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Marinette floated through a void of dust and shadow. Every day was the same. Every day, she tried to save him. Every day, the moon fell from the sky. The sun raced backward, and a new day began.
“Seize her miraculous, my son!” screamed a voice on the other side of the fog.
“No!” Marinette cried. “You have to resist!” She was too late. He was already lost. Every day, she lost him.
The first voice spoke again. “How dare you? Not me!”
“I don’t know what to do!” a new voice wailed.
“My prince,” Marinette whispered. The moon fell from the sky. Dust swirled around her. She reached for the bracelet on her wrist. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let him go.
“My lady.” A figure dressed all in white emerged from the fog. His eyes, piercingly blue and swimming with unshed tears, locked on Marinette’s. He took her hand, pulling it away from her bracelet. “You promised to let me go when you made the wish. Let me go, Marinette. Live your life. We can both live in the new world, thanks to you. I’m not afraid to give you up if it means you’ll live. If you’ll live, I’m not afraid to do anything.”
“My prince,” Marinette said again. “I can’t leave you.”
“You must,” said the man in white. “Live, or all the sacrifices you made to earn this life will be for nothing.”
Marinette somehow knew her time was up. “No! Please!” she begged. But it was too late. The man in white dissolved into fog, the sun raced backwards in the sky, and the day began again.
“Marinette? Marinette!”
Marinette woke with a start. Xavier Ramier, her boss at the magic shop where she worked, was shaking her shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“That is quite all right,” said Xavier, looking at her with concern. “Our inventory system is incredibly tedious. If it were not, I would do it myself.” He frowned. “Marinette, I apologize if this is an overstep, but were you having a nightmare?”
“I was,” said Marinette slowly. The details were fading. “I remember… a white cat with blue eyes? I was scared of losing someone.”
Xavier’s face was grave. “I gathered as much,” he said. “You talked in your sleep.”
Marinette sighed, gathering her papers. She was relieved to see that she hadn’t drooled on anything important. “I do that a lot. Zoé complains about it.”
“Nightmares are the lot of the cursed,” said Xavier. “I dream the pigeon’s dreams. From what I remember of its life during the day, I believe it dreams mine.” He made a face. “Its fate is worse than mine. Burdened with too much knowledge to enjoy the life of an animal.”
Long ago, years before Xavier and Marinette had met, someone had cursed him to spend the hours between dawn and dusk as a pigeon. His curse made him sympathetic to the aftereffects of Marinette’s magically induced amnesia, but he rarely spoke of it. His partner, André, was even more laconic. Marinette had accepted that she might never know the full story.
“Would it help you to talk about them?” Xavier asked.
“I don’t think I can,” said Marinette. “Everything fades by the time I wake up. I remember a white cat and losing someone important.”
Xavier threw an arm around her shoulders, which was as close as he ever came to hugging her. Though he and Marinette were very close, Xavier wasn’t typically one for physical contact. “Managerial decision,” he said. “Your shift is over. Take Zoé out for drinks, or whatever it is that you young people do for fun.”
Marinette gathered her things, still shaking off the lingering wisps of her nightmare. How could something she couldn’t remember rattle her so terribly? It felt like being cursed all over again.
“Okay,” she said to herself. “Drinks. Why not?”
“The alcohol culture in this city is abysmal,” commented Kagami, Marinette’s roommate, drumming her fingers on the sticky tabletop.
“You just hate the noise,” said Marinette.
Kagami wasn’t the only one. Marinette had only half a year’s worth of memories to her name, and they didn’t include many crowds. Large groups of people were overwhelming. She didn’t like drinking, either. Anything that dulled her ability to form new memories felt too much like the first few days of her remembered life, the days after whatever wish Marinette had cursed herself with had taken effect, leaving her with nothing.
“I do,” Kagami admitted. She glanced at Marinette. “Zoé and her friend are late.”
Zoé, Marinette’s girlfriend, had promised to bring a friend from work, a fellow actor in the movie she had been filming for the last few months. Marinette and Kagami had heard plenty about Adrien at the dinner table, so they were eager to meet him. Apparently, he and Zoé had known each other in collège as well.
“I know,” said Marinette. “I bet it’s that producer she’s always complaining about.” She glanced over at Kagami, whose finger drumming had turned into a staccato. “Hey. If the noise is really bothering you, let’s leave. We gave it a good try, but this isn’t our kind of place. We can have Zoé and Adrien meet us somewhere else.”
Kagami smiled her first real smile of the night. “I would like that very much.”
Zoé and Adrien finally showed up ten minutes later. Marinette and Kagami were on a bench beside a deserted playground, eating nonmagical ice cream. It was blissfully silent.
“Hey,” said Zoé, leaning in for a kiss. She stole a lick of Marinette’s ice cream.
Marinette jerked it away, laughing when Zoé pouted. “Get your own.”
“This is Adrien,” said Zoé.
“Hi,” said the tall, blond man beside her.
Marinette’s eyes widened as she took Adrien in. “We’ve met, actually.”
“Oh!” Adrien smacked his forehead. “I knew I recognized you from somewhere! Coldstone Charmery, right? You sold me the cat mask.”
“Yep!” Marinette held out her hand. “I’m Marinette. It’s nice to meet you, Adrien. Zoé’s told me a lot about you.”