CALISTA'S POV
I'm burning the evidence when my hands start shaking.
The wedding dress—white silk now stained rust-brown—curls and blackens in the fireplace. Smoke fills my tower room, making my eyes water. Or maybe I'm actually crying. I can't tell anymore.
This is my sixth wedding dress. I keep them all in my wardrobe like a collection of ghosts. But this one—Ashton's wedding—needs to disappear. Because of what I found written on the mirror.
HE KNEW YOUR NAME
The problem is, I'm already forgetting what that means. It felt important two hours ago. Now it's just... fuzzy. Like trying to remember a dream after you wake up.
I hate this. I hate my broken brain that can't hold onto anything important.
The dress catches fire properly, and I step back, wiping my face. That's when I hear the lock click.
My door opens—I never locked it, the guards do it from outside—and my maid Sera enters carrying a dinner tray. She's a small woman, maybe forty, with gray streaks in her black hair. She's been serving me for all six murders, but she never quite looks at me directly.
"You shouldn't burn things in here, my lady," she says, setting the tray on my table. "The smoke will make you sick."
"I'm already sick." I watch the dress become ash. "This just makes it visible."
Sera doesn't respond. She starts picking up the room—collecting the gray mourning dress I wore to see the Queen, straightening my bed sheets, avoiding the bloody footprints I tracked everywhere earlier.
"Did you know him?" I ask suddenly. "Lord Ashton?"
Her hands pause on a pillow. "I met him once, my lady. At the wedding feast."
"What was he like?"
"He seemed... kind. He smiled at the servants. That's rare for nobles."
Something twists in my chest. Of course. Of course I killed a kind man. That's how this works, isn't it? I'm not allowed to murder anyone who deserves it.
"Sera," I say, turning to face her. "Do you think I'm evil?"
She finally looks at me—really looks at me—and her eyes are sad. "I think you're the loneliest person I've ever met, my lady. Evil people don't ask questions like that."
It's the kindest thing anyone's said to me in three years.
Before I can thank her, she's already heading for the door. "Eat your dinner. You'll need strength for whatever comes next."
The door locks behind her with a sharp click.
I'm alone again.
I don't eat dinner. Instead, I go to my desk and pull out my journal—a leather-bound book that's become my only friend.
Inside are six names, written in my handwriting on six different days:
Lord Marcus Thornfield
Lord Sebastian Ashworth
Lord Julian Darkwater
Lord Vincent Nightshade
Lord Edmund Ravenwood
And now I add the sixth:
Lord Ashton Greyward
I stare at the names until they blur. These men are dead because of me. I don't remember their faces. I don't remember their voices. I don't remember the moment I killed them.
But they're gone, and I did it.
My hand hovers over the page. I should write more—details about Ashton, about the blood message, about the strange Lord Theron who wants to marry me next. But my thoughts feel slippery, like trying to hold water.
Instead, I flip to a blank page and write:
Why did Ashton know my name? Everyone knows my name. What was different about HIS knowing?
The words look stupid written down. But I leave them anyway.
Then I flip through the rest of the journal, looking for clues Past Me might have left. I do this every time. And every time, I find the same thing:
Nothing.
Just names. Dates. And questions I asked myself that I never got to answer.
It's like living in a house where someone keeps stealing the furniture. Every day, something else is missing, and you can't quite remember what used to be there.
I'm about to close the journal when I notice something odd.
Page sixty-three is thicker than the others.
I hold it up to the firelight. There's something between the pages—they've been glued together. Carefully, I work my fingernail into the seam, prying them apart.
A piece of paper falls out.
It's old—the edges are yellowed—and covered in symbols I don't recognize. They look like a code. A cipher.
And at the bottom, in handwriting that might be mine but messier, it says:
FOURTH RESET. YOU'RE LEAVING CLUES. DECODE THIS WHEN YOU'RE READY. THE ANSWER IS IN YOUR BLOOD.
My heart hammers. Fourth reset? I've only had six murders. Unless...
Unless I've been forgetting for longer than I thought.
Unless there were murders before the first "first" murder.
I stare at the coded symbols, trying to make sense of them. But my brain feels foggy again, like someone's pumping smoke directly into my skull.
Fight the sleep, Theron had whispered.
Is this what he meant? Is someone making me forget on purpose?
I need to hide this paper. I need to—
The world tilts sideways.
I grab the desk, but my legs won't hold me. I'm falling, falling, and the paper flutters from my hand like a dying bird.
The last thing I see before darkness takes me is my dinner tray.
The untouched food.
The wine I didn't drink.
The water I did.
No.
I wake up on my bed, fully dressed, with no memory of how I got there.
The sun is shining through my window. Morning. But which morning? How long was I asleep?
I bolt upright, panicking. The journal—where's the journal?
It's on my desk, closed. Innocent.
I lunge for it, flipping to page sixty-three. The pages aren't glued anymore. I pried them apart. I saw the coded message. I saw—
Nothing.
The page is blank.
Both pages are blank, like they've been replaced entirely.
"No, no, no." I tear through the journal, looking for any sign of what I found. But it's gone. All of it.
Even my note about Ashton knowing my name is missing. There's just his name on the list with the others, and nothing else.
Someone was in my room while I slept. Someone took the evidence. Someone is erasing my clues as fast as I find them.
My hands are shaking again, but this time it's not from fear.
It's from rage.
I'm being controlled. Manipulated. Someone is reaching into my brain and stealing pieces of me, over and over, and I can't stop them.
A knock at the door makes me jump.
"My lady?" Sera's voice. "You have a visitor."
"I don't want—"
The door opens anyway, and it's not Sera.
It's Theron Blackthorn.
He's standing in my doorway like he owns it, holding a black rose and wearing that same unsettling smile from yesterday. Behind him, the guards look uncomfortable but don't stop him. Master of Whispers privileges, I guess.
"Good morning, my beautiful bride-to-be," he says cheerfully. "I brought you breakfast. And information. And possibly your sanity, if you're interested."
I stare at him, clutching my journal like a shield. "Get out."
"Can't. We're engaged. Seven nights until the wedding, remember?" He walks in uninvited, sets a basket of food on my table, and turns to face me. His smile drops. "You found something last night. And they took it. Didn't they?"
My breath catches. "How did you—"
"Because you're not the only one they're watching." He glances at the door, then back at me. His voice drops to a whisper. "The water, Calista. They're drugging the water. Don't drink anything in this tower that you didn't see poured from a sealed bottle. And check under your mattress. Now."
"Why should I trust you?" I demand, but I'm already moving toward the bed. "You could be one of them. You could be—"
I lift the mattress.
Underneath, tucked into the wooden slats, is a leather pouch I've never seen before.
My hands shake as I open it.
Inside are seven glass vials, each filled with clear liquid. And a note in handwriting I'm starting to recognize as my own:
MEMORY SERUM. ONE VIAL PER RESET. THIS IS YOUR SEVENTH. LAST CHANCE. DRINK IT AND REMEMBER EVERYTHING. BUT KNOW THIS: THE TRUTH WILL DESTROY YOU.
—Your First Self
I look up at Theron, the vial trembling in my hand.
"Who am I?" I whisper. "Who was I before they made me into this?"
His expression softens into something painful. Something real.
"You were the smartest person I ever met," he says quietly. "You were my best friend. And three years ago, you discovered something so dangerous that they had to make you forget your own name."
He reaches into his coat and pulls out a miniature portrait—the kind nobles carry of their loved ones.
It shows a young woman with dark hair and bright, intelligent eyes, laughing at something off-canvas. She's wearing Academy robes. She looks... happy.
She looks like me.
But I don't remember ever being that happy.
"This," Theron says, "is Calista Ravencross before her first reset. This is who they took from you. From both of us."
My fingers close around the vial.
"Drink it," he urges. "Remember. And then let's burn their whole system down together."
I stare at the vial. At the portrait. At this man who claims to know me.
The note said the truth would destroy me.
But I'm already destroyed.
What's a little more damage?
I uncork the vial and raise it to my lips—
"STOP!"
The shout comes from the doorway.
Sera stands there, and she's pointing a crossbow at Theron's head.
"Step away from Lady Calista," she says, her voice nothing like the gentle maid I know. "Or I'll paint her walls with your brain."
Theron doesn't move. "Hello, Agent Nighthollow. Took you long enough to break cover."
The vial slips from my fingers and shatters on the floor.
My last chance at remembering, gone.
And my maid—my only friend—is apparently someone else entirely.