CHAPTER 468: WHERE YOU ARE-I

If only he could bring back all their memories; those nights under the duvet where he had hugged her like a large blanket, his laughter muffled against her neck as he playfully kissed her cheeks while she tried to write her spells. Or the time when they had almost brushed death together, bloodied and trembling, clinging to one another not for warmth but for the relief of still being alive. Those moments were vivid to him, engraved like scars under his skin, yet to her, they were nothing but dust swept away by another man’s hand.

It was unfair for everything to be gone. Unfair in a way that made even gods cruel.

He couldn’t help but resent everything, the world that had mocked them, the enemies who tore them apart, and even her, for forgetting their precious memories. Though it wasn’t her fault, how could his heart forgive what his mind knew was not her doing? To think that her body was here, soft and breathing beside him, yet the part that remembered him, her laughter, her whispers, her love, was gone... it brought him to ruin.

Cassius’s fingers hovered before finding her skin. Even that light touch made his chest ache. Her warmth should have soothed him, should have reminded him of safety, but instead it burned him, whispering cruelly of what he’d lost.

It felt worse than death, worse than any blade, worse than any betrayal he had endured.

Just then, her pink lips, soft and parted slightly, moved. Her voice slipped from her throat—faint, fragile, and unknowing."Is it you?"

Cassius froze. His breath caught, hope flaring in his chest like a dying flame reignited. But then—

"Were you the same man who had helped me hide from Morpheus?"

The words struck him like a sword drawn through his ribs.

Of course. She wouldn’t remember. Of course.

Cassius’s eyes shut as his brows furrowed, his lips trembling against the weight of his silence. He tried to breathe, to fill his lungs with air thick with her scent, lavender and candle smoke—but it only suffocated him further. When he opened his eyes again, the world was the same, and the ache was worse. He still loved her. Terribly. Even when she had forgotten everything that made them them.

His frustration wasn’t merely that her memories were gone; it was the dread that even if he found a way to bring them back, she might never love him again. After all, wasn’t he hard to love? Wasn’t he the man who once swore that affection was a weakness?

"I am," he said finally, his voice calmer than he expected, like the calm before a storm, hollow and steady because it had to be.

Arabella could hear it too. The quiet steadiness, the way his tone didn’t tremble even when the world around them should have. She wondered, how could he sound so composed, so unwavering, when he had entered Morpheus’s castle where death waited for him behind every wall? If he were caught, he would not simply die. Morpheus would make sure his death was a masterpiece of cruelty.

"Why did you help me?" Arabella asked, her voice uncertain, her throat tightening as she swallowed. When no answer came immediately, she sighed, her gaze flickering toward the darkened room. Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked. Perhaps she had no right to pry into the intentions of a man she could barely remember. She parted her lips to change the subject-

But then his voice came.

"Because I have promised to always protect you."

The world stopped.

Arabella’s breath hitched. Her fingers curled in the sheets. The answer was so unexpected, so impossibly gentle that she didn’t know how to respond.

She had expected anything else, pity, perhaps, or convenience. Maybe he would say it was strategy, a shared cause, or a debt he meant to collect. But this—

The man’s voice trembled slightly now, but the words were unwavering. He had promised.

The air between them thickened. The extinguished candles flickered faintly as if straining to relight themselves. The velvet curtains behind him quivered from a draft neither of them felt, as though the very room understood the fragility of what lingered between them.

Arabella wanted to speak. To ask who he truly was. To know what memory had driven him to such devotion. But her lips refused to move, and her throat tightened around the words.

For now, only silence dared to answer him— and in that silence, both of them remembered what love used to feel like.

"Did I know you well?" Arabella questioned, tightening her resolve with the question no matter what answer she would be receiving from her. "I- I lost my memories. My heart has been tampered."

Cassius knew, after all, she wouldn’t be conversing to him as if he was a stranger if she had recalled everything about them.

He closed his crimson eyes, letting out a soft sigh, "Do you have a plan?" he asked her, "To put him to tests."

"I did the first test to bring him away so I could invite you here, it seems to work," she reasoned and could hear a faint chuckle from him as though he was proud. "And were you here to look at the magic on me? I tried... tried using your beads to return my lost memories but I can’t seem to do it. Do you think you could return what is lost from me?"

Cassius blinked as he could hear her desperation. She shouldn’t remember about him at all yet her voice seemed to tremble with fear and excitement, as if she wasn’t too sure if regaining her memories would be the best approach yet at the same time she didn’t want to keep forgetting what had been lost, fearing that if she forget for a long time, she would be losing herself for good.

"I’m not sure," Cassius answered, "These magics are complicated." and if he tap deeper into his demonic power, as his demon had warned him, perhaps he was completely going to turn into a demon for good and be held in Hell.

But he had learnt how it feels to be gone from Arabella’s heart, how could he bear to be physically brought away from her either?

"Then let’s work together," Arabella said to him and as she was about to open her eyes, Cassius gently placed his hand to cover her sight. "I have to see you to work with you don’t I?"

"No," Cassius answered, the darkness engulfing him as his expression turned solemn. "We can work together but you don’t have to see me."

"Why?" she asked but he never answered.