Rewriting Memory

Chapter 2

"Saints," Lysandra said when the door had shut behind him. "Zephyr, you aren't Erasing Oden, are you?"

"Of course I am." Zephyr strode across the room and dropped into the chair. "I don't want to remember him anymore."

"But you weren't even together that long."

Before Zephyr could say anything in response, Viatrix emerged from the door again, wearing dark gloves that matched the rest of his outfit. He had also attached an electrode next to his ear. Lysandra thought it looked strange, a white sphere against a sea of dark red.

"Hands," Viatrix said, and Zephyr placed her forearms against the arms of the wooden chair. Viatrix clamped them down with devices that looked like handcuffs.

"Eyes closed," he said. "Going to scan."

Zephyr closed her eyes, and he ran his hands over her skull, following the back of her head and then her hairline. His brow furrowed as he stopped over a section of her skull, two fingers reaching out and scanning the area again.

"Done," he finally said, pulling his hand away. "So what is it you want Erased? Mind if I take a guess?" He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out in front of him.

"I bet you can guess." Zephyr smirked.

"Eyes closed," Viatrix said again. "Three . . . two . . ."

He moved his fingers over the spot on her skull again, over her right temple, and she shuddered once before he pulled his hand back and she opened her eyes.

"That's it," Zephyr said. The color had left her face, and she gripped the arms of the chair so hard her knuckles had gone white. "That's it."

"One more time," Viatrix said.

Zephyr closed her eyes, and he clenched his hands into fists, took a deep breath, pressed his fingers to her temple again. A pained look crashed over Zephyr's face. The same look occupied Viatrix's face for a second, and his whole arm went tense, the veins and muscles standing out in shadows and sharp contrast. Lysandra felt that a storm had fallen over the room.

Zephyr relaxed first. She looked so calm she could have been asleep. Viatrix kept his hand on her temple for a moment longer before he, too, relaxed and stepped back.

"Hard thing to want to get rid of," Viatrix said, shaking out his hands. His face still lacked its color, while Zephyr looked brighter than ever.

"Not really," Zephyr said. Lysandra wondered if she even remembered what he was talking about anymore.

He unlocked the chair's handcuffs, and Zephyr stepped out of it. "My thanks to you, Mr. Mason Viatrix," she said, curtsying. "I feel much better now. How much do I owe you?"

"Just Viatrix is fine," the man said, still looking slightly uncomfortable. "It's seven hundred."

"Right," Zephyr said, digging the money out of her purse and handing it to him. "Thank you again."

She took Lysandra by the arm and dragged her out through the front door.

"It's unnatural," Lysandra said when they had stepped back onto the street outside. "You shouldn't just be able to forget whatever you want because you have money."

"Oh, come on, Liss," Zephyr answered. "Just think of how many problems Memory Recoding has solved."

Lysandra sighed. She hadn't seen the introduction of Memory Recoding as solving problems at all. It had allowed the Empress to make criminals forget who they were. It had given citizens - those with enough coin, of course - the power to choose what they wanted to remember. But it had also ripped her parents away from her, and thanks to the unskilled hands of a certain Memory Recoder, she still remembered the day they had handcuffed her father and dragged him off to prison.

"Liss - "

"Look how many problems it's caused on its own," Lysandra said. "Look how many people it's corrupted and taken away."

Zephyr paled. "Oh," she said softly, realizing what she had overlooked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean - "

"It's fine," Lysandra said.

She wanted to ask Zephyr what exactly it was she had chosen to forget - what Mason Viatrix had described as a hard thing to want to get rid of. The Memory Recoder's face had gone pale at the discovery of the memory, and hadn't regained its color even at the end of Zephyr and Lysandra's visit. Lysandra wanted to know what Viatrix had taken from Zephyr's head, what he had been so concerned about, but she knew asking would do her no good. It wasn't as if Zephyr remembered anymore.

"Do you have to get home?" Zephyr asked. "Are your father's servants going to realize you left?"

"They always realize it." Lysandra sighed. "It's just a matter of getting out when they're not looking."

Zephyr laughed. "They're not going to try to send a search party or anything?"

"Probably not. They'll just yell at me when I get back."

"How do you stand it?" Zephyr asked. "I think I'd go mad if my parents yelled at me every time I left the house. I need space, you know?" She twirled in a circle in the middle of the street, stretching her arms out to her sides.

Lysandra couldn't help but smile a little. "I know. That's how I stand it. Even if it's just for a little while, getting out is worth it."

"So then," Zephyr said, "where are we off to next?"

"This time you get to follow me," Lysandra said, and picked up the pace.