One|| GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

　　I sat up in the bath and water splashed over the sides. My heart pounded in my ears. My head whipped to the left and then the right. I was alone, but I heard that voice.

　　It was silent now and a horrible feeling, one I didn’t like filled me. This feeling felt like utter loneliness, mixed with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the Hether andEric. Paranoia slowly started to swirl in-between the loneliness and fear.

　　Stop it Chas! Deep breathes, deep breaths.

　　The now-cool water swirled around me. I must have fallen asleep. This didn’t surprise me; I had been through the ringer.

　　I heard her voice though, it was as if she was right here.

　　Eric and Leigh thought that Magdalena had taken up residence within me, speculated about whether Lord Crane had succeeded.

　　I looked slowly back to the door. Could that be the reason why Leigh was spending his every waking minute with me? Why Eric, the man who had dedicated his life to creating the Hether and finding Milieus like me—Casters with both light and dark sand—needed to know everything that had happened?

　　I didn’t like this new feeling that was coiling deep inside of me. It made me feel sick and make me not want to trust anyone around me.

　　I had no idea how old Eric really was, apart from his mid thirties, maybe early forties look, something tells me he was much, much older than that? His hair was white, meaning it could only be blonde. I miss seeing color, but it was easy assuming the colors. His eyes a light grey, meaning that it could be a piercing blue.

　　Images flashed through my mind. Images of what happened that night. I blacked out with Guinevere beating my mom and re-emerged with Crane’s breakdown, that his life’s work was gone, and the blue liquid on the floor.

　　No matter how hard I tried to regain my memory of that night, nothing happened. It was simply gone.

　　I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t anymore. I didn’t know who I was. Which made me wonder if Crane didn’t succeed.

　　I needed to clear my head and get in touch with myself. And Leigh…that paranoid feelingof why he was waiting outside, swirled in my gut again. Then the fear overpowered the paranoia. I changed too much. He wasn’t going to be able to help me this time and I fear that it was going to pull us apart forever.

　　Love never conquered.

　　I’d learned that the hard way the night my mother had died.

　　A knock tore me from my thoughts.

　　“Chas, you okay?” Leigh called from the other side of the door.

　　“I’m fine. Give me a few minutes.” I tried not to sound too panicky.

　　“My mother left you some clothes. I hope they fit.”

　　“Thank you.”

　　Those words—thank you—all of a sudden felt unfamiliar. I don’t know why, maybe I was just being paranoid thinking about Crane and Magdalene, and the possibility of him succeeding.

　　It had to be that as my mother had taught me manners.

　　My heart clenched at the thought of my mother. Her loss lay heavily on me, like a boulderstrapped to my chest. I needed to work through my grief—through everything that had transpired lately.

　　Leigh’s face flashed through my mind and formed a pit in my stomach. My feelings felt wrong and it brought on the fear again.

　　What did all of it mean? That a part of me blamed him for not being there that night? Thathe wasn’t there with me in the Oblivion? That Lord Crane succeeded? What? I never felt anything like this toward Leigh, toward anyone before, but the feelings were strong.

　　I know someone had betrayed us that night as Crane knew our every move, and I wanted to find out why.

　　I hated not knowing the truth. But maybe Mr. Grey could help me figure it out. Him I can trust, I know that now.

　　A faint memory scratch the edges of my mind. Lord Crane, saying Magdalena wasn’t able to talk about a specific event. Why couldn’t Magdalena talk about it? What had occurredduring her last few hours in Revera?

　　The Guile flickered through my head, but the vision I’d experienced in that hellhole, where all the bad things in Revera’s history replayed, were dark and faded when I triedto examine them. The blonde woman in the guile—Magdalena—had been happy and in love, which had cost her dearly.

　　I remembered how she was begging someone as official-looking men closed in on her, but Icouldn’t hear her. Dark sand formed in her hand, and she disappeared before she was killed.

　　Raw emotion overwhelmed me. It was real. What I had seen in my mind had happened.

　　Selene was hiding something. Ever since she had tortured me for having black sand, I’d known she wasn’t the benevolent Somnium who Light Casters had revered for nearly a millennium. I could feel her deception, but my brain wouldn’t work. It didn’t want to push the memory that lurked at the edge of my mind to the forefront. Was it even mymemory?

　　Stop it Chas, Crane wouldn’t have screamed like that, break down like that if he’d succeeded.

　　The image of him crouching in front of his beloved blue liquid spilled on the floor flashed before me, behind closed eyelids.

　　There was another knock, and I jumped, sending more water over the edge of the tub.

　　“Lunch will be served soon, Chas.” Leigh sounded antsy.

　　He started to work on my nerves. It was his behavior that was making me feel all of this. Doubting whether Crane’s plan had failed.

　　That was what these intrusions really were. He wanted to be close to me all the time, notbecause he loved me but so he could spot any changes if Magdalena appeared.

　　I got out and dressed in clothes Karin had left out. I caught myself absently rolling up on the balls of my feet into demi-pointe ballet position. It had been so long since I hadeven thought of ballet. I smiled to myself, put on some flats, and opened my door to leave. Leigh was sitting on the floor just outside the bathroom.

　　He grinned. “An hour and a half. You must’ve needed that bath.”

　　I gave him a small smile. “Something like that.”

　　He stood and put his arm around me. “How do you feel?”

　　“After my long-ass bath? Pretty good, thank you.”

　　His brows knit together, but his lips were still curved in a smile. “No need to thank me. Is it true they don’t have bathtubs in the Oblivion?”

　　“Yes, but my mother conjured one.” My throat tightened. “Her sand was like magic in the Oblivion.”

　　He pulled me closer and brushed his lips atop my head. A confused mix of emotions overpowered me. I liked him—but simultaneously, part of me felt trapped by his touch.

　　Why? This was Leigh, for crying out loud!

　　“Tell me about the Oblivion. What was it like?”

　　“Dark, cold, lonely,” I answered shortly. “I’m not the same girl anymore, Leigh.”

　　“I know, Chas. You’ve been through a great deal. I imagine all you did there was fight for survival.”

　　“If it weren’t for my mother…” My voice cracked as grief assaulted me. I swallowed hard.

　　“I’m sorry, Chas. I can imagine how difficult this is for you. I wish I could help you in some way.” His lips brushed my temple.

　　I shook my head, but I didn’t look at him, scared my expression might give me away that I didn’t want him so close to me. I rubbed my hands over my face, stepping out of his embrace, and let out a groan. It was frustrating not knowing what had truly happened.

　　Suddenly, I remembered that Lord Crane was still here. I’d already talked to him, but he hadn’t revealed anything. He’d seemed surprised I was suffering from memory loss.

　　Magdalena’s voice had been in the bathroom with me. Why could she talk to me? Was it… no, it wasn't Chas.

　　“Chas?” Leigh asked, concerned. “You okay?”

　　Nodding, I stared down the long hallway. Everything was in varying shades of gray, black, and white—if the place was filled with every imaginable color, I wouldn’t know. I despised this dull vision.

　　I stopped in my tracks as another revelation hit me. The vortex had been real, and it hadsucked all of us in. Including…

　　I grabbed Leigh by the arm, and he turned to face me with a perplexed expression.

　　“Is she here?” I asked, meeting his eyes.

　　His expression shifted to understanding, and he nodded.

　　My mother was here. Her body was here.

　　“Can I see her?”

　　“They’re performing the autopsy, Chas. Maybe in a day or two when they’re done.”

　　“Why are they doing an autopsy? They know how she died! She was beaten to death by Guinevere.” Speaking the name chilled my heat as suddenly as it had risen. Guinevere, my cousin—dead at my hands.

　　“Eric wants to see everything your mother endured. Caster autopsies are quite different from those in the Domain.”

　　I felt my eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

　　“We have a device that can analyze her sand.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to explain it to you, Chas, but I’ll try.” His brow furrowed. “The device is like a machine that soaks up the last bit of a dead Caster’s sand. It’s usually embedded deep in their wrists. When it’s harvested, the screen shows the last few seconds, sometimes minutes, of the Caster’s life.”

　　“Wait, does that mean we’d be able to see the last few minutes of my mother’s life?”

　　“If we’re lucky. Eric wants to find out who betrayed us and jeopardized the mission.”

　　“It was Lord Crane.” My voice held more steel than I felt. “I think he knew and just hid it, played a long to catch us in the act. He might be sadistic, but he’s not stupid.”

　　“We need to be certain.”

　　“Wait you said us? Leigh were you there that night in the Oblivion?”

　　He nodded. “I was one of the team members who had to open the Vortex, me and Eric.”

　　I didn’t know how to feel about that. I thought he just sat back and waited with Eric. Discovering that both of them were there…I forced myself to keep on topic of conversation. “You think someone else betrayed us?”

　　“We need to be sure, Chas. If someone else told them about that night, and that person is still among us, we need to know.”

　　I understood what he was saying. Nobody trusted the newcomers to the Hether, including me.

　　“Can I sit in when Eric analyzes the last moments of my mom’s life? Maybe something will trigger my memory, like it did with Lord Crane.”

　　He looked away. “He’s still your family, Chas. Your only family.”

　　“He’s a monster! He killed his daughter. I should’ve known that he wouldn’t give a crap about me either.” I wiped away an angry tear, feeling so stupid that I said he could use me like that. “If that’s the family I have left, then I’d rather have no family at all.” I headed in the direction I vaguely remembered my room to be in.

　　“Chas, what about lunch?”

　　I paused but didn’t turn. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

　　Back inside the room where I had woken up, I flopped onto the unmade bed. Magdalena’s voice replayed on a loop in my head: “Hello, Chastity. At last we meet.” I couldn’t shake it from my mind. She’d sounded pleasant and creepy at the same time.

　　Had Lord Crane succeeded in transferring Magdalena into me? No, he couldn’t have. I’d seen the blue liquid on the floor. The broken syringe. Lord Crane lost his mind as if hishard work had failed and everything was lost.

　　Yet I was hearing her voice. Then why was she talking to me?