She’d been his concubine. Who knows how many potions she’d willingly drunk for him? Who could say how they’d changed her?

Yet, he’d forced nothing upon her.

Merely set her on the path of choice.

A fluttering, high in the corner of the starry sky, caught her eye, at too great a distance to make out detail. She doubted anything was in his chamber at this hour by chance. Turning her back on the beaker, she moved to the edge of the bed and gazed up, waiting motionless for so long she froze solid again.

She’d heard their love had burned so fiercely there’d been nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. That they’d traveled the Great All together, spinning breathtaking new worlds.

She’d heard.

She had no memory of it. Nor did she want it. She wanted no part of him.

She knew who she was now, and that her past had indeed been stolen from her. It was enough.

As she shattered the coating of ice, the fluttering thing at the starry ceiling dove for her, its jewel-toned wings spreading in a wide brilliant span, bold and rich against the sleek black walls of the king’s boudoir.

The T’murra settled lightly, with a soft rustling of wings, on her left shoulder and began to peck playfully at the fur trim of her cloak.

Damn the bastard!

His idea of renewing a courtship, no doubt. Reminding her of their beginnings. Trying to seduce her into wanting to know more.

As the T’murra hooked its talons into the fabric of her cloak, they iced together, cracking only when she finally stirred herself to return to the beaker.

The sheaf of vellum now bore new words.

For the Light Court, the Cauldron of Forgetting

Because they are fools and will use it

For the Dark Court, the Elixir of Remembering

Because they are fearless and will choose it

She’d heard myths that such an elixir existed. It was claimed that even those who chose not to drink from the cauldron lost memories over the eons. The elixir allegedly cleared the cobwebs of disuse from the mind and restored each and every one to its proper time and place. It was said the ancient king drank it daily, refusing to yield even a single memory, and that this infinity of knowledge contributed to his fits of madness. Among the Fae, there were stories about everything, making it impossible to discern fable from fact. She’d never believed the elixir was real.

But she’d been wrong about many things.

She stared bitterly down at the beaker and its golden, misting contents, absently stroking the T’murra on her shoulder, which clucked as it began to nibble delicately at the lobe of her ear.

She’d been torn from her life as the mortal concubine, turned Fae then transformed into their queen. Why? Had someone groomed her to become the queen because she’d been deemed suitably malleable? And if she disappointed her groomer, would he simply erase her memory again? She’d had her memories stripped away, not once as she’d feared, sixty thousand years ago, but obviously multiple times, given how long ago she’d been the king’s concubine. Her very existence, everything she was, had been thieved from her, repeatedly. How many lifetimes had she lost? Only to be left priding herself on being the ruler of a race that was not even hers!

If she believed the king, Cruce had done this to her and she would never have left her lover of her own volition. If she believed the king, Cruce had forced her to write a note decrying the king as a monster, and if she drank from the beaker she would be in love with him again.

She didn’t want to be in love with him again.

Love had made her a Fae pawn, to be batted back and forth across their manipulative chessboard, damaged, altered, changed. Look—she’s a pawn! No, she’s a queen! Oh, wait she’s a pawn again! What say we make her a rook next?

And for what?

To end up here.

Alone. A woman whose existence had been so fractured by magic elixirs, she no longer knew who she was.

Narrowing her eyes, she studied the beaker.

She had no desire to accept anything the king offered. But if she didn’t drink it, she would spend the rest of her life—which might be considerably shorter than she’d expected if the Song of Making wasn’t found—as no more than she was right now, a bitter Fae queen who resented the mantle she carried, resented the very people she’d been appointed to rule. If the Earth died, she would die as that woman. Wondering. Never knowing.

She sighed. On her shoulder, the T’murra clucked with seeming sympathy.

“Zara,” she murmured.

The T’murra cocked its head and gave her a quizzical glance. “Awk! Zara,” it squawked, as if agreeing.

It had been Zara’s joy that had drawn the king to her. Her passion, her wildness and unrestrained immersion in everything she did. That, too, had been tucked within the memory in the mirror.

She’d never known such…buoyancy of being. Not that she could recall. She couldn’t even quite fathom it. Could only examine its weft and weave, a dispassionate observer. What good could lost memories of such feelings possibly do her? She was Fae now, capable of only shallow sensation. It might do no more than torment her with dim impressions of a life she could never feel again. Which was preferable—bitterness or an eternal sense of loss? Wouldn’t both result in bitterness?

The concubine had not wanted to be turned Fae. When a mortal became Fae it lost its soul.

Zara had prized her soul above all else. And now had none.

She picked up the beaker and turned it in her hand, this way and that, eyeing the golden contents, the iridescent mist seeping from the narrow mouth, analyzing pros and cons, incentive and disincentive, reaching an impasse every time.

In the end she turned off her mind and made the decision with what mild emotion was left to her.

She tipped the beaker to her lips and drank.

MAC

The eviction from my body is instantaneous.

The moment I hear myself speaking words I’m not saying and never would, I’m seized by the Sinsar Dubh’s gargantuan will, scraped from my body, and stuffed back into my box.

Never think me weak, the Sinsar Dubh purrs. I got you, babe. ALWAYS.

As it crams me into the cramped, dark interior and slams the lid, I think—bullshit! There is no secret compartment inside my body that I can be stuffed into!

Just like there never actually was a book, open or closed, inside me. The Sinsar Dubh painted two elaborate illusions for me, and did one hell of a sales job. I infused both illusions with my belief and was thereby imprisoned. Not by the Book.