“Oh good,” Amy mumbled. “You know, you left that part out when you explained this to me.”

“Same,” Sophie said, narrowing her eyes at Mr. Forkle.

Sandor added a goblin death glare from the doorway.

Mr. Forkle raised his hands, giving them all the universal What? gesture. “Does it change anything?”

Sophie and Sandor said “yes” at the same time that Amy said “no.”

“Seriously?” Sophie asked her.

Amy looked just as stunned by Sophie’s answer. “You really don’t want your memory back anymore?”

“I didn’t mean it changed anything for me,” Sophie clarified, earning a snort of protest from Sandor. “I still need to know what happened. But you don’t—and if it’s going to cause intense pain, why would you put yourself through that?”

Amy sat up to face her, probably trying to look strong and confident as she told Sophie, “We’ve been over this already.”

But the way she’d bent her legs crisscross-applesauce style made her look very, very young.

“Please, Amy,” Sophie whispered. “Don’t be so stubborn. Just let me go and—”

“No!” Amy caught Sophie’s wrist before Sophie could grab her home crystal, throw open the curtains they’d drawn to make the room feel more private, and leap far, far away. “I can handle a few minutes of pain, Sophie.”

“How do you know?” Sophie countered.

Amy shrugged. “I got through it the first time, didn’t I?”

“Not necessarily,” Sandor argued. “The Black Swan took this memory away for a reason.”

“The pain had nothing to do with that,” Mr. Forkle insisted. “Sparing you both the trauma was a bonus—not the necessity.”

“And what was the ‘necessity’?” Sandor demanded.

“That will be obvious once I return the memory,” Mr. Forkle told him, earning himself another vicious goblin glare.

“See?” Amy said to Sophie, as if they’d somehow solved everything.

Sophie shook her head, trying—and failing—to pull her wrist free from Amy’s death grip. “I don’t understand why you want to remember me hurting you.”

“Because that part doesn’t matter. It was an accident,” Amy reminded her.

“Not completely.” Fresh tears stung Sophie’s eyes as she scraped together the words for her confession. “I’ve had one flashback from that moment, and… it was of you begging me to stop whatever I was doing. I’m assuming that means I had some control over what was happening.”

“Wrong,” Mr. Forkle told her. “It was… an unanticipated chain reaction.”

“Yeah, well, that chain reaction had me make a six-year-old scream in pain,” Sophie snapped back, twisting her arm a different way and wondering if her sister had figured out how to channel strength when she lived with the elves because seriously—how was she so strong? “Everyone realizes that, right? Amy was just a kid.”

“So were you,” Mr. Forkle noted. “You were a terrified nine-year-old with no idea what was going on or how to stop it. In fact, you couldn’t stop it. So there was no fault in the situation. Just unfortunate happenstance that I wish I’d anticipated. Truthfully, if anyone’s to blame, it’s me for not being prepared or noticing what was going on until it was too late. So please stop taking that responsibility upon yourself, Miss Foster. You know the dangers that come with guilt.”

Sophie winced as her mind flashed to an image of Alden’s pale, lifeless face after his mind had shattered from his regrets over Prentice.

“You have nothing to feel guilty for,” Mr. Forkle assured her. “And I need you to start believing that, otherwise we can’t proceed any further—and you’re going to need the information in this memory for the decision you have ahead.”

“What decision?” Amy asked.

“One I can’t explain yet,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Not until your sister’s in a proper position to make it.”

“It’s a new power, though, right?” Sophie guessed, surprised at how calmly she could ask the question.

But it was the only explanation that made any sense.

In fact…

“I’m assuming I manifested another freakish ability that day and used the power to hurt Amy,” she admitted as the pieces of a nauseating theory snapped together. “So you and Livvy decided to reset my brain with limbium, and then discovered I was allergic to it and had to rush me to the hospital so the human doctors could save me. And then you took the memory away so I wouldn’t know what I was capable of and so Amy wouldn’t figure out that I wasn’t human. And now you’re going to make me relive it all so you can ask me to let you almost kill me again to turn that creepy ability back on.”

Stunned silence followed the outburst. And Sophie tried to use that shock to finally pull her wrist free from her sister’s death grip—but Amy held strong as she turned to Mr. Forkle and asked, “Is that what happened?”

“It’s… on the right track,” he admitted, causing Sophie’s queasiness to level up. “But it’s still wrong in several significant ways. So I urge you to keep an open mind, Miss Foster. I can tell that you think you already know what your decision will be once the choice is presented—but I assure you, it’s not as simple as you’re imagining—”

“Uh, it is if you’re going to do something that could kill her,” Amy interrupted, shaking Sophie’s arm until Sophie looked at her. “You’re not going to agree to that, are you?”

“She better not,” Sandor growled.

“And this is why I’m giving your memories back,” Mr. Forkle told them, “to avoid these kinds of hasty conclusions. For the record, no one will be asking anyone to put their life in serious danger, so can we please focus on what we’re here for?”

Sophie studied his face, searching for some clue to what was coming, but the ruckleberries made him impossible to read.

“Fine,” she said quietly. “But I still don’t agree with you dragging Amy into this. Haven’t we put her through enough?”

“You haven’t put me through anything,” Amy argued. “I mean it, Sophie. I’m never going to blame you for what happened.”

“Even if that’s true,” Sophie mumbled, torn between wanting to believe her and knowing how impossible it would be for Amy to keep that promise, “I’m sure this will end up being your most vivid memory of me—and I hate that, since it’s not like you have a lot of good ones to make up for it.”

“Uh, are you kidding?” Amy asked. “I have tons of good memories! Why do you think I fought so hard to keep them? And I don’t just mean the stuff in the Lost Cities—though the whole flying-with-an-alicorn thing is pretty hard to top. But there’s also this.” She pulled back the quilt on her bed, uncovering something white and fluffy.

“Is that Bun-Bun?” Sophie asked, feeling a tug in her chest when Amy held up the well-loved stuffed bunny.

Bun-Bun had been Amy’s version of Ella ever since Amy was four years old, and Sophie couldn’t believe her sister had been allowed to keep him through all the moves and identity changes. His shaggy fur wasn’t as white as it used to be, and he looked matted in a few places—but that made him more perfect, since it proved he was the real, original stuffed animal.