“But I have to protect you, Flora.” He squeezed my hand. “You’re my best friend, and that’s what best friends do.”
“Mom and Dad will protect me.” My mouth just kept moving without my permission, saying things before I could process the reaction. “I don’t want to forget you, Kai.”
He sighed. “I know. But I’ll make you remember one day.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Dad says it might be a while. We have to go hide in a new kingdom.” The way his lips twisted to the side told me how he felt about that.
“A new kingdom?” I repeated.
“Yeah.”
“So you’re leaving me?”
“I have to, Flora. The bad fae are getting too close.” He finally looked at me, his eyes misted with tears. “I don’t want to go, but Dad says it’s the only way to be safe.”
“What about me?” I asked, my voice small.
He reached over to place his hand over my heart. “I’ll always be here, Flora. ’Cause of the bond.”
I felt the connection pulsate in response, the strand tying us together as one. It tingled a little, warming my skin. “You’re my best friend, Kai.”
“I know,” he whispered. “You’re mine, too, Flora. I’m sorry you won’t remember me.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I replied softly, his sadness weaving an inky sensation through our link. It wrapped around me like a cloak of despair, his eyes clouding over as magic sprang to life between us. “What are you…?”
“I have to,” he said, his throat working as foreign energy slithered across my skin. “Dad said we have to leave tonight.”
“But you didn’t…?” I trailed off, not remembering what I wanted to say. The snakelike sensation writhed through me,confusing my intentions and my mind. I couldn’t tell reality from fiction, memory from trickery.
Was this all part of the game in my mind?
Zakkai, I recalled, thinking of the blinking lights and the web of power he’d tossed over me.
But then an image of him as a young boy flashed again, his eyes filled with tears as his father grabbed him by the shoulders and told him to be a man and finish it. Zakkai shook his head, refusing to lose his only friend. He kept saying he couldn’t do it, that he couldn’t make me forget.
Everything went white.
Then black.
And I blinked my eyes open to see his bedroom once more.
Silk sheets caressed my skin, the hint of the ocean teasing my senses.
Memories flooded my thoughts of summer nights with Zakkai, playing beneath the stars. Growing flowers for him to collect. Building toy castles out of small rocks. Chasing each other in endless games of tag. Magical games of earth blending with Quandary skills.
The final night played through my mind. The night when he bit me three times, then spelled me to forget him. He’d put blocks in place so I wouldn’t sense him, but he could feel me… and the pain that had followed.
Zakkai hadn’t wanted to finish it, but his father made him. The little boy had collapsed to the ground on a scream, the agony unlike any I’d ever witnessed.
My parents had been concerned, but Laki had insisted his son was fine. “Rewriting the magic to cut her off and forcing her to forget requires the utmost discipline and skill. It hurts. But he’ll grow from the pain.” He’d held out a hand to Zakkai. “Let’s go.”
The young boy had looked at me with heartbreak in his eyes, his face wet from tears.
And then he’d vanished.
My chest ached with the memory, my mind conflicted on whether or not to believe it.Is it true?I demanded through our newly restored link.Is what you just showed me real?
