“It’s gone,” she said. “I lost it.” Ian ran up to meet her as she spoke between sobs. “Your memory. The orb fell in the river. I tried to get it back, but I didn’t know where to look.” Her knees folded and she nearly collapsed.
“You’re all right. Calm down.” Ian put his arms around her and held her tight, helping her down the stairs. “Hob! Tea and warm clothes!”
The hearth elf hovered over Edwina as Ian lowered her gently onto the same chair he’d sat in when she’d helped him. Hob removed a fluff of cotton wadding from his inside pocket and set it in Edwina’s hand. He blew out a puff of breath and her sodden clothes dried instantly, restored to their previous condition, though her hand now held a sopping clump of wet cotton.
She sat up a little less bedraggled than before and thanked the elf, who ran off to get her a cup of tea.
When he’d gone, Sir Elvanfoot approached Edwina. “And what news of your sister?” he asked, still holding his son’s memory in his hand.
“I think I’ve lost her for good too,” she said and described her confrontation with Mary. “I told her she would hang for what she’d done, and then she dropped Ian’s memory in the river and escaped.” Though her clothes were now dry, she continued to tremble from the ordeal until Hob handed her a steaming cup of tea, which she drank in small sips between repeated apologies.
It was then Ian truly let it sink in what she’d said. His memories, all the missing pieces his hearth elf couldn’t restore, were gone. Lost in the river. Forever. All his most intimate experiences, his reflections on life and love, the thoughts he’d kept only to himself, were gone. What dreams and secret desires had he lost? What fears and regrets? Grudges? Ambitions? Who was he without the private interstices that once existed between the larger memories? It was almost too vast to consider, and yet he knew he was still himself, still capable of rekindling the better parts of the man he hoped he was.
Thoughts on his nature led him to wonder about George and how their fates had crossed on the path with Mary Blackwood. If the man’s memory was here, then he was out on the streets without his wits. He would know no one and remember nothing, not even his name. Ian saw the same worried thought surface in Sir Elvanfoot’s eyes as he peered at the orb in his hand, as though wondering how he would return a memory to a son who didn’t know who or what he was anymore.
“We won’t lose hope for George,” Ian said. “Not yet.” He recalled then what the innkeeper had said about George’s appearance. Disheveled, as though he’d been sleeping rough in the gutter. So he was out there somewhere. Surviving on instinct. “Mary may have taken the memories from his head, aye, but there’s more to it than that. Before Hob gave me back my past, there was a sort of recognition in my body of things that were familiar. I dinna know why, of course, only that I could feel if something resonated or not. That intuition was all I had to hold on to, even when I dinna remember the magic in me. It was almost like the body held on to its own experience of the mind’s memory, ye ken.”
“You think George may be feeling something similar?” Sir Elvanfoot allowed himself a moment of hope, holding the orb up for a second inspection.
“He’s out there,” Ian said. “I know he is. We just have to find him.”
“But how?” Edwina asked. “He could be anywhere.”
Ian inhaled, thinking about how he’d felt when he had no memory. “Nae, not anywhere,” he said. “He’ll stick to what he knows, even if it’s only subconsciously.” He snapped his fingers, getting an idea. “The road between the theaters. Lizzie said he walked the same path every night after his play ended.” He pulled out his watch, only this time he really did check the hour. “In his normal state, he’d be walking to her right now from the Belfry Theater. But what if his body held on to that memory and he’s been out there the whole time, walking that same path, even if he didn’t know why?”
“The Belfry is just down the road,” Edwina said.
“That’s where we need to be looking,” Ian said. “On the road between there and the Wilshire Music Hall in the East End.”
“I have a coach in the lane,” Sir Elvanfoot said and hurried for the front door.
The wizard summoned his carriage with a signal from a shrill whistle while Ian told Hob to follow on his own and out of sight. By the time Edwina had her shawl around her shoulders and the front door locked, the carriage horses clopped down the road with the sleepy-eyed coachman perched on his box. Ian did a double take at the driver in his top hat and tails, briefly suspicious he was one of Singh’s men, then gave up on the notion and climbed into the velvet-covered seat beside Edwina, while Sir Elvanfoot sat opposite.