Bewitched

CHAPTER 37

When I enter my room, Memnon is already there, sprawled on my computer chair, wearing a shirt with some name-brand bourbon and too many rings to count, all while flipping through one of my notebooks.

I freeze.

“What are you doing here?” I say a little breathlessly. My stomach does a happy little flip at the sight of him, and I remember all over again just what the two of us did in this room less than a week ago.

The sorcerer glances up from my notebook, and his mouth curves into a sly, knowing smile. “I’m happy to see you too, est amage. Or would you prefer I called you mate?”

I release a shaky breath. He’s clearly already enjoying the hell out of my earlier admission. And I find I want to argue with him, even though I already conceded this point.

Nero pushes past me to rub against the sorcerer’s leg.

Memnon reaches down and gives my familiar a pet. “You asked to speak with me today,” he reminds me. “So here I am.”

Right. Right.

I close my door, then turn to face him once more. My heart beats fast as I take him in, from the top of his wavy hair to the bottom of his shit-kicking boots. Every line of him is violent and beautiful and intimidating and overbearing.

I’m bonded to that.

“Little witch,” Memnon says softly, and his eyes have gentled. “You don’t need to look so frightened.”

I exhale. He’s right. This is all going to be fi—

“I promise I only bite when you ask me to,” he adds.

A small semihysterical sound slips from my lips, and I take a step back.

I’m not ready for this conversation. I thought I might be, but I think I need more time.

Memnon puts up a hand. “Wait, Selene, fight me, curse me—well, maybe not that one—just please don’t run.”

I hesitate, unused to this side of Memnon. He’s being raw and vulnerable with me. I drop my book bag then and scrub my face with my hands.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what, Amage?”

I drop my hands and look at him. “Be a soul mate. Come to terms with the fact you’re it for me.”

Memnon sets my notebook aside. “You say that like this is a burden.” He shakes his head and stands, closing in on me. “This is what men kill and die for. What no amount of wealth can buy. Love. One that could set whole nations on fire.” He takes my chin then, giving me a look that’s as close to adoration as one can get. “You ca

This close to me, Memnon is hypnotic, compelling.

“It didn’t end well for you though,” I say.

“End…” he muses, dragging the word out on his lips. “An era ended. We did not.”

He’s looking at my lips now, and an ache starts up within me, one that only he can soothe.

“You threatened me,” I say. “And I know you must still be angry with me.”

“Oh, I am,” he agrees. “But I grow eager for my vengeance to be sated and for this era to end too. You and I, Empress, we are eternal.”

My magic is seeping out from my skin, as is his. The two twist and cur around us, the colors blending until a dusky purple remains.

I want to kiss him again—hell, I always want to kiss the man—but this feels too much like throwing myself off a cliff. I don’t know where I’m going to land or if I’m going to like it at all.

I pull away from Memnon, forcing my magic back inside me.

Memnon’s gaze moves over me, and he looks a little sad, but there’s also a lot of understanding in his eyes. “I keep forgetting how skittish you are in the begi

My brows draw together.

“When I found you in Rome,” he continues, “you were nervous around me too. But that changed, and it will again. Once you remember.”

“Remember?” I echo.

“Our past,” he says, backing away from me.

You give an ancient sorcerer a single crumb of hope, and he starts asking for the whole damn feast.

“That’s not possible,” I say.

“It’s not possible?” he repeats, lifting his brows. “If it weren’t possible, you wouldn’t be able to speak Latin or Sarmatian. You wouldn’t be able to read Greek or Aramaic or Demotic.”

What the hell is Demotic?

Memnon grabs my journal from my desk, and immediately, I tense. My mind and life are laid bare in those pages.

He flips to a particular page and turns the notebook to me. It’s full of writing crammed together in various colors, some of the text highlighted, some crossed out.

He points to a doodle I scribbled in the corner. “Do you see this?” he asks me.

What he’s referring to looks like nothing more than the crests of a wave, except on top of each crest blooms a three-petaled flower. It’s a strange design, clearly something I drew while I was zoning out.

Memnon lifts the sleeve of his shirt and points to one of his tattoos. “Those are the horns of a saiga on my arm.”

I take a step forward, momentarily transfixed. My drawing does look eerily similar to the artwork on his arm.

“This page is from three months ago,” he says. “You drew this before you ever saw me.”

My heart seems to stop at that. I can deny Memnon’s ravings but not my own records.

Could I really be this other woman?

Roxilana?

“I can show you more examples from your books if you’d like more proof,” he adds.

I narrow my gaze at him. “Just how many of my journals have you gone through?”

Those are private.

“You’re trying to change the subject, Roxi,” he says, snapping the notebook shut. “What I am telling you is that your memories have not been destroyed. They still exis;, they’re simply locked away. But, if you had the key to that lock, you could retrieve them all.”

My blood pounds between my ears.

Memnon glances at the journal he holds again. “These notebooks are so meticulous, so thorough. How important they must be,” he says, ru

The sorcerer’s eyes flick to the book bag at my feet, and the air thickens with his magic. The flap of my satchel flicks open, and my latest notebook slides out, lifting into the air.

“What are you doing?” I grab for it, but it slips like butter through my fingers.

Memnon catches my pla

“Seriously, Memnon, I need that back.” The Politia’s coming later today to look at these very journals.

I don’t want anyone pawing at them in the meantime—especially not Memnon.

Ignoring me, he sets my journal from the summer on my desk and opens my latest notebook before flipping through it.

“Oh, there’s a Samhain Witch’s Ball happening at the end of the week.” He reads the reminder like it’s a diary entry. “Sounds like fun.”

I fold my arms and force myself to chill out. “Are you done?” I ask. Whatever rise he wants to get out of me, he won’t get it.

“I can give you your memory back,” he says, not looking up from my notebook.

My breath catches at his words. It’s one thing to tell me that my lost memories exist; it’s another to tell me I can retrieve them.

“No one can give me that,” I finally say. I don’t even let myself ponder what life would be like with them back.

Now Memnon looks up from my journal, his smoky-amber eyes glinting. “My queen, I can.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“But don’t you? Aren’t you tired of not remembering? How much easier would life be if you didn’t always forget?”

He’s the devil in my ear, offering me the one thing I’m supposed to want. The thing I used to have, before my magic Awoke.

My memory.

I shake my head. “What you’re saying is impossible.”

“It’s actually quite simple. Your power is bound up in a curse—the one you placed on us both when you locked me in that tomb.”

I frown at him, not liking where this conversation is going. Nero must not either because he slinks over to the window and leaps out onto the bough of the tree outside, then prowls out of sight.

Memnon continues. “The Romans called it damnatio memoriae—to condemn from memory. To cast into oblivion. It was one of the worst fates you could inflict on a person of power.”

And this is where Memnon’s true purpose is coming into focus.

“If the curse is lifted, it’s not just my memory that returns, is it? You’ll be remembered too, won’t you?”

His eyes are alight with the first true stirrings of his power. “Yes,” he agrees. “My name and my kingdom will return to the historical record. I want the world to remember me. But”—and now he switches into Sarmatian—“my queen, more than even that, I want you to remember me. To remember us and our life. I ca

My heart aches at what he’s saying.

Assuming I am, by some strange magic and twist of fate, this Roxilana, then—

“Have you ever considered that I may better off not knowing the past?” I ask. “Perhaps some things are best left buried.”

Memnon holds my gaze, his own still glowing with his power. “I told you, Selene. Whatever made you curse me, we can work it out. We will work it out.”

I shake my head. “You say that like I’ve agreed to any of this.”

“You are under a curse, mate. One made by your own hand. Of course we will remove it—for my sake and yours. And then you will get your memories back, and we can resolve whatever came between us.”

I feel my ire stir, and for some reason, tears prick at my eyes. Why must everything come back to my memory loss? Why must others think fixing it is what I want most? Or that the loss of my memories is the sum of my identity? Why must they make me feel as though I am not enough as I am? Why can’t they see that my ambition, my heart, my fucking optimism—all the best parts of me—have been borne and shaped by my memory loss?

And I know Memnon doesn’t exactly hold those views—he’s made it clear he’s really only interested in the memories from our deep past—but he’s still willing to cleave away this part of me.

The truth is that I have never been more powerful than I am now. I am kinder, cleverer, and more authentic because of my memory loss. Not despite it.

I stare at Memnon for a long time.

“No,” I finally say.

Goddess, but that felt good. Cathartic, even.

He raises an eyebrow, watching me carefully with those simmering eyes of his.

I don’t bend.

I am a witch, descended from a line of witches who were persecuted for things others couldn’t understand. I am their legacy, and I will make them proud.