Page 93 of The Princess of Portals

“We remember, Seven.”

I frowned, shaking my head. “Remember? Remember what?”

“Everything that we forgot,” Kato told me.

Oh. They’d once told me that they had no memories of their lives before the Blending. And now…now they did.

“He gave you your memories back? How?”

“The Remembrance Orb,” Kato said.

Oh. Wow. So when I’d released the spell in the orb, it hadn’t just brought back the Lost Spirits’ memories; it had brought back Kato’s and Conner’s memories too.

“You remember your lives before the Blending?”

Kato nodded. He should have been happy. Instead, his eyes were haunted.

“That bad, huh?”

Neither of them said anything. Oh, well…crap. That did not bode well. Not at all.

“Why did it take so long for you to remember?” I asked. “The Lost Spirits remembered everything right away, as soon as I opened the Remembrance Orb.”

“It’s a different situation. The Lost Spirits’ memories were ripped away from them, so their memories came back immediately. It took a bit longer for us because we chose to give up our memories. They were buried under many more layers of magic. That’s why we needed a little help to remember.” Kato tossed me the ball, the very same one he’d refused to give up before.

“What is it?”

“Something from our past,” Kato told me. “A fond memory. Seeing it again, along with the spell, made us remember after a while.”

I looked at the ball, then at them. “Why did you give up your memories?”

Neither of them said anything.

I was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Conner let out a humorless, deflated sound so unlike his usual laugh. “No, not really. But you deserve to know. This is about you too, Red.”

“About me? How are your memories about me?”

Conner and Kato exchanged heavy looks.

“We aren’t from Gaia,” Conner said. “We come from a realm called Rise.”

“Interesting name.”

“Rise is part of an alliance of realms: the League of Destiny.”

This wasn’t getting any better.

“And what does the League of Destiny want? Why did they send you to Gaia?”

Conner opened his mouth to speak, but a voice thundered in the library, cutting him off.

“No.”

I recognized that voice. It belonged to the Masked—Erador. It belonged to Erador. Funny that I knew his name but absolutely nothing else about him. Well, except that he was powerful enough to crack open the Monolith’s defenses.

“Now is not the time,” Erador’s voice intoned.