and a few Fae-run government buildings and establishments in downtown Thalenn.

Since the Accords, the continent had thrived while the colonies remained frozen in time—fashion, culture, and industry stuck decades behind their Fae overlords. The Empire insisted that the infrastructure of the colonies couldn’t support ever-present magic due to the limited concentration of Fae. But Cassandra often wondered if it wasn’t yet another excuse to keep the colonies dependent, to ensure the constant stream of memories continued to flow.

The two friends approached a grand sandstone facade, and Cassandra opened the heavy wooden door with a grunt. The Cloisters were divided into private living quarters for the Sisters on one side, common areas on the other.

Cassandra followed on Xenia’s heels as she stepped into the cavernous Great Room, a spartan yet cozy space crammed with whiskey-colored leather couches and armchairs arranged around low circular tables. In the corner, a towering stone fireplace patiently awaited cooler months.

Along one wide expanse of wall hung depictions of Ethyrios’s deities. The High Gods, each rendered in the image of their Fae descendants, monitored the room from three grand oil paintings: Anaemos with his mighty wings, Faurana with her claws and lioness tail, and Stygios with his serpent’s eyes, fangs, and forked tongue. Smaller charcoal sketches of the lesser Gods stood sentry below, their human features drawn in strokes of black and gray.

Avoiding the penetrating stares of the High Gods and weaving through the maze of seating, Cassandra followed Xenia through an arched opening into the dining hall. Two long oak tables, each large enough for twenty Sisters, spanned the bustling room.

The Sisters poured in, chattering in small groups. Though there were no official seating assignments, each Sister had claimed her own chair after eating three daily meals at the same tables for years.

Cassandra led the way to two chairs opposite each other at the far end of the table nearest the kitchen, which lay through another arched opening beyond the dining hall.

The two friends had purposefully positioned themselves as far as possible from Mother Superior, whose upholstered white chair loomed above the head of the other table. A throne fit for a queen compared to the simple wooden chairs the Sisters occupied. Cassandra had no doubt the Fae female had chosen it herself.

Once the Sisters settled, Mother Superior floated in from the atrium, shooting Cassandra and Xenia an assessing scowl.

The abbess was a Beastrunner, a descendant of Faurana the Mother, High Goddess of Land and Life. The Fae sub-species of mammalian bi-forms could switch between beast and humanoid at will.

A polar bear bi-form from the farthest northern reaches of Ethyrios, Mother Superior had led the Thalenn arm of the Shrouded Sisters for almost five centuries since the Accords had stipulated the order’s founding. She’d ruled for so long that none of the Sisters knew her real name, or if she even had one.

Despite the length of her reign, Mother Superior appeared scarcely older than Cassandra. She radiated an icy beauty, courtesy of her angular features, deep brown eyes that appeared black from a distance, and chin-length platinum hair, a stark contrast to her mahogany skin.

The lithe, graceful female barely tolerated her two youngest Sisters, and Cassandra suspected the abbess could scent her and Xenia’s frustrations with the order’s rules and traditions.

The Sisters fell silent and bowed their heads as Mother Superior’s navy-blue dress robes swished against the tiled floor. They knew better than to speak before the abbess allowed it. Cassandra scrutinized Mother Superior’s progress, searching for any sign of knowledge of Cassandra’s absence last night.

“Eyes down, Sister Fortin,” Mother Superior quietly commanded without glancing in Cassandra’s direction.

The abbess’s voice rarely rose above a whisper, and the Sisters often had to strain to hear her morning declarations. The Fae female never shouted or yelled or seemed unruffled in any way. Her muted stillness was utterly terrifying given the beast that prowled beneath her skin.

Cassandra sometimes wondered what would happen if Mother Superior discovered how often Cassandra left the Temple, not to mention her activities during those illicit freedoms. Probably morph into her polar bear form and eat Cassandra alive, Faurana save her.

“You should be reflecting upon your many blessings before we share this meal.” The way Mother Superior emphasized the word many informed Cassandra that her blessings could easily become few.

Bowing her head, Cassandra stared at her plate until she heard the scrape of Mother Superior’s chair followed by the abbess’s soft, singsong voice. “A rapturous morning to you all.”

As one, every Shrouded Sister lifted her head and turned toward the regal female now holding court.

“We begin the day, as we begin all days, with thanks to Letha, the Stranger, our guiding Goddess of Oblivion. May her will continue to run true within each Shrouded Sister. Praise Letha!”

“Praise Letha!” the Sisters responded in unison, each lifting a glass of water and drinking deeply.

Glasses clunked onto tables, and the room descended into silence as Mother Superior continued. “We must also beseech our High Gods, Anaemos, Faurana, and Stygios, to watch over Sister Kouris and protect her from harm as she walks the righteous path they have laid before her, whatever that may be.” The abbess closed her eyes, as if encouraging a moment of silence.

Sister Kouris, a lanky, middle-aged woman with a nervous disposition, had disappeared a week ago, failing to show up for training one morning. Since the Sisters could replace nothing amiss in Sister Kouris’s room, Mother Superior assumed the woman had abandoned the order. Desertions had occurred, though not often, throughout the years.

After the briefest of pauses, Mother Superior opened her eyes and proclaimed, “Now let us eat.”

Cassandra glanced toward Sister Kouris’s empty seat as dozens of pewter serving trays clattered onto the tables, placed by the obliviates, or livvies, who assisted in the kitchen.

Piling succulent berries, a steaming slice of eggs baked with tomato and onions, and a flaky pastry drenched in honey onto her plate, Cassandra said to Xenia, “Time for my morning story. Tell me something juicy from one of your books.”

Cassandra tore a chunk off her pastry and popped the sticky morsel into her mouth, chuckling at the raised eyebrows of their neighboring Sisters as her expressive friend whispered a bawdy tale.

“And then, he thrust his throbbing—” Xenia stopped cold and pulled herself upright, her green eyes falling to her plate of half-eaten food.

An ice-cold presence chilled Cassandra’s spine, and she turned in her chair to gaze up into the abbess’s placid face. Cassandra wondered if the female stalked as silently in her polar bear form.

“Sister Fortin, your kitchen duty begins tonight. Dinner service. For one week.” Mother Superior’s dark eyes widened, betraying a subtle hint of amusement as she reminded Cassandra of the punishment she’d earned due to her tardiness to last night’s evening meal. She’d lost track of time reviewing Mistress Pagonis’s memory in preparation for the robbery.

The irony was that Cassandra was never late. It was Xenia who was always showing up to training and shifts and meals just a few minutes after they’d started, too absorbed in one of her stories.

“Yes, Abbess,” Cassandra muttered, bowing her head deferentially, trying to hide her smile and stifle her excitement.

Cassandra didn’t want Mother Superior to realize that giving up her few unscheduled hours between shifts and dinner was no punishment at all, didn’t want the abbess to scent how much Cassandra loved helping in the kitchen. Despite her lack of skill in butchering meat, chopping vegetables, and stirring sauces, these tasks lent Cassandra the same peace she found during the Flow. The repetitive and purposeful motions soothed her active mind.

Mother Superior glided out of the room, her robes hissing in her wake.

Cassandra met Xenia’s sparkling green eyes with a broad grin. “Now, where were you? I think something piercing was about to happen.”

Xenia giggled and continued her raunchy story. And despite the niggling worries about the stolen necklace and the abbess’s reprimands, Cassandra lost herself in her friend’s exuberant descriptions.

Surely the greatest blessing in her life had been replaceing this fellow misfit.