“I wish I'd had maps of the places I've left,” he murmured. “There are villages I barely remember anymore. I thought I'd remember them forever.” For the first time, I realized that wandering wasn’t an adventure to him—it was loss. “I can’t remember the last time someone expected me to return. That’s when I understood the curse wasn’t trying to make me lost—it was trying to make me forgotten.”
I was at a loss on how to respond to his tragic story, or how to cope with the urgent need growing within me to find a way to help him. “With such a devastating curse, why did you commission a tracking tart rather than a curse-breaking confection?”
His eyes widened. “Your magic is capable of baking something so powerful?”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid I specialize in granting heart’s desires, not breaking curses.”
He nodded, unsurprised. “I thought that might be the case.”
His disappointment unexpectedly tugged at a hidden part inside me. “Just because there isn’t a recipe in my current book doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. I could help you search for one?—”
He was already shaking his head. “Even if you found one, I couldn't accept another enchanted confection from you.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“Because of what it’ll cost you.”
I nearly scoffed. “Is this about me choosing to sacrifice my emotions?”
He frowned. The emotions that reached me through our connection made me want to immediately retreat from the topic. “I’m honestly baffled that you don’t understand how significant it is. Ever since the magic connected us, I’ve glimpsed fragments of what your life must be like; I don’t know how you endure it. This numbness isn’t living.”
A wave of defensiveness surged through me. I still didn’t understand why he—and Grandmother, for that matter—seemed to care more about my emotions than I did. If anything, the flood of feelings I’d experienced through our connection only confirmed I had made the correct choice to sacrifice them. Wonder, embarrassment, longing, regret…every one of them carried the potential to wound. While some of what I sensed through our bond was pleasant, the pain I recalled from my past far outweighed the delight.
I couldn’t help but briefly wonder whether it was a mistake to treat something others viewed as precious so callously…especially when I remembered the awe from this morning’s breathtaking sunrise, the wonder that had washed over me from the warmth of the dawn.
I hastily hid the memory away before it could take root, unwilling to examine anything that could persuade me from my chosen course. Unfortunately, I couldn’t conceal the falter in my resolve quickly enough before Gabe sensed it.
“Not all emotions are bad, Cecelia,” he said softly.
“They are if you can’t keep the precious ones.”
I returned my attention to breakfast, determined to end the conversation before he could continue dismantling my carefully constructed arguments. I took another bite of toast, scarcelyenjoying the sweet tartness of theberry jam spreading across my tongue.
Berries…something about them felt important. I stared at the rich crimson color, trying to grasp the recollection hovering just beyond my reach. There had been berries. Rain. A clearing. And…something else, something I felt certain should have mattered. Yet the harder I reached for it, the farther it seemed to slip away.
I glanced towards Gabe, troubled by the strange certainty that he possessed something I’d lost. His expression softened. “Are you remembering yesterday in the berry clearing?”
Something stirred, a sensation rather than a memory, the feeling that something precious had happened there. I didn’t remember, yet somehow I sensed that had been what my heart had been trying to piece together.
His eyes widened, and his expression transformed to something closer to grief. “You’ve really forgotten that moment we shared in the clearing?”
The question seemed to affect him far more deeply than it affected me. I frowned, trying once again to grasp whatever memory lingered beyond the fog.
“You laughed because I got trapped in a raspberry bush,” he prompted.
A faint image flickered at the edge of my thoughts before dissolving again. My heart stumbled strangely. “I…laughed?”
His smile appeared briefly. “Quite thoroughly.”
Each of his words stirred some faint recollection of what had been taken, something I vaguely remembered not wanting to sacrifice. The sensation reminded me of at a flour-dusted counter after a cookie jar had been removed; I could still see the outline where it had once rested, yet had no memory of its contents or sweetness, only the hollow absence left behind.
Part of me wanted to leave whatever had been lost forgotten, the other part longed to know what had once occupied that empty space. Yet my indecision seemed insignificant in the face of Gabe’s determination. He leaned forward in his seat, his dark eyes filled with an urgency that bordered on desperation.
“Let me help you remember. We foraged for berries,” he quietly began. “As we picked them, our hands kept touching.”
He reached across the table, his hand hovering briefly over mine before he cautiously but gently brushed my fingers with his own, as though a single touch might somehow restore what had been lost.
“I got tangled in the raspberry patch, and you laughed.” He swallowed. “You seemed…happy. I don’t understand how you thought such a beautiful moment was worth sacrificing.”
