His determination to leave receded like a chill in the blood when chased away by stiff drink. He leaned his forehead against the door in a state of indecision.
“Yes, in your current state of mind, I must appear the fiend in the night. I don’t mean to alarm you, Ian.”
He didn’t turn, yet he knew she’d come within a few feet of him. He could sense her nearness as her strange energy skittered along the hairs on his arms, his body again signaling a reaction that his mind couldn’t make sense of.
“We belong to a very old bloodline, my sister and I. And you,” she said. He heard the rustle of fabric, as if she’d shrugged. “Most refer to us as witches. Sorcerers. Conjurers. Wizards. And sometimes heretics.”
He’d been hit on the head harder than he knew. Perhaps he was still unconscious and lying in a hospital bed. This woman and her confabulations were a mere dream he’d yet to wake from.
“I wouldn’t share this with you if I didn’t believe you’d understand on some instinctual level, even in your current state of not knowing who you are. As for your missing memory, I wouldn’t even attempt to restore it if I thought you just another dull mortal.”
He spun around. “Why not?”
“They fear us. And the things we can do. Always so certain our motives are sinister and full of bloodlust. Isn’t that some of what you’re feeling right now?” Miss Blackwood took a step closer and held her hand out to reveal the gemstone once more. “It will require your cooperation, both heart and mind, for the transfer, but I can give you back your memory.”
The more she talked, the more it felt like his mind was reaching for a rope of understanding that was just out of grasp. Was it possible he lived in a world inhabited with magic, but the mind had lost all memory of such things? But that was absurd. Wasn’t it?
“Your watch, Ian. Remove it. Study the face. That’s no mortal tool. You’d know that simple truth without the benefit of remembering how the thing works.”
He opened the watch and the gears spun to life. A faint whirring sound started up, and on the inside of the watch’s cover, a sort of map appeared. He felt a brief tingle, light as a feather across his skin, as he held the gold. Why hadn’t it worked before? He snapped it shut. Fear made him want to run again from the room, run from the city. Yet where would he go? He knew no one. Counting the doctor, the policeman, and the nurse, his longest conversation with anyone that he could remember was with the woman standing before him. The one telling him she held his memories—his life—in her palm.
“What do I do?” he asked.
She held the orb to his lips and told him to hold it in his mouth but not to swallow. Not yet. He was willing, and yet a nagging doubt persisted. “How do I know it’s mine?”
Miss Blackwood pointed out the vein of gold shimmering along the orb’s surface, the deep lapis lazuli blue, and flecks of black visible with the aid of the sunlight coming through the windows. “The newest ones have a certain gleam to them,” she said. “Do you see how bright it shines? They tend to wear to a duller finish after a few months.”
He made a brief inspection of the stone, not really knowing what to believe about its sheen. Relying on some faith he did not recognize, he took the stone in his mouth, even as he trembled from fear that he would choke. The weight of the gem made him want to spit it out as the hard stone pressed against his tongue. Miss Blackwood rested her finger against his lips, perhaps knowing how his mouth rebelled. But soon his ears filled with the sound of a soft melody that calmed the trembling. She hummed the tune first, and then the words followed.
“Feel the weight upon your tongue. Breathe air and light into your lungs. Muscle, blood, and marrow bone. Accept this memory as your own. Remember all you’ve ever known.”
The room seemed to fade until it was just the two of them standing in a tunnel of darkness. No sound but her voice. No scent but her breath softly singing. When she finished, she nodded for him to go ahead. He swallowed the orb, feeling the hard sphere slide down his throat and graze the walls of his esophagus. It hit his stomach and he feared he’d made a deadly mistake. The thing knocked hard against his insides, and he doubled over, clutching his middle with both arms.
“Concentrate on making the memory dissolve.”
Ian closed his eyes and willed the thing sitting in his gut to return his life to him. Deep in the pit of his stomach, the pain softened until he could stand straight again without feeling like he was going to be sick. Vivid dreamlike scenes sparked in his mind. Images of arched doorways, men sleeping upright behind a rope, and crooked grins on dirty faces emerged, before they slipped away again in the mist.