“I’m pretty sure everyone hates needles,” Sophie argued, refusing to feel even the tiniest connection to Oralie.

“I suppose.” Oralie scowled at the sharp point for a beat before she lowered it toward her fingertip—and Sophie looked away until Oralie announced, “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 the emeralds on the collar. The one you’ve always said brings out the flecks of green in my eyes.”

He batted his lashes and Sophie had to smile.

But the real Oralie looked ready to cry.

And her projection seemed eager to smack him.

“You’re ridiculous,” she whisper-hissed, reaching up to make sure her hood still covered her circlet before glancing over her shoulder. The memory was too shadowy for Sophie to tell where they were, but the silence in the background made it seem like they were alone. “Tell me about Elysian, Kenric! And stellarlune! And anything else you’re investigating! You came to me for help, so let me help!”

“You already have, far more than you know,” he assured her. “Fintan was calmer with you there, and that allowed me to finally slip past his guard.”

“You breached his mind? Why?”

Kenric backed away, resuming his pacing. “The same reason I always breach someone’s mind—but I didn’t find the information I was looking for, in case you’re wondering. That’s probably good news, though. At least this mess is a little more contained than I’d feared. I just wish I could find the source of the leak.”

“I’m getting tired of your vagueness and riddles,” the projection of Oralie warned.

Sophie snorted. “Welcome to my world.”

“The truly strange thing is,” the real Oralie murmured, “I can’t recall any part of the conversation I apparently had with Fintan. And if the Washers erased it, there should be a second jewel in my cache—or this memory should start much earlier. I suppose it’s possible that Kenric washed it himself, but—”

“Kenric was a Washer?” Sophie interrupted.

“One of the best. It was often his job to wash the minds of the other Washers, to make sure they hadn’t inadvertently learned anything from their assignments—but he was under oath to never wash the mind of anyone on the Council, even if they asked him to. And I can’t see him breaking that vow—especially with me.”

“I can, if he thought he was protecting you,” Sophie argued.

“I suppose.” Oralie studied the tiny versions of herself and Kenric, who seemed to have entered into some sort of epic staring contest. “Actually, now that I think about it, there was another time when my mind felt like it does right now. I woke up in my sitting room, and Kenric was there with… someone. I can’t remember who—which is strange. I know we weren’t alone, but…” She rubbed the center of her forehead, like she was trying to massage the detail loose. “I also have no memory of letting them in. But I remember Kenric teasing me about drinking too much fizzleberry wine. And I had indulged in a second glass that night with dinner, so that seemed like a logical enough explanation at the time. But… I do also remember thinking that something about his smile felt off. I was just too tired to ask him about it. My head was so… fuzzy.” She frowned, rubbing her forehead harder. “I have that same fuzziness now. It’s like… trying to feel my way through fog, except there’s nothing on the other side, if that makes sense.”