Days Forty-Two through Fifty-Two
Forty-two had meant something to me in my old world. Not something sacred. That made it better. There were enough numbers in this world burdened by ritual, prophecy, Sequence, or superstition that I appreciated one whose significance had once been mostly a joke.
On Day Forty-Two, I took the original Evelyn into town... or rather, I went into town while she accompanied me within our shared mind. Tingen was busy without ever quite becoming loud, its streets crowded by carriages, pedestrians, shop signs, and the lingering damp that seemed to live permanently between the stones. Coal smoke and bakery heat drifted through the colder air in uneven pockets as we moved from one street to the next. Calling it an outing together was inaccurate in the physical sense, but we both used the phrase. I walked. Evelyn watched through our shared senses.
There were streets in Tingen the original Evelyn had never walked while alive. Shops she remembered passing without entering. Parks seen through carriage windows. Ordinary places whose novelty survived death. Evelyn’s attention shifted often enough that I occasionally found my own gaze following hers before understanding what had interested her.
We spent too much money on ribbon. The original Evelyn insisted the blue suited the gray eyes we now shared. I argued for black. We bought both. In the afternoon, we sat in a small tea shop with a pastry neither of us liked enough to finish.
The front windows had fogged slightly from the difference between the warmth inside and the colder street beyond them. Cups clicked softly against saucers around us while conversations remained low enough to blend together. I had chosen a table near the window without thinking much about why until Evelyn noticed where my attention kept drifting.
'You keep looking toward the cathedral,' Evelyn observed within our shared mind. Saint Selena Cathedral stood several streets away. Its presence did not feel threatening from here. That was almost annoying.
'I know.' I lowered my eyes toward the tea, though the cathedral remained easy enough to find again through the window.
'Do you want to go inside?' Evelyn asked. Her curiosity carried less tension than it once would have.
'No.' The answer came immediately. Wanting to understand something was not the same as wanting to walk into it.
'Then stop staring at it.' Evelyn seemed satisfied with the simplicity of her advice.
I took another sip of tea.
'Excellent spiritual advice.' The tea had cooled enough that I barely noticed the temperature.
'I am dead. I have perspective.' Evelyn's answer arrived with such complete seriousness that I nearly choked laughing, startling a woman who had been sitting near me. I lowered the cup quickly and pretended the resulting cough had a more dignified cause.
The woman looked at me once before returning to her own table. Evelyn remained entirely unapologetic. By the time we left, neither of us had finished the pastry.
On Day Forty-Nine, the original Evelyn asked a question that changed the direction of the next several days. I was dressing our shared body for dinner when I paused with one earring in hand, the small hook caught between my fingers while I looked toward our reflection.
'Does She think I'm real?' Evelyn asked within our shared mind. The question carried no humor this time. Evelyn had been present for every prayer involving her, but presence and recognition were not necessarily the same thing.
"She treated your consent as relevant," I answered aloud, remaining still in front of the mirror. It was the first answer that came to mind because it was the clearest evidence I possessed.
'That is not the same as answering,' Evelyn replied. She did not reject the point. She simply refused to let me use it as a substitute for the question.
"No." I set the earring down. "She asked whether you understood you were dead. Whether I could take memories you withheld. Whether I had tried." The small piece of jewelry clicked softly against the surface of the dressing table.
'What did you say?' Her attention stayed fixed on the conversation rather than the unfinished task in front of us.
"The truth." I could feel the impatience before she answered.
'Which was?'
"That I do not know whether I could force the boundary and that I haven't tested it because I shouldn't." I looked at our reflection rather than reaching for the earring again. The answer sounded simpler aloud than the questions that had produced it.
Evelyn was quiet. The silence lasted long enough that I wondered whether she found the answer insufficient too.
'Then yes.' Evelyn's conclusion came without the uncertainty that had begun the conversation.
"Yes?" I understood the words and still wanted to hear her reasoning.
'That answers it.' Her attention relaxed. She did not elaborate immediately.
I understood. A mere symptom would not be asked for consent. A mindless remnant would not ordinarily be asked whether its memories belonged to it. Evernight had treated Evelyn as someone whose refusal mattered, which answered the question more cleanly than any declaration of personhood might have.
I picked up the earring again.
On Day Fifty, the original Evelyn asked whether she could show Evernight something if she chose. The question came after enough days of prayer that the possibility no longer sounded absurd, though I had no idea how it would work.
"I think so." I was reluctant to make the statement sound more certain than it was.
'How?' Evelyn's interest sharpened immediately.
"I would rather ask before experimenting." The memory of every boundary conversation we had already endured made experimentation a poor first choice.
'Good.' The approval was brief but immediate.
That night, I asked Evernight how Evelyn might share a memory by choice. The answer came in a dream. Evernight showed me a way to imagine memory as a room with doors. They were not literal doors. A structure my mind could use. A memory could be approached through its source. The source had to be named. A recollection could be shared without pretending inference was part of the recollection itself. Context could be marked as mine, Evelyn's, or uncertain. The lesson was less mystical than I expected. That made it more useful.
When I woke, I could still hold the structure in mind without difficulty. It was not a new ability so much as a disciplined way of separating what I had experienced from what I had concluded. After Vale, that distinction had become difficult to dismiss as mere organization.
On Day Fifty-One, the original Evelyn chose a harmless memory to test the method. A market in Tingen. Her brother buying apples. A dog stealing one and running. Evelyn permitted us to see only the image of the dog.
Nothing about her brother. Nothing about the day before or after. In the dream, the market appeared incomplete. Stalls ended where the permitted recollection ended, and people beyond the relevant moment lacked enough clarity to become important.
Evernight did not force the missing pieces into existence.
The dog ran. Its paws struck the street while an apple remained clenched absurdly in its mouth. The fragment lasted only seconds, but it was whole within the boundary Evelyn had chosen. Nothing reached toward the blurred figure of her brother or attempted to extend the scene beyond what had been offered.
The original Evelyn laughed within our shared mind at the sight of the dog. Evernight watched. Then the memory ended. The experience was so ordinary that it did more to reassure me than a more impressive demonstration might have. A childhood dog theft had remained exactly that. No hidden meaning had been extracted from it. No inaccessible context had been demanded.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
On Day Fifty-Two, the original Evelyn remained attentive within our shared mind while I sat before the shrine. The candle had burned for several minutes without either of us speaking. Her attention no longer retreated automatically when I began prayer.
'This is less frightening now,' Evelyn said quietly within our shared mind.
"Evernight?" I asked aloud, looking toward the candle, uncertain whether Evelyn meant the goddess or the entire practice around Her.
'The praying.' Evelyn's attention remained settled near mine rather than withdrawing deeper into herself.
I looked at the candle.
"Do you want me to stop if you're present?" The question seemed worth asking now that she had chosen to remain more often.
'No.' There was no hesitation.
"Do you want to speak?" I did not turn the possibility into an invitation she was expected to accept.
'No.' Her answer was just as immediate.
"All right." I left the decision where she had placed it.
A pause followed.
'Maybe eventually.' The admission was quieter than the refusal had been.
I did not ask when.
Days Fifty-Three through Sixty-Two
On Day Fifty-Three, I returned to the shrine with the previous evening’s conversation with Evelyn still on my mind. The candle caught easily when I touched the match to the wick. Evelyn remained present without any sign that she wanted to withdraw.
"Evelyn knows what this altar truly means now," I told Evernight. The candle burned steadily. Nothing else happened. That was enough.
On Day Fifty-Four, the original Evelyn asked whether a god could hear a thought deliberately addressed to Her. One like her own. We were nowhere near the shrine when she asked, which somehow made the question feel more dangerous.
"I assume yes." The answer was based more on what I believed Evernight capable of than anything I had tested.
'That is not reassuring.' Evelyn immediately noticed the weakness in the answer.
"Then don't direct anything toward Her." There was no reason curiosity had to become experimentation.
'Can I think normally?' Evelyn's concern shifted from deliberate prayer to ordinary thought.
"I have been." If Evernight listened to everything I thought regardless of intent, the problem had existed long before Evelyn asked about it.
'You are abnormal.' The judgment arrived dryly.
"Unhelpful." She laughed. I decided not to argue the accuracy of the accusation.
On Day Fifty-Five, another weak report concerning Vane reached the manor. The morning had begun under a low gray sky, and the manor seemed to hold the weather inside it. Papers covered part of the dining table beside cooling tea, while footsteps from the servants passed softly through the corridor beyond the door.
The address was false. The witness was sincere. That combination irritated me more than a deliberate lie would have. A liar could be identified and discarded. A sincere mistake only created more work.
At lunch I snapped at a servant for setting a letter beneath the wrong stack of papers. The servant’s surface thought brushed against my awareness. ‘She is becoming like the young master.’ He meant Lucien. The comparison irritated me enough that I almost answered the thought aloud.
I stopped. Dismissed him. Then found him later and apologized. He accepted with the wary politeness of someone who had not expected an apology at all, which made the entire exchange worse.
On Day Fifty-Seven, the original Evelyn offered to share one of her memories concerning Vane. Not because I asked. We were in the bedroom when she spoke. I had been reading long enough for the light near the window to begin fading across the page.
'I want Her to see one thing.' Her tone pulled my attention away from the book immediately.
I closed the book in my hands.
'Are you sure?' I did not want agreement made in one mood to become regret in another.
'Yes.' There was no uncertainty behind it.
'What?' I waited rather than reaching toward whatever she meant to show me.
The memory opened at its edge. Blue wallpaper. The smell of disinfectant. Vane's voice behind the original Evelyn. ‘You will understand when you are calmer.’ Then it closed.
'Only that.' Evelyn withdrew the rest before I could see anything beyond the permitted fragment.
'All right.' I left the book closed.
At the shrine, I named the source before entering the dream. The distinction felt important now that we understood how easily memory and interpretation could become tangled.
"This belongs to Evelyn. She permits only the room and the sentence." The blue room formed. Nothing beyond it. Evernight stood near the wall.
Vane's voice repeated. ‘You will understand when you are calmer.’ The phrase was ordinary. Nothing in the tone alone would have sounded remarkable to a stranger. Vale's interrogation had taught me why that could make it worse. A person could redefine resistance as instability. Fear as proof of incapacity. Objection as a symptom. The room vanished. Evernight did not ask for more.
The next morning, Evelyn spoke before I had fully finished dressing.
'I do not want to see it again.' The refusal carried no uncertainty.
'Alright.' I did not ask whether she meant today or ever.
'Can you close it?' The question made me stop.
I used the mental structure Evernight had shown me. The memory remained the original Evelyn’s. I could not make myself forget what I had already seen. I could refuse to reopen it. That was what I did. The boundary settled into place without ceremony. Nothing disappeared from my own memory, and I did not pretend it had. I simply stopped treating access as something available merely because I had once been permitted to enter.
On Day Fifty-Nine, I decided it was time to show Evernight the record of Lucien and Mara. Not a prosecution. Not a defense. A record. Vale had made me distrust any account that sounded too coherent. So I began by saying exactly that. The notebook rested open on my lap, already divided by small marks I had added over several evenings.
"My Lady, I do not know whether everything I remember means what I once believed it meant." The candle moved. "I know what I experienced. I know what I inferred. I know what Lucien and Mara told me. I know a few things I later verified." I opened the notebook.
The categories looked excessively clinical until I remembered what happened when people treated interpretation as fact. I no longer trusted a smooth narrative merely because every piece fit neatly into the next. Sometimes neatness was evidence of good reasoning. Sometimes it meant the first assumption had never been challenged.
On Day Sixty, I prepared the memories. The first night. The carriage. Lucien's golden eyes. Mara at the window. The letter. The choices I believed I had made. The weapon. Shelter. Books. Employment. The ways Lucien respected refusals. The times he pressed too close. The ways Mara helped. Her omissions. A year of ordinary life built over something that had never been ordinary. I marked every transition. Experienced. Inferred. Reported. Uncertain.
The process took most of the day. By evening, my eyes hurt from reading my own notes. Several memories had needed to be separated because what I remembered seeing and what I later believed it meant had become too closely attached.
On Day Sixty-One, I asked the original Evelyn whether she wanted to contribute anything. She chose three memories she had formed after death while watching through our shared senses. The first was the moment the original Evelyn saw Lucien through our shared eyes.
The second was Mara’s expression when she realized the potion had not produced the result she expected. The third was the moment the original Evelyn understood that neither Lucien nor Mara fully knew what had happened to us. She offered nothing else.
I added them without asking why she had chosen those three. Their purpose was clear enough. Each complicated the easiest version of Lucien and Mara without turning either of them innocent.
On Day Sixty-Two, I shared the record. By then the shrine had become as familiar as the desk beside it, worn into the room by repetition rather than grandeur. The candle gave off the faint smell of hot wax, and the house beyond my door had already gone still when the dream took me.
The dream began in the carriage from the first night. Rain crossed the windows. Lucien sat opposite me. In the replayed memory, Lucien’s voice said, "I want to study you."
Evernight stood beside me.
"You feared him," She said. Her attention remained on the remembered Lucien rather than on me.
"Yes." There was no reason to deny something so obvious in the memory.
"Do you still?" The carriage continued moving through remembered rain.
"Yes." I paused. "Not in the same way." In the memory, my hand remained near the weapon.
The calculations moved through my mind exactly as they had then. Distance. Angles. Who could reach me first. How many shots. How much information would die if I fired.
"I considered killing them." The memory did not soften the fact simply because I had never acted on it. Evernight looked at the remembered scene.
"Why did you not?" Her gaze rested briefly on the weapon.
"Because I needed answers." That had been the immediate calculation.
"Only that?" Evernight's question came before the memory moved on.
"At first." I watched the carriage dissolve into what followed. The memory advanced. Shelter. Food. Books. Mara helping me dress without turning it into an interrogation. Lucien giving me information in pieces. Promises. Contracts. Boundaries. My suspicion. Days and weeks layered over the initial fear until the relationship became something less easily described than captor and captive.
"I forgave them early," I said. The remembered manor had replaced the carriage around us.
"Why?" Evernight remained beside me while the scenes moved.
"Because vengeance would have damaged my life more than theirs." The answer had been practical before it had been kind. I had understood that even at the time.
"Was that forgiveness?" The question stopped me longer than I expected.
"At first, it was a decision." The scene changed. Months later. Ordinary breakfast. A book left open. Lucien answered a question without asking why I wanted to know.
"Motive followed later," I said. "They behaved well enough that the decision stopped being purely practical.” Evernight's attention remained on the memory. The ordinary breakfast continued around us with none of the tension of the carriage.
"Do you trust them?" Her question came while remembered Lucien turned a page.
"Within certain boundaries." The answer required no qualification beyond those two words.
"Do you know why they helped you?" Evernight asked. I almost answered. Then Vale's files came back to me. Internal consistency. Unverified premise. The words were enough to stop the answer before it became certainty.
"No. I know what they told me. I know what I inferred. I do not know their motives." Evernight regarded me and then the dream ended.
I woke with the notebook still open beside the shrine. The candle had burned lower, leaving a shallow pool of wax around the wick. Nothing in the room had changed, but the record felt different after being forced to survive its own categories.
Experienced. Inferred. Reported. Uncertain. For once, uncertainty did not feel like failure.