Chapter 126: Did You Do This?

Chapter 126: Chapter 126: Did You Do This?

Chapter 126: Did You Do This?

Inside his apartment, Cyrus Calder sat at the small table with a serious expression and wrote quickly in his diary.

The room was quiet except for the scrape of his pen and the faint hum of the old refrigerator. Daphne Whitlock’s lunch container had been washed and left near the sink. The food she had given him earlier sat uneasily in his stomach, not because it had tasted bad, but because he could never decide whether accepting her care counted as eating dinner or walking one step deeper into someone else’s house.

That problem could wait.

The missing memory could not.

Until tonight, Cyrus had believed the plain ring on his finger only stole from him while he slept. It had seemed logical enough. Sleep was when he was helpless. Sleep was when the mind loosened its grip. Sleep was when a person could lose things without feeling the hand that took them.

But he had not slept during the day.

He had gone to school, tested Audra’s glamourkin ring, fought several boys in an alley, worked at The Full Moon Lounge, accepted far too much attention from Helena Baird and Rhea Maddox, walked home, and returned to his apartment fully awake.

Even so, an entire year had vanished from him without warning.

Why?

Cyrus’s gaze moved back and forth over the lines he had written that evening. He checked the order of events, the marks beside names, the notes about Faye, the fight, the lounge, Daphne’s question, and finally the part about Audra’s ring.

His eyes stopped there.

Uncertainty appeared behind the curtain of his hair.

He had not been struck in the head during the fight. That ruled out the simple answer. The scrape on his face was shallow, and the bruises on his arms had come from blocking. Nothing had happened that should have shaken memories loose.

At lunch, however, he had voluntarily helped Audra test the ring that could control people.

When that ring took effect, his thoughts disappeared. From his perspective, no time passed. He became a doll, a body waiting for someone else’s command. Was that close enough to sleep?

Could his own ring have used that empty state to steal memory?

Cyrus frowned.

That did not fully make sense either.

He slept normally every night. Most nights, no memory disappeared. If simple unconsciousness were enough, the ring should have been taking years from him constantly.

His mind returned to the image of Audra under control.

Her vacant eyes. Her still body. The way she had stood there as if her thoughts had been lowered into deep water.

Maybe the condition was not sleep itself.

Maybe the condition was depth.

Perhaps the ring could steal when he sank too far away from ordinary awareness, whether through sleep, control, exhaustion, or some other state he could not judge from inside his own body.

The thought felt unpleasantly close to the truth.

The protection on his finger was not free.

It pulled him back, but it might be taking payment each time it did.

How was he supposed to measure how deeply he slept?

If he forced himself to stay awake, he would only build up exhaustion. After a few days, his body would crash whether he wanted it to or not. If he then slept too deeply, would the ring take everything in one clean bite?

He was not some ultimate creature who could stop sleeping forever.

He was only a runaway Frostborn trying to pass math, pay rent, work shifts, and avoid being dragged back into a room he never wanted to see again.

One safeguard was not enough.

Cyrus did not believe Isolde would retreat because of a single ring, no matter how useful it might be. That woman had given him protection and a problem in the same breath, which was exactly the kind of thing she would do. Help wrapped around threat. Care shaped like a leash.

She had truly left him a difficult question.

After several minutes, Cyrus closed the diary.

For now, he could only sleep.

When he woke, he would keep thinking of other safeguards.

Later that night, the neighboring apartment stirred.

Daphne Whitlock stood near her own door with one hand almost on the handle.

At this hour, stepping into the hallway had already become a habit she did not want to examine. Check his door. Listen for movement. Confirm whether the chain was still in place. Maybe speak one sentence low enough to excuse herself as worried. Maybe stand there long enough to imagine that concern counted as restraint.

Her fingers stopped before touching the handle.

Cyrus’s question from earlier returned to her.

If I really lose my memory later, what will you do?

The loneliness in his voice had not been loud. That made it worse. It had rested around him quietly, like something he had stopped expecting anyone to notice.

Daphne closed her eyes.

Rare-blood traits were not all blessings. She knew that better than an ordinary person would. Her own line carried violent impulses buried under generations of dilution. If her blood were stronger, if the old instincts had risen clearer in her, the desire to possess, corner, press, and hurt might have become much harder to dress up as affection.

Even diluted, it was there.

She had seen Cyrus become younger and older before her eyes. She still did not know exactly what rare-blood line he belonged to, but memory loss did not sound impossible anymore.

If he truly had someone reliable to depend on, he could have left after meeting a person like her. He could have broken the lease, changed routes, hidden at a friend’s house, vanished from the apartment, and refused every meal she tried to push into his hands.

He had not left.

That fact, which had pleased her before, now made her feel something closer to shame.

If she had never crossed the line, she might have been able to say, with a clean conscience, that he could trust her. She might have been able to promise that even if he forgot, she would guard his space, his choices, and his freedom.

Instead, before tonight, she had still been watching for chances to satisfy herself.

The door remained closed.

Daphne lowered her hand.

Her eyes dimmed.

She really was not a decent person.

In the apartment next door, none of Daphne’s thoughts reached Cyrus.

He slept without dreams.

Morning came with a thin strip of light across the floor.

Cyrus stood at the sink, brushing his teeth with one hand and holding his diary open with the other. He read while rinsing, checking the entries against the fog where memory should have been.

The words were in his handwriting.

The events were described clearly.

Even so, the memories themselves felt distant. Not absent, not completely. They existed as vague shapes, as if he were reading a summary of a life that belonged to him but had been sealed behind frosted glass.

Cyrus stared at the entries beginning from age eleven.

This time, ten years were gone.

If the ring took one year at a time, seven more losses could empty him entirely.

The timing was worse. There was no fixed rule he could trust. The shortest interval might be one week. The longest might let him live outside for another hundred days before anything happened.

Could he build enough protection in time?

He did not know.

He could only move one step at a time.

At least he still had a bottom line. He had the diary. He had the ring’s partial protection. He had people who could be useful if handled carefully.

The paper cut from yesterday had nearly closed, and the bruises from the fight had faded by more than half. Still, for appearances, he replaced the bandage on his finger before leaving. Human injuries needed human timelines. Healing too fast invited attention.

His suppressants were also almost gone.

That problem had to be handled soon.

Cyrus sighed, packed his bag, and opened the door.

Daphne was waiting in the hallway.

Just like last night, she appeared as if the timing had arranged itself by coincidence. This time, she held food in both hands.

Cyrus accepted the breakfast.

While taking it, he studied her face.

Daphne was beautiful enough that tiredness did not make her ordinary. It only softened the edges under her eyes and made her expression look less controlled. Even so, it was not hard to see that she had slept badly, if she had slept at all.

If guilt had kept her awake, Cyrus might have to raise his evaluation of this particular predatory teacher.

But that seemed too generous.

She had probably lost sleep because she wanted a child too much and could not satisfy herself.

Cyrus carried the sandwich she had made and left for school.

He ate on the way.

Annoyingly, the sandwich was excellent. Warm egg, melted cheese, crisp bacon, and bread toasted just enough to hold together without scraping the roof of his mouth. Daphne’s cooking had improved again.

Cyrus gave her a silent point of approval in his heart.

He had not yet reached the school gate when he noticed a familiar figure.

Faye Larkin stood near the entrance, looking left and right as if waiting for someone. Her hands held the strap of her bag tightly. She looked too delicate standing there in the morning crowd, almost easy to miss despite being right in front of the school.

When their eyes met, she immediately ran toward him.

Cyrus stopped.

Faye came close, then looked him over carefully. Her gaze moved across his face, his hands, his shoulders, his uniform, and finally returned to his eyes. Only after confirming that he seemed unhurt did she release a quiet breath.

Cyrus tilted his head.

"What happened? Did you hear I was blocked after school yesterday?"

Faye hesitated.

"Yes, I heard something about it."

"You do not need to worry. Society has laws."

He said it with enough seriousness that it almost sounded like a joke.

Faye nodded several times.

"As long as you are okay, that is what matters."

Looking at her worried expression, Cyrus felt the same impression rise again.

Faye really was an unusually gentle girl.

Even when the trouble had started because people targeted her, she had waited at the school gate worrying about him.

The two of them entered the building together. Even walking into the classroom at the same time did not attract much attention. Their combined presence remained too quiet to disturb the room.

There was one exception.

Audra Sloane sat at her desk and noticed them immediately.

Her gaze passed lightly over the distance between Cyrus and Faye. When she found they were not standing as close as her imagination had suggested, she withdrew her eyes without drawing attention.

Cyrus sensed the glance, but did not bother reacting.

After he returned to his seat, he saw the three girls from yesterday approaching Faye.

Each held one of Faye’s notebooks in both hands.

Their faces carried obvious caution.

Cyrus shifted slightly in his chair. He propped his chin on one hand, and the fingers of his other hand tapped lightly against the desk. His attention rested on the girls without appearing too direct.

They noticed.

All three stopped in front of Faye’s desk and returned the notebooks together.

Then they bowed their heads.

"We are really sorry for the past two days, Faye."

"We should not have forced our work onto you."

"It will not happen again."

The apology was not loud, but it was clear enough for the nearby students to hear if they cared.

Faye looked at the notebooks in surprise.

"It is all right."

Her answer came softly, and perhaps too quickly, but she took the notebooks back.

Cyrus watched without changing posture.

The girls apologized together, then left with their heads lowered. Since many classmates had not yet arrived, not many people witnessed the scene. That was probably for the best. A public apology mattered, but turning it into another spectacle would only make Faye uncomfortable.

Once they were gone, Cyrus relaxed his hand and changed position.

Before he could look away, Faye turned around in her chair.

Her voice was very light.

"Did you do this?"

Cyrus looked at her.

The morning noise in the classroom moved around them, students arriving, chairs shifting, someone unzipping a bag too loudly. Faye sat quietly in the middle of it, her notebooks returned, her eyes still touched with uncertainty.

Cyrus did not answer immediately.

What counted as doing it?

He had not ordered them to apologize. He had not asked for gratitude. He had only told them to return what they borrowed, then helped their friends understand the value of peaceful behavior in a wide alley with convenient exits.

That was different.

"I only told them to return what they borrowed," he said at last.

Faye’s fingers tightened around the top notebook.

"Thank you."

"You already thanked me yesterday."

"That was for yesterday," she said. "This is for today."

Cyrus paused.

That distinction was very human. He could understand it in theory, but facing it directly made him uncertain.

"It was not a difficult thing," he said.

Faye looked down at the notebooks in her lap.

"To me, it was."

Cyrus had no reply ready.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then the classroom door opened again, and Owen entered with slightly messy hair and the expression of someone who had run most of the way to school after a complicated morning. His eyes found Cyrus first, then Faye, then the notebooks in Faye’s hands.

He seemed to guess enough.

Owen came to his desk and sat down, leaning closer under the cover of unpacking his bag.

"Everything okay?"

"Everything is normal," Cyrus said.

Owen glanced at him.

"With you, that sentence is becoming less reassuring."

Cyrus took out his textbook and decided not to respond.

Normal was relative.

No one was currently bleeding. No one had asked him to enter a black room. His memory was still failing, but he knew about it. Daphne had given him breakfast without touching him. The girls had returned Faye’s notebooks. Audra’s ring remained a possible tool. Owen had arrived without being dragged away by Iris again.

For a school morning, that was acceptable.

The first bell rang.

Students hurried into seats, and the classroom shifted into the reluctant order of another school day.

Faye faced forward.

Cyrus opened his notebook.

The diary problem sat beneath every ordinary movement. Ten years missing. Seven possible losses left. Unknown timing. Unknown trigger. Unknown price attached to Isolde’s protection.

His finger brushed the bandage as he turned a page.

Then he glanced at Faye’s returned notebooks, stacked safely on her desk.

One problem at a time.

That was the only way forward.