Cal was slow to blink. Ray was grateful his full sense of smell had not returned, so he couldn’t know everything Cal felt as he stood there. Then all at once, Cal whirred back to life and his strange brilliance. “So they erased memories of me, but they didn’t replace them with anything. That’s odd. I mean, why not at least suggest new memories? The brain will fill in the rest. Brains are like that. Your brain will do pretty much anything to stop you from feeling even slightly uncomfortable.”
“Replacing a whole set of memories is not a magic I can imagine.” Cassandra dismissed the first notion without dismissing the second. “Maybean impression of a memory might be created,“ she allowed. “But that’s psychology, not magic.”
“Nothing says you can’t do both at once.” Penn crossed her arms and looked uncomfortable. “But memory isn’t a file in a cabinet that you can just pluck out. It’s linked to too many things, particularly for someone like Ray. They’d need to erase every scent that reminded him of Cal, for example, and that would bea lot. A lot-a lot. Weres don’t process scent like we do. Even to plant a suggestion wouldn’t work well if Ray had no sense memories to support it. It’d be far easier, I mean, if I were the criminal in this situation, to wipe everything. Which is what they did. And yet.”
“And yet, what?” Ray ignored the gravel in his voice.
“And yet, your brain remembered Cal’s scent anyway, on some level. So…”
“So, the memories were not removed.” Cal nearly squeaked. “Or, not completely. Maybe they’re just blocked.”
“Like a computer virus?” Benny wondered. “Not triggered until it encounters something that makes Ray think of Cal? Or, I should say, Calbefore, since Ray seems to be able to form memories of this Cal—although we should see what happens after he sleeps. If Cal is overwritten again.”
Penn gave Benny a grin. “Oscar Benedict, you genius.”
Cal was so faint that Ray might have been the only one who heard him. “Overwritten?”
Ray tightened his hands into fists and kept them at his sides. Cal’s heart was beating faster. He was staring at the floor.
“You know I don’t know how computers work,” Cassandra complained.
“I’ve often thought spells were like code,” Benny went on, perhaps deservedly smug, but Ray didn’t care.
“Overwritten?” Cal said again, then raised his head to pin Ray with a sparkling glare. “Someone commanded him to forget me?”
Ray thought that even if he had forgotten Callalily by morning, it would only take one meeting for him to be captivated again. He might do that forever.
“Okay, overwritten was the wrong word,” Benny amended quickly, tugging Cal back into a hug that did not stop Cal from staring hard at Ray as if willing Ray not to forget him again.
“Ah! That’s it then!” Penn threw her hands up in the air and then pointed at Ray, more excited than accusing. “Darling Ray here is a were and Cal is his mate.” Ray turned sharply toward her. She gentled her tone. “Powerful magic or not, whatever that spell or curse was meant to do, it couldn’t override that fact completely. Maybe that’s the answer. Because we are here again. Cal and Ray are the same enough that Ray’s senses still recognized him immediately.” She suddenly grew somber. “Unless thisisthe intent. This halfway torment. But is it meant to be torment for Ray, or for Cal?”
“Holy shit, Detective.” Cassandra was shocked.
Penn continued to frown, her gaze on Ray. “Figuring out what people want is sort of my thing.”
Cassandra waved that off, a blur of motion at the edge of Ray’s vision. “I knew that, but….” Her tone went distant, her voice clear yet unfamiliar. Ray thought of fake fortune-tellers in front of light-up crystal balls, but some seers were very real. “Someday, Penelope Del Mar, you are going to find out what it feels like to be on the other end of that.”
Penn looked from Ray to Cassandra. “Other end of what?”
Cassandra tossed her head, glanced up to her owl, then smiled. “Someone knowing what you want before you do,” she explained, sounding as she usually did. “May the holly help you,” she added, under her breath. “But back to the matter at hand. Magic still requires energy to function. Something will have to keep feeding this if it keeps going.”
“He’stired!“ Cal exploded, tearing himself out of Benny’s hold. He jabbed a finger at Ray and then snapped off a few more words when no one spoke. “He. Is. Tired. Do you remember the last time Ray was tired? Do you remember what happened?”
“What happened?” Ray asked, earning himself a snarl from Cal that made him tip his head up.
Cal looked at him, looked at Ray’s throat before Ray even realized he’d bared it, and wet his bottom lip. “Ray.”
It was soft and hungry.
The others were talking.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like plans that are basically just ‘wait and see.’ We should be able to do more.” Benny sighed despite the anger in his tone.
“This is what the doctors said,” Penn added. “Go home and rest.”
“For a reason.” Cassandra sighed too. “Doctors aren’t perfect, but rest cures, or helps, most things. You all need rest, from the look of you. We need more information before we can act anyway. I’ll consult my colleagues in the morning. Maybe also… get them both to eat something, if you can.”
Ray scowled at Cal. “Didn’t you drink the soda? That should have helped.”
