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Annoyance cut through the numbness—thin, brief, already dulling. Or just exhaustion at being summoned like a dog.

“Then he should have come himself,” I said, still staring at the fog, “instead of sending servants to relay commands as though I’m some errand boy who can’t be trusted with direct orders.”

Silence.

I did not look back.

“I . . . yes, sir.” Her voice had shrunk to almost nothing. “I will inform him.”

The door closed softly.

For a moment—only a moment—something stirred. The urge to call her back. To apologize. To explain that the words had come out wrong, that I had not meant⁠—

The feeling dissolved before it could take shape.

She was only a servant. Why should it matter if I had been cruel?

The pendant answered with a pulse of cold against my sternum, steady and patient, as though it had always lived there.

Lily.

I tried to picture her.

Red hair. I was certain of that. Copper catching lamplight. Or had it been brown? Had I invented the copper? Eyes that had looked at me like I mattered—but what color? Green? Grey? Something warmer? The more I reached, the faster she dissolved.

What had her voice sounded like?

The question opened a pit inside my chest.

I was forgetting her.

Not just details. Her. The shape of her. The sound of her. The way she’d made me believe magic wasn’t something to be ashamed of.

Fight it. Remember. You must.

The effort became impossible as the pendant pulsed, numbness flooding in behind it. It dulled the panic, smoothing the sharp edges until even the loss dimmed.

Perhaps forgetting would hurt less. Perhaps that was the point. Letting go would hurt less than this constant reaching for something that kept slipping further away.

“August.”

Elias stood in the doorway.

I turned. “Father.”

He regarded me with the calm, assessing interest one might devote to an instrument of uncertain reliability.

“The maid reports that you were . . . unpleasant.”

“I was interrupted.”

“She was conveying my orders.” He crossed the room, keeping the careful distance he always maintained. Always watching for signs I might break free of the pendant’s control. “You’ve been difficult lately. Snapping at staff. Neglecting meals. Standing at windows as though you expect the glass to break.”

“I have been thinking.”

“About?”

Lily. About the way her face was dissolving in my mind. About the possibility that I am already gone and only the shell remains.