forced myself to meet his eyes, and he looked… amused.
It was the first time he’d looked me in the eyes in days. My breath caught at the intensity of his stare.
Why did his gaze have so much power over me?
“You mean the kiss?” he asked.
“Yes.” My voice nearly got stuck in my throat. “That.”
“No.”
“What?” I startled.
“You heard me. No. I won’t take the potion.”
I froze, unsure what to say. In all the times I’d rehearsed this conversation in my mind, I’d never imagined he’d say no—and especially not so quickly.
I shook myself back into focus. “Why not?”
“Because it happened,” he said quickly. “And, memory potion or not, we can’t change that.”
“But we’re the only people who know. If we take memory potion, it’ll be like it never happened. And that would be easier—for all three of us.”
“What if I don’t want to forget?”
Confusion rushed through me. Confusion… and a small thrill of happiness.
No.
I couldn’t be happy about this. What we did was wrong. I wouldn’t let myself feel anything else.
“We agreed that Mira should never know,” I said.
“We did,” he agreed. “But just because Mira will never know, it doesn’t mean we have to never know.”
“Why does it matter?” I asked. “It meant nothing. The only reason you snapped out of it was because you thought I was Mira.”
“I never thought you were Mira.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “When we kissed, you thought about all the times you’d kissed Mira.”
“I never said that.” His brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
“Yes. You did.”
Silence for a few seconds as we stared each other down. Because I knew what had happened. He’d definitely said that he’d flashed back to all the times he’d kissed Mira—to all the memories they’d shared together.
Why claim otherwise?
“Fine,” he muttered. “If that’s what you want to think to feel better about it, then fine.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Doing what?”
“Being so… stubborn.”
He let out a small chuckle. “You’ve known me for months,” he said. “Haven’t you realized? I’m always stubborn.”
“You and Mira both,” I said.
“And you, too,” he said. “You’re the most determined, focused person I’ve ever met. Which, for the record, are nice ways of saying ‘stubborn.’”
My breath caught again, and I took a step back to get ahold of myself. “Then you should know that I’m determined to take this memory potion. I have to do it. For Mira.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said simply. “But fine. If it makes you happy, take the memory potion.”
“So… you’ll do it?” That was surprisingly easy.
“I won’t do it,” he said. “But I won’t stop you from doing it.”
I pressed my lips together. This wasn’t getting us anywhere.
“You should get the potion made as quickly as possible,” he said, and was it just me, or was there a twinge of pain in his voice? “It takes a few hours to brew, and we’re leaving for Ember in the morning.”
I stood there, confused. Because why did he want to remember that kiss? It couldn’t have meant anything to him.
Could it have?
I nearly asked, but I stopped myself.
“Good point,” I said instead. “Thanks.”
Without a glance back at him, I spun around, turned my key in the lock, and stepped into the Library’s ivory hall.
Hecate wasn’t there.
Figured. I sighed in frustration.
Although it was probably a good thing that Hecate wasn’t there, because in that particular moment, the only thing I wanted to know was why Ethan didn’t want to forget that kiss. And that would be a waste of a question, given that there were so many more important things we needed to know regarding what we were about to face.
I stepped through the door again, and entered Mira’s room.
She was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling while spinning a strand of her hair around her fingers.
She knew I was there, but she didn’t move.
I walked over to the bed, laid down next to her, and also stared at the ceiling. We stayed there like that for a few seconds, in the sort of comfortable silence that only happened with people you’d known your entire life.
“You seem happier,” she finally said.
“I do?”
“Yeah. You seem… less burdened. Which makes zero sense, given what we’re doing tomorrow.”
I let out a long breath and kept staring at the ceiling. Because she was right—it made no sense.
“Maybe I like having a goal again,” I said, trying to make sense of it by speaking it out loud. “We were in limbo before, not knowing what to do or where to go. Now, the