“No, no…I think I know where it’s at now. Thank you.” I started to turn away and then paused. “Kyriakos…are you…are you happy?”

This question from someone less than half his age caught him by surprise. And I was surprised he answered. “Happy? Well…content, I guess. I have a good life. Better than most. A very good life, really. Sometimes I wonder…”

My breath caught. “Wonder what?”

“Nothing,” he said, giving me another good-natured smile. “More nonsense. Yes, Letha. I’m happy. Why do you want to know?”

“Nonsense of my own,” I murmured. “And you’re sure you don’t remember me?”

I had my answer before I spoke. No. Those eyes had never laid sight on me before. I was just an odd, passing girl. I was no one.

“I’m sorry, I don’t.” He winked. “But I’ll remember you now.”

Somehow, I doubted it. Leaving him, I felt my heart break. Really, my heart was breaking all the time. You’d think it could only happen once. This was what I’d wanted. What I’d gambled eternity for. Kyriakos was happy. I’d saved him and should be happy in return. Yet, I felt unhappier than I had since becoming a succubus. I decided at that moment I’d never use Letha’s shape or name again. I wanted to wipe her from my mind too….

“It’s so easy with you,” hissed the Oneroi. It was Two, I thought. I was back in the box. “We don’t even need the ivory gate.”

I was so scarred from that memory of Kyriakos, by the truth of what it really meant to be erased from someone’s life, that I was inclined to agree with Two. Then, a tiny spark within me glimmered just a bit. I studied the two Oneroi carefully.

“What was the other dream?” I asked. “Before the one about my husband? Why didn’t you let it finish?”

“It did finish,” said One. Their blue, blue eyes were the same, revealing nothing.

“It didn’t,” I argued. “You cut it off. It didn’t go the way you planned, did it? My friends found out something from Dante—something you didn’t want them to know.”

“They found nothing,” Two replied. “It was a lie. We gave you false hope, hope that will turn to ashes when you find yourself spending the rest of eternity here.”

“You’re the lie,” I said. The spark within my ragged, worn body flared just a little more. “The dream was true.”

One continued the denial. “The only truth is that you can’t tell the difference. And that there is no hope.”

“You’re lying,” I said, but as those cold sets of eyes surveyed me, my spark wavered. Uncertainty spread within me. I’d been through so much, a mental rape of sorts, that I questioned once more if I trusted myself. My words were bold, but I no longer knew if I could believe them.

Two smiled, able to see into my mind. “Dream,” he said.

My initial time with the Oneroi had been a mix of true and false dreams. As time went on—and I really had no way of saying how much of it did go on—the majority of them seemed to be true ones. They were either visitations of awful memories or more glimpses into my current life, meant to demoralize me and make me homesick.

I was still torn apart, still feeling more animal than human or succubus or…whatever. Yet, the fleeting pieces of rationality within me wondered at the sudden lack of handcrafted visions. One might argue the Oneroi were being lazy. They were just giving me recycled material, and whenever I did see my friends in the world, I got the impression that it was less a dream and more like the Oneroi flipping me onto a TV channel to make sure I stayed distracted and gave them something to feed off of. It almost felt like they were trying to keep me busy because…well, they were busy. But why? What had happened? What had Dante been about to tell Roman and the others? Was it enough to make the Oneroi pull some of their attention from me? Or were these simply more mind games meant to leave me in turmoil?

I kept hoping I’d see a follow-up to what had happened with Dante, but the Oneroi had other parts of the life I’d left behind to show me. Or, well, parts I hadn’t left behind. Simone was still impersonating me, and the Oneroi wanted me to know.

Adding insult to injury, she was helping Maddie and Seth with the wedding. The three of them were out cake shopping, and honestly, I was almost more surprised to find Seth there than I was Simone in her disguise. He’d pretty much kept away from the wedding planning as much as possible, using the pretense that he was no good at decisions and was happy to let Maddie run things the way she wanted.

I didn’t doubt the first part of what he said but wondered about the second. In my heart of hearts, the one that believed he was still in love with me, I secretly hoped he was passing it to Maddie just because he was indifferent to it all. I wanted to believe that he really didn’t care about the planning because he didn’t care about the wedding.

It was clear, however, that I cared. Or rather—Simone cared. Considering my reluctance at dress shopping, you would have thought Maddie might notice the sudden increase in zeal. Nope. Maddie was too caught up in her own bubble of happiness and welcomed “my” assistance.

So, the three of them set off on a cake adventure, visiting all the bakeries Maddie had compiled and ranked on a list pulled from hours of Internet research.

“You want it creamy,” said Simone, licking icing off her fingers at a bakery in Belltown. Actually, it was more like sucking. “This is a little too sugary.” The threesome sat at a table where they had been provided with a plate of samples.

“That’s the point,” said Maddie. She was eating a bite-size piece of chocolate cake in a much less pornographic way. “Mega sugar rush.”

“Yeah, but if you get too much sugar, it just tastes grainy. You want it to slide right over your lips.” She turned to Seth. “Don’t you think so?”

Seth had taken a bite out of a piece of marble cake. “It is kind of grainy.”

Simone gave him a knowing smile, one that seemed to say, See? I know you better than anyone else in the world.

Seth held her eyes for a moment, but his expression was unreadable. He turned toward Maddie. “But we can do whatever you want.”

“No, no,” she said, not sounding too disappointed. “This is for both of us. I want it to be something you like too.”

Seth gave her a mischievous smile. “Does it matter? It all gets shoved in the face anyway.”

Maddie’s eyes went wide. “No, it doesn’t! Don’t even think about doing that.”

“Guess you won’t know until the time comes, huh?” His smile had grown.

Seeing him play with her made me (figuratively) squirm, but I took comfort in seeing a flash of annoyance in Simone’s eyes. Maddie was succeeding where Simone couldn’t. That was how it should be…or was it? Maddie’s unwitting triumph over Simone meant she had…well, triumphed over me. Or had she? Simone looked like me but wasn’t truly me. Damn. This was all so confusing.

“Seth wouldn’t do that,” said Simone, resting her hand on his shoulder in what was supposed to be a friendly way. Maddie couldn’t see it from her vantage, but Simone’s fingers lightly brushed the back of his neck. “Not if he wants a good honeymoon.”

She spoke lightly, but there was a sly undertone there. Having her sex life brought up in public made Maddie blush. Seth had shifted uncomfortably, but the reason was unclear. Simone’s fingers? The mention of sex? Maybe both. Simone removed her hand, seeming innocent to all the world, except Seth and me.

Maddie seemed eager to change the subject from the romantic goings-on of a honeymoon. “I think you should at least pick the cake flavor,” she said. “I’m choosing so much else.”

“I don’t know,” said Seth. He still seemed uncomfortable. “I don’t care if you do it.”

“Yeah, but she wants you to,” said Simone. “Come on, make one firm decision here. You can’t go wrong. Maddie’ll eat anything you pick.”