“We just want an explanation,” Dev says, leaning forward. We are all spread out around Tom’s living room, watching Lucy in anticipation.

Her blank, listless expression causes chills to run up and down my spine. I pull the cashmere blanket around my shoulders tighter to my body, curling up closer to Jin.

“There’s not much to say,” Lucy tells us.

Sofia snorts, her eyebrows arched. “Really? I think you have a lot to explain. Why did you cut all your friends off? Why are you hanging out with the lacrosse team and crew? Why are-,”

“Why’re you with Jimin, Lucy?” I ask quietly.

“What?” Lucy frowns. “He caught me in the library. I didn’t-,”

“No. I mean why are you with him?”

There is dead silence in the room as Lucy simply stares at me, dumbfounded. Dev, Sofia, Jin, and Tom confusedly glance between Lucy and I.

“Wow,” she says. “You just had to say it in front of everyone, huh.”

My face flushes. “I- I’m sorry...,”

“What do you mean?” Dev asks confusedly. “What are you guys talking about?”

“I’m lost,” Sofia adds.

“Fine.” Lucy clenches her jaw. “I’ll start from the beginning.”

What she does next changes everything.

Lucy focuses her gaze on the flower vase sitting on Tom’s table, clenches her fists and grits her teeth.

The flowers go up in flames.

“Holy !” Dev yelps, jerking backwards. “What the ?”

“Wait, put it out! That’s my favorite vase! Tom exclaims.

Lucy snaps her fingers. The vase blows up.

“Oh, ,” she swears.

“Oh, dear god,” Tom mutters. He snaps his fingers and the tiny shards of glass lying around his living room swirl up into the air and neatly reassemble themselves into an intact- yet slightly charred- vase.

“Sorry, Tom,” Lucy grimaces. “I’m still trying to get the hang of things.”

“You have your powers back?” Jin chokes out.

“Kind of.” Lucy crosses her arms. “When I found out... the truth over winter break, I started trying to study my condition. Were my powers gone, or was it just my memories? Was there a way I could get one back without the other?”

“Both were taken, right?” Dev says.

She shakes her head. “No. I read a lot of books in my room at Hado HQ- which was really ing hard, because I was being monitored 24/7-,” she adds, pointedly glaring at Tom, “-and I learned that even though my memories were taken from me, my powers hadn’t been stolen. They’d been suppressed.”

“You unlocked your powers,” Tom breathes. “How?”

This is when I catch a little bit of Lucy’s tough shell wilt for a moment. Almost immediately, however, her steely eyes are back. She silently stares at Tom, her jaw clenched.

“Is it something bad?” Tom presses. “Did you agree to join the Kado? Is that why you’re with Taehyung’s group now-,”

“No,” Lucy snorts. “I’d never join those bastards. They don’t even know I have powers. Even Jimin, who’s the only one who knows my identity. He doesn’t even know I unlocked my magic.”

“Lucy,” I murmur, “what did you do?”

Her hands pinch at the fabric of Tom’s sofa.

“In all the books I read... it talked about how either the suppressor had to lift the sealant, or there had to be... extended contact with a magical object or being,” Lucy utters lifelessly.

“Okay...,” Jin says, staring at her in uneasy anticipation.

Lucy closes her eyes. “So I figured... it would be the most effective if I had extended... contact with my suppressor.”

My heart sinks all the way to my stomach. I glance around the room. Judging by the looks on Jin and Tom’s faces, it’s beginning to click in their minds.

“Oh, Lucy,” I murmur.

“What?” Dev says, his head darting back and forth between me and Lucy. “What does that mean?”

“You and Jimin were intimate,” Tom whispers.

“Oh, ,” Sofia breathes.

“H-How?” Dev stammers, his eyes wide with shock. “How did it happen? Was it once? Did he force himself on you? How did he-,”

“Stop it, Dev!” Sofia snaps. “Don’t give her the third degree. Let her speak.”

“It’s fine,” Lucy says. Her eyes have dulled over. “Originally, I was planning on sleeping with Jungkook. He was an easy target and took about ten minutes to win over.”

“But then?” Jin asks.

“We were over at Jimin’s place... do you remember that day when we were making the Bailey’s Hot Chocolate? I think Evan was complaining about the History test the seniors had coming up-,”

Sofia gasps. “You disappeared for, like, two hours. I thought you’d gone home. And then- oh my god, Jimin was gone too-,”

“Yeah.” Lucy closes her eyes. “He cornered me- he was pissed about me making out with Jungkook and quitting Student Council. One thing led to another, and... yup.”

All of us stare at her in shock, unable to even think of what to say.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Lucy snaps. “I’m not some fragile little girl. I know what I’m doing.”

“What you’re... doing? Present tense?” Dev warily questions. “If you have your powers back... why do you need to keep-,”

“Dev,” Sofia says warningly.

“What?” he says, whipping his head around to face her. “This isn’t me being controlling or getting pissed because she’s cavorting with the enemy or whatever. This is me being worried. Jimin’s the most dangerous bastard out of all of them- and- Lucy, I just want you to be safe.”

Dev’s voice cracks on the last word of his sentence. The pain aching through his eyes makes my heart hurt. He’s already been through grieving a loved one once, even if she turned out to be alive. The prospect of that potentially happening for real must be awful.

Lucy knows this, too. That’s why her eyes soften when she looks at Dev.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. For not telling you guys. For doing this.”

“Then don’t do it,” Jin presses softly.

“I’m not going to stop until I have my memories back. Everything... everything is so empty.” Lucy swallows. “It’s like, now that I know there’s a gaping hole in my mind, I can’t stop remembering that. And even though I have my powers back, I can’t perform spells or do anything complex- I can only sort of direct power at things. I’ve been practicing, but I’ve pretty much hit a wall.”

“That makes sense,” Jin says. “You’ve forgotten all of your mental training and practice. There’s no way you can get back to the level you were at without your memories.”

“Exactly.”

“But that doesn’t mean you should continue.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

Lucy is absolutely poker-faced. The look in her eyes tells me that she’s expecting us all to judge her, to scoff at her.

“I know you guys might think I’m betraying you-,” she begins, but Dev cuts her off.

“No,” he rasps. “I- none of us consider this an act of betrayal. What we care about is the fact that you’re hurting yourself so badly. This relationship or whatever with Jimin- he’s going to find out, and it’s going to end horribly.”

“You could die, Lucy,” Sofia softly adds.

For a split second, pain flashes in Lucy’s eyes.

“I know,” she whispers. “But I have to.”

And then it hits me.

Meena takes a deep breath. “No matter what, you cannot let Lucy retrieve her memories.”

My eyes widen. “What?”

“If she gets her memories back, she’ll return to the Kado. She’ll go back to being one of their most powerful agents, except with insider information about us.”

“That makes no sense! Why would she want to go back after what they did to her?”

“Really? So you don’t think she’d want to be reunited with her parents again? Or go back to being a master of dark magic and being one of the most powerful teenagers on this continent?”

. . I whip my head around to look at Tom- before I catch myself and quickly look away. Jin shoots me a quizzical look.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

I can’t process the conversation after this. My mind is flying a million miles an hour, thinking about a trillion different things: what I should talk to Tom about, how I’m supposed to stop this, if I even should prevent Lucy from regaining her memories. The jittery feeling in my veins increases exponentially by the second.

Finally, I feel the couch shift as Jin stands up.

“Okay, that’s enough,” he says. “Lucy’s exhausted. All of us are. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

“You guys can stay over,” Tom says. “If Lucy, Sofia, and Joo double up in the guest room, and Jin, Dev, and I-,”

“Thanks for the offer, but I should probably head home,” Jin says with a grim smile. Tom pauses- and then nods in agreement.

Probably not the best idea for a member of the Kado to stay with a member of the Hado, alliances aside.

“Bye,” I whisper, tightly hugging Jin.

“Do you want me to drop you off?” he murmurs. “He looked pissed tonight. And I don’t know how Taehyung will handle you not being home for a night- remember the last time that happened?”

Memories flash in my mind; Taehyung yanked me from Dev’s home and drove us home in a fury.

“He can deal with it,” I say in a clipped tone. “If he wants to throw a hissy fit, he can.”

“I’ll put extra protection over my place tonight, so he won’t be able to trace its location,” Tom tells us. Jin nods.

“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” After one last hug, he heads out.

“I’ll take the couch,” Dev yawns.

“Sounds good. Joo, Lucy, Sofia- do you three mind splitting the guest room? It’s a king bed.”

“Yeah, no prob.” Sofia stands. “Good night, guys.”

“Good night,” they echo back. Lucy doesn’t say anything to them; instead, she silently heads into the bedroom.

The three of us wordlessly settle into bed. I immediately roll over onto my side and mumble, “Good night, guys,” after letting out a huge fake yawn. My eyes flutter closed. After a few minutes, I inhale and exhale in deep breaths, simulating sleep. I am wide awake, though. I have to stay awake. When Sofia and Lucy fall asleep, I’ll sneak to Tom’s room and talk to him about Meena’s words.

Sofia and Lucy don’t seem like they’re falling asleep, though. Based on the way Lucy keeps tossing and turning and Sofia’s normal breathing pattern, they are wide awake. Impatience creeps up in my veins with every passing second. If I have to wait for another ten minutes, I’ll probably end up falling asleep myself.

That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Maybe... maybe I can just talk to Tom in the morning...

And then Sofia’s voice cuts through the silence.

“Do you like him?” she whispers.

I feel Lucy stiffen next to me. There is silence for a few moments.

Then:

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Are you just ing him to get your powers back or whatever? Or... do you still have feelings for him?”

“I... why would I have feelings for him? He’s a monster-,”

“Lucy... I know you liked him for a long time before you found out what he did. And I know that... feelings don’t go away that easily. It’s horrible, but that’s the sad reality. The problem is that you’re never going to get over him if you keep sleeping with him-,”

“Stop talking to me like you know what I’m going through?” Lucy snaps. “You don’t, okay? None of you do. It’s ing annoying-,”

“I do, okay?” Sofia’s voice has taken on an edge to it. “Not the memories part. No one can ever understand what you’re going through. I’m sorry for that.”

“Yeah, so-,”

“But sleeping with one of them to gain something? I sure as hell know about that. It almost destroyed me. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

My eyes fly open. What?

By the way Lucy stammers, “H-Huh?”, I can tell she’s as stunned as I am.

Sofia is silent. After a few tense seconds, she says, “After Meena... left. I told you I had to do things to protect myself. Assimilate.”

“Sofia... what did you do?”

“Laila. I slept with Laila. It was like what you’re doing with Jimin.”

I have to resist the urge to clap my hands to my mouth. Holy .

Lucy exhales slowly. “Sofia- what-,”

“The point is,” Sofia responds testily, “you think you’re doing it with no strings attached. You think it’s like a business transaction- you’re just getting something out of them. But then you end up ing falling in love with them when they really don’t give a about you.”

“I’m... so sorry-,”

“I don’t need that.” Sofia takes a deep breath. “Sorcerers- well, the Kado, I guess- are all the same. They just take without any regard for the feelings of others. They don’t care about humans. And they sure as hell don’t care about ex-rival sorcerers they stole memories from. Jimin is a bad person. Get the out before it’s too late.”

“You- you’re right.” Lucy takes a deep, shaky breath, and I realize that she is crying. “Sofia... he’s the only one who knows. About who I am. We just have this connection- we just get each other.”

Lucy pauses to sniffle, and then continues.

“I know it’s ed up. But I just... he’s the reason I’m like this, but he’s also the reason I haven’t killed myself yet.”

“Lucy,” Sofia breathes, and I feel can hear her starting to get choked up as well.

“It’s just so ty,” Lucy cries. “Every day is so ing hard. I feel so guilty because I know you and Joo and Dev and Tom and Jin are all here for me. But... I just...,”

“It’s okay,” Sofia says softly. “Lucy, please. Swear to me that you won’t kill yourself. Promise me that any time you feel sad or bad or just empty, you’ll call me.”

“I p-promise,” Lucy hiccups. “Thank you, Sofia.”

“I’m so sorry, Lucy. But you have to let go.”

“I can’t wait until we leave. Me and you and Joo. I know she’s having a terrible time because of Taehyung, too.”

“I don’t know if it’s the same thing,” Lucy says. “I’ve seen the way he reacts when Joo’s name is mentioned- every time we’re at a party and she comes up, he just shuts down-,”

“Trust me, their relationship is just as unhealthy,” Sofia cuts in. “Have you noticed how their relationship operates in a cycle? Taehyung treats her like , she gets sad and says she’s over him, and then he does something nice that redeems himself?”

There is a disgusting, painful feeling rising up in my throat. Tears begin to burn in my eyes.

“How did you end things with Laila?” Lucy breathes.

Sofia snorts. “You know that whole tortured artist thing? Like, an artist that’s suffering creates the most beautiful pieces?”

“Yeah. Weren’t a bunch of famous artists depressed geniuses? Like Van Gogh?”

“That’s all bull. Van Gogh created Starry Night when he was in rehab. Being depressed and miserable... it killed my creativity. I’ve always had my art. With Laila, I just lost all sense of vision.”

“Damn.”

“Every December, there’s this national competition where the top 3 pieces from Windsong are nominated every year. I’d been nominated my freshman and sophomore years, but not my junior year. When I asked my art teacher... she just gave me the cold hard truth.”

“Which was?”

“My art had been getting progressively worse throughout junior year. Every piece was the same- dark and twisted, with no real meaning behind it. It wasn’t me, my art teacher said.”

“So you ended it.”

“It was hard. I spent the entire winter break with my family back in Oregon. By the time I was back, Laila had pretty much forgotten about me. I just had to force myself to get over her.”

“Then... you’re completely over her now. Right?”

Sofia sighs.

“I am,” she says. “My first great love. My art’s been great ever since.”

They continue speaking after that, but I cannot hear anything they are saying. I am replaying every encounter I have had with Taehyung over and over again.

Our relationship is and always has been toxic.

Toxic.

So toxic.

You have to let go.

When I slip into Tom’s room that night, I have made two decisions.

“We can’t report Lucy’s magical abilities to HQ,” I murmur.

Tom’s eyes widen. “What? I thought Meena talked to you-,”

I shake my head. “Tom, after tonight... trust me. She’s not going to move to the Kado. I don’t think she’s going to try to get her memories back, and... I’m pretty sure she’s going to cut things off with Jimin.”

“Huh? What did I miss?!”

“I can’t tell you. I wasn’t even supposed to hear their conversation-,”

“Whose conversation?”

“Nothing.” I stick out my pinky. “Tom, swear you won’t report her.”

“I- I can’t-,”

“Please, trust me.”

Even in the dark, Tom can see the intense, desperate look in my eyes.

He links his pinky with mine.

“Promise.”

“Thank you. And... there’s something else I need to ask Lucy about.”

a/n: i'm sorry, life has been rough. shoutout to undergroundmuses' stories for giving me inspiration to write again.