Throwing up wouldn’t help anyone. And besides, Andrew hadn’t eaten enough to have anything in the tank for vomiting anyway. As he walked into Iris’s shop, there was an elderly woman at the register, apparently digging for coins as Iris waited patiently. She turned and saw him.

“Three dollars is nothing,” she said to the woman, apparently gleaning everything from his expression. “Pay me back next time, it’s fine.”

The woman looked surprised to find herself politely, but firmly led to the door. Iris closed it behind her, then looked at Andrew expectantly.

“He’s back, but he doesn’t remember anything.”

“Okay,” Iris said. “By anything, do you mean like the session with Billy? Because maybe that is for the best. I was thinking about that. We need Billy’s history in order to understand where it is now, but if Noah doesn’t remember living it, that’s a good thing. The energy was hurting him and he doesn’t have to actually remember it in order to get to Billy if they’re connected.”

“No, like the past few years, Iris,” Andrew snapped, his temper finally getting the better of him. “He remembers nothing. Mia being born, his dad dying, any of it. He doesn’t remember me, and…and-“

He sank into the metal chair, that same bloody metal chair that had been there all this time. Iris looked at him, then came around the side of the counter and awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.

“I thought he was mad about what happened, but he didn’t even remember it. And Celine was scared,” Andrew continued. “She described it as though his memory was wiped. Or, no, not his memory. His energy, she said. Like a wipe straight through it.”

He didn’t expect Iris to flush a furious red at that. “I know what it is,” she said, going straight for her phone and dialing.

She set it on speaker, holding it between herself and Andrew before he’d fully caught up with what was happening. After a second, Andrew heard Roman answer. “Iris,” he said.

“You don’t sound surprised to hear from me.”

“I know what happened to Noah,” Roman said. “There’s this woman here, who keeps offering to do these energy wipes for pain. And she-“

“Vivien,” Iris interrupted. “Andrew’s here, he just told me what Celine said. Is Vivien there right now?”

“I have no idea,” Roman said. “Let me see if I can find out and I’ll call you right back.”

***

Iris hung up the phone and sat down on her usual stool, burying her face in her arms on the countertop for a moment. Andrew didn’t have it in him to be comforting right now and it didn’t seem like it was something she was looking for. So he stayed where he was.

“This is the Vivien you’ve been telling me about,” he said. “The one who’s gonna fix the bloody world?”

“That’s the one,” Iris said.

She sat back up and let out a long breath, the blonde hair draped in front of her face fluttering before she pushed it aside. “He must have gone to the Countess. And she was there.”

“But why? Why would she attack him like that?”

“It wasn’t an attack. She’s got this whole business model around ‘energy wiping’ that she keeps talking about. How it helps so many people and it’s so wildly successful.”

Her voice was mocking by the end, but Andrew thought about how cheerful Noah had been at any point in the past twelve hours when he wasn’t aware of Andrew’s presence. Upbeat, light, gently protective and teasing of Liv. Of course he was happy, none of the past few years had happened for him. This was Noah from his twenties, the easygoing, cheerful man who’d fallen in love with him. And who, in return, Andrew had left behind.

“How do we fix it?”

Iris gave a bitter laugh. “How do we unflood a valley?” she asked. “Or…or unburn a home? I don’t know, Andrew. And I hope to hell that Vivien does, because this is a situation where she can actually help.”

Based on everything he’d heard about Vivien, Andrew wasn’t so encouraged by that. But he had to consider Iris. For all her faults – and God knew there were plenty – she was powerful. Looking at her right now, defeated and bent in on that wooden stool, it was deceptive. The same went for Celine, who she looked so terrified back in the yard earlier.

“Maybe Celine can fix it?” he said. “She said she was going to have a think.”

“Maybe,” Iris said, sounding skeptical. “I just don’t see how.”

“Well, energy isn’t destroyed,” Andrew said. “If she’s just rudely wiping at people’s energy, their essence, she’s not destroying it. She’s rearranging it or transferring it.”

Iris looked at him with a ghost of a smile. “Look at you, Isaac Newton,” she said.

“It’s been twenty years since my last physics course, don’t be too impressed.”

Iris’s phone rang, and she put it on speaker again. “Me and Andrew are here,” she said.

“Vivien is not here,” Roman said grimly. “However, Celine did manage to find her room and she’s got luggage in it. So she’ll be back soon.”

There was too much going on there for Andrew to really break it down into its individual parts. But the fact that she had to be nearby had to count for something. “Did she break in?” Iris asked.

“Nah, she just found the one with the nastiest energy.”

Roman said that completely deadpan and Andrew actually laughed again. “I’m on my way,” Iris said. “I can just wait in the lobby until she gets back if I have to.”

“I’m already here,” Roman said.

“Yeah, but you don’t have magic.”

“And Celine needs to get back to the kids later,” Roman added. “Fair. Alright, I’ll see you when you get here. Are you bringing Noah?”

She glanced at Andrew. “I obviously can’t go,” Andrew said. “And I’m sorry Iris, but to be frank, Liv isn’t going to go anywhere near you. Or probably let Noah anywhere near you.”

“So we gotta get the chicken, fox, and grain across the river,” Roman said.

“I’ll go first,” Iris said. “I’ll hold her at gunpoint if I need to.”

“Iris, have you ever even held a gun?” Roman asked.

Iris shrugged. “No,” she replied. “But I’ll be there in half an hour.”

———–

CONTINUE TO EPISODE 12

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