For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a pawn. Now, for the first time in a long while, I am free. Free to figure out where exactly I belong. I have only Sebastian and his sister to help me, but I am determined to find my home at last.

Home. A place my captor must have taken me from. Lady Aisling stole so many talented folks, I was just another one for her collection.

When her captives, all blessed with magic talents, were freed, everyone eventually found their home. Relatives waiting for them. Some for weeks, months, years, even decades.

Everyone but me.

The only clue I have to my past is the dirty slip of paper I keep in my pocket with the names of my parents, siblings, and a location: Wren. Their faces are long lost.

Folks like me were blessed with magic when the Cerelia Comet flew by in the year of our birth, as it does every twenty-five years. There was a time when the comet-blessed were adored and revered, but that time has long passed. Nowadays, people don’t look as kindly on the talented as they once did. But Lady Aisling wanted all of them to herself. To keep me in the dark, she used a person with a talent for erasing my past—a memory stealer—to make sure I never knew where I could run away to.

My own talent may be mind reading, but it’s no help when there are no minds left who remember my home. Still, I cling to that piece of paper, hoping against hope to find a trace of them one day.

That hope has left me restless. The need to wander and explore burns in my veins right alongside my blood.

“Simone?” Sebastian stands in my doorway, that look on his face again. The one he always gets when he has to call my name a few too many times. I climb off the bench by the windowsill sheepishly as I feel the weight of his thoughts.

He’s worried about me.

Many of my fellow captives are nearly their old selves again and were able to pick up their former lives where they left off. But not me. I’m not even sure what the old me was like.

Sebastian worries that I’m broken. It worries me too.

“Simone.”

My eyes snap back to his, picking up the thread once again. “Good morning, Sebastian.” I move toward him, momentarily distracted into a twirl. He puts his hands on my shoulders to stop me. I grin.

“My sister just received good news. There are people coming here tonight who might be able to help you,” Sebastian says, his black curls twisting around the scar on his cheek like dark shadows.

I can’t help peeking inside his mind. The words are a jumble—something about libraries—but I can feel excitement fizzing in every one.

“Who?”

“They’re from the Parillan Archives. It holds historical records going all the way back as far as anyone can remember. If there’s a trace of your village anywhere to be found, it will be there.”