I turn to look at Kael as if to seek confirmation, only to see his eyes comically wide as he stares at the room. As he stares at Riley, at Falon, at my parents. He’s not looking at me, won’t even acknowledge me, as if he’s lost in a trance.

I turn back in time to see Falon nod. “I have reason to believe—”

A knock at the front door cuts him off, and everyone in the room—including Kael, Smith, and me—turns to see two dark, shadowy outlines through the blurred glass panel.

“I’ll get it!” my younger self offers, jumping up from the ground and bounding forward.

Kael starts, as if he can’t believe that he’s watching her, watching me. I understand the feeling.

“No—Lyss—don’t!” Falon cries, as if he knows something we don’t.

But it’s too late, because my memory-self is already turning the handle, already opening the door to see whoever has arrived.

I’m holding my breath, certain I’m about to learn what really happened. This is the moment, I can feel it. This is when everything changed, when the course of my life turned on its axis. I’m finally about to get some answers.

But then, like a lightbulb blowing, the scene around me descends into instant blackness and I’m falling, falling, falling.

I scream, “No!” into the void of silence, unable to hear even my own voice as I tumble through the dark.

I assume Smith is pulling me from the memory, and anger rises in me, since there’s so much still to learn from it. But it’s not his room that I end up materializing in. When the blackness fades and the mist clears, I realize my consciousness is still in a memory, only it’s not my mind we’re in anymore—it’s Kael’s.

We’re somewhere in the catacombs, the flaming torches barely lighting the room, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to what I’m seeing. But when my vision clears, I draw in a swift breath at the sight of Kael, a few years younger than he is now, sitting beside a woman lying on a bed.

His mother.

While I recognize her from the picture I saw on his wall, she’s nothing like the beauty she was when that photo was taken. Her dark hair is limp, her eyes are struggling to focus. There’s a sheen of sweat on her pale face, her cheeks sunken and her lips dry, like the life has already been sucked out of her. Her breathing is ragged, so painfully ragged that Kael is watching her chest like his sheer willpower will make it continue to rise and fall.