“All done.”
The cache was streaked with red when Sophie turned back—but nothing else had changed.
“There’s one final step,” Oralie explained. “Now it needs a password—and I actually have two, in case someone ever tried to force me to do this. One that opens the cache, and one that destroys it.”
“And you’re sure you know which is which?”
“Thankfully I made it easy for myself.” She leaned closer, her breath clouding the crystal as she whispered, “Fathdon.”
Sophie realized that was Councillor Kenric’s last name the same moment the cache flashed glaringly bright and she found herself squinting right at him—or rather, squinting at a small projection of him that was hovering above the glowing orb like a tiny Kenric apparition. A projection of Oralie stood facing him, both of them silhouetted in moonlight, wearing long silver capes with hoods covering their circlets.
“I knew Kenric would be a part of this,” the real Oralie murmured. “He always insisted on being involved in everything I did.”
“But he doesn’t look happy about it,” Sophie noted.
The projections were slightly blurry, and some of the details were a little off with their features, since Oralie didn’t have a photographic memory. But Sophie could still see the scowl on Kenric’s usually smiling face.
“For once, would you please just trust that I know what’s best?” he pleaded, knocking back his hood and tearing his hands through his vivid red hair.
“No! You don’t get to drag me into this and then not tell me what’s going on!” the projection of Oralie argued.
Kenric heaved a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. Your memory is going to be erased anyway.”
“Then that’s all the more reason to keep me informed! The record in my cache should be a complete account of what we’re up against, not whatever scattered pieces you feel like sharing. Otherwise, what use will it be if we need to reference it in the future?”
“Exactly!” Sophie said, hoping Kenric listened.
But his projection moved closer and reached for Oralie’s hand. “Please, Ora. I need you to trust me on this. Can you feel how serious I am when I tell you that it’s absolutely essential to keep everything about Elysian fragmented?”
The projection of Oralie frowned. “That’s not the word you had me ask Fintan about.”
“I know. And I can’t tell you what it means, so don’t ask. I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all, but… I always say too much when I’m with you.”
“And yet, here I stand, completely in the dark,” the projection of Oralie noted.
“Good. You’ll be safer that way.”
“Elysian doesn’t feel familiar,” the real Oralie murmured as the projection of Kenric started to pace.
“Is it a place?” Sophie asked, remembering the myths she’d read back in her old school about the Elysian Fields.
Often there were glimmers of truth behind the stories humans told—remnants from the days when the elves and humans still had a treaty between their worlds. Or pieces of the elves’ campaign of misinformation to make their existence sound too silly to be believed.
“I truly have no idea,” Oralie admitted. “All of this feels strangely… detached. It’s like I’m watching someone else’s life instead of my own. I always thought accessing a Forgotten Secret would be like recovering any other memory, and after a few moments my brain would find enough cues to sync it back into my mental timeline. But this doesn’t connect to anything.”
“Not even to stellarlune?”
Past Oralie must’ve been thinking the same thing, because her projection asked Kenric, “Does this Elysian thing have something to do with whatever stellarlune is?”
Kenric sighed. “I can’t tell you that, either.”
“You can and you will.” The tiny Oralie stalked forward, grabbing his wrist. “You don’t get to show up at my door in the middle of the night, beg me to go with you to see a former Councillor—who seemed particularly unstable, by the way—ask him over and over about whatever stellarlune is, even after I told you he wasn’t lying when he said he’d never heard of it, and then stand there, gray as a ghoul because you slipped and said something about this mysterious Elysian.”
Kenric let out a soft chuckle. “Gray as a ghoul. You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, Ora. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“Stop trying to distract me!”
“But I’m so good at it!” Kenric flashed a smug grin as he stepped closer—so close, the toes of their shoes touched. “I seem to remember you losing your train of thought twice the other day when I wore that gray jerkin with