Chapter 112: Side Effects of Amnesia Include Turning Into a Disney Princess and Potentially Becoming a Victim of Several Felonies

Back on campus, a few minutes prior…

Jordan Hale was in a crappy mood. If anyone had told her, just three months ago, that she’d be this upset over Alex Reyes’s love life, she’d have laughed in their face. Jordan Hale didn’t give a damn about other people’s business, least of all Alex Reyes’s. But somehow, Magnus Chane, that sneaky bastard, had become one of the most important people in her life, and now she was invested in seeing him and Alex happy. Which was understandably a frustrating problem, given their current situation.

But the worst part was the helplessness she felt — she constantly felt like punching someone without a target to actually punch. It wasn’t Magnus’s fault these things were happening to him, so punching him more than the necessary amount to keep him from spiraling felt like bullying. Worse, it’d feel too close to literally kicking the guy while he was down. And it wasn’t Alex’s fault, either. She probably deserved a good beating anyway, but there was no point when she couldn’t even remember Magnus or understand what she’d done wrong.

So, here Jordan was, on a bench looking over the quad, sharing earbuds with Sofia Ramirez (who had just told Magnus to check for Hidden Objectives), while a phone and one judgmental raccoon — dispensing the occasional pseudo-wisdom between bouts of craziness that Sofia would selectively translate — sat perched between them.

“You really gonna do it?” she asked Sofia. The mic was currently on mute so no one else in the meeting could hear them talking.

“What?”

“What Harper asked you to—arrange a group sex thing for Chane without Reyes.”

Sofia leaned back on the bench and crossed her arms. “It’s not like I’m stoked about that, either. But she’s right—Alex would’ve wanted it, if she were still herself.”

Jordan let out a dry, humorless laugh. “She would, yeah.”

“…It’ll be pointless, you know?” she added after a pause. “Chane is a lot of things, but he’s no cheater. He’s not gonna be able to go through with it even if you manage to set it up. It’s probably what Reyes loves and hates most about him.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Sofia stretched her leg and kicked a pebble on the ground. “But it’s better to have something to do rather than just sitting around on our asses watching and waiting for bad things to happen, Jordan.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Jordan muttered.

“You humans are weird,” Tony intoned. “Having multiple mating partners increases chances of offspring. Yet your kind places too much emphasis on having only one mating partner. Or even having a main mating partner when you have multiple ones.”

Sofia stared at him but decided against engaging… or translating.

The raccoon went on, entirely unbothered, “You humans also grieve when your mates depart or change mating partners. I have observed this. I once observed one of your kind weeping into a bag of chips. It was very moving, albeit very weird.”

Meanwhile, Jordan squinted at Alex across the quad.

“Hey, Ramirez,” she said slowly, her frown deepening. “Is it just me, or is Reyes acting strangely?”

“She’s forgotten Magnus.” Sofia snorted. “Of course she’s not herself right now.”

“No, not that,” Jordan snapped. “I’m not stupid. I’m talking about…” She pointed across the quad at Alex, who was currently staring at a group of squirrels under a tree. “…That.”

Sofia followed her hand just as Alex’s head snapped toward a flock of pigeons on the patch of grass nearby. They weren’t close enough to see her expression, but Jordan might have been onto something: there was something in Alex’s posture that felt deeply wrong to Sofia.

“She’s been staring at those squirrels for a full minute,” Jordan said. “And now the pigeons. Is it just me, or is she looking at them a bit funny?”

“No,” Sofia reluctantly agreed. “I think so too. Though I don’t know why yet…”

Tony made a dismissive noise. “Perhaps she has finally developed some sense. All flying creatures are treacherous. Pigeons especially. Squirrels are more reasonable, negotiable even. Though I wouldn’t trust them, either.”

Sofia’s head snapped toward him, her eyes widening as the realization hit her like a bucket of ice water. “Oh…”

Jordan turned to her. “What?”

Sofia didn’t answer immediately. She looked back across the quad, where Alex was shaking her head and walking away while uncharacteristically rubbing the back of her neck nervously.

“Oh, no.”

“What?” Jordan demanded.

Sofia had already unmuted the mic.

“Guys!” she called out. “We may have another problem! It’s about Alex…”

“Oh no, what now?” Magnus immediately asked. “Is she okay?”

He sounded like he was halfway into spiraling again already, which made Sofia feel worse about what she had to say next, but she forced it out anyway.

“She’s not in any immediate danger,” she reassured him. “But Magnus, you never revoked Alex’s power, did you?”

Magnus blinked with visible confusion, the question catching him off guard. “What?”

“The talking-to-animals power,” Sofia clarified. “You’re still sharing that with her, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Everything happened so quickly, and now that she’s forgotten me, it’s not like I can kiss her again to—”

He slapped his forehead. “Oh, no!”

Next to Sofia, Jordan also connected the dots at the same time. “Yeah, okay. That’s definitely gonna be a problem.”

Across the Zoom grid and inside Harper’s living room, realization rippled out in waves as people connected the dots at their own paces — Aaron, Ethan, and Jade first, then everyone else who had been at the beach house when they tested power sharing, along with Emily and Dash, who’d overheard it explained again to Jordan over the listening device. Only Harper and Naomi remained confused still.

“Okay, can someone explain?” Harper asked, tapping her index finger on the table.

“Right. Sorry,” Aaron said, clearing his throat. “I’ll explain.”

He flipped through his notes and adjusted his glasses. “Okay, so the key thing is that Magnus can share his powers with people who trust him a lot—the System measures it as ninety-percent Trust.” He glanced down at his notes, then continued. “Multiple people can borrow the same power at the same time, but each person can only have one power at a time, and only a weakened version of the power in question.” A brief pause. “…Due to the high trust requirement, currently, Magnus can only share his powers with Alex… and Sofia, as far as I’m aware.”

“We, uh…” Aaron hesitated. “We were planning to test power sharing more this week, but given the situation we’re now in, I guess that’s shelved for now?”

“I mean,” Sofia offered, “Jordan and Naomi are both pretty close to ninety as well, I think.”

“I-I am?!” Naomi blinked, then blushed.

“Yeah,” Magnus confirmed, “you’re both at eighty-something last I checked.”

“I… I guess that makes sense,” Naomi said quietly.

“Anyway,” Harper cut in, “back to the topic at hand?”

“Right,” Sofia said grimly. “Magnus has a power that allows him to talk to animals. He’s currently sharing that one with both Alex and me.”

Harper nodded slowly. “Right, that’s why you guys brought a raccoon here last time.”

“The weakened version only allows us to understand the animals,” Sofia continued, “but not the other way around. And right now, Alex has that. But since she’s without her memories of Magnus or his System—”

“—she’d think she’s losing her mind,” Harper finished, “suddenly suffering from severe auditory hallucinations about talking animals.”

“So,” Ethan said, “we don’t think there’s any chance Alex will just think she’s becoming a Disney princess then?”

Ethan could feel eyes on him even across the video call. Camila smacked his shoulder.

“What?” he complained. “I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

Harper cleared her throat and turned to Magnus. “Okay, is there any way you could, I don’t know, revoke the power from her?”

“I can,” Magnus said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But the method of sharing and revoking powers is through kissing.”

“Of course it is,” Harper muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

For a few seconds, nobody spoke. Then, Harper lowered her hand from her face.

“Okay,” she said. “So Magnus needs to kiss Alex, but the problem is that Alex doesn’t remember him, doesn’t know anything about the System, and currently thinks of him as a guy she’s just broken up with. Am I missing anything?”

“No,” Aaron said. “That about sums it up.”

“Right.” Valeria tapped her pen against her clipboard. “Brainstorming. No bad ideas yet. We filter after.”

“Could he just ask her?” Katie offered.

“Sure. ‘Hey, Alex, I know you don’t remember me, but can I kiss you for reasons I can’t explain?’” Magnus said flatly. “Should I also ask her for a restraining order while I’m at it?”

“Spiked drink?” Priya suggested.

“No!” half the screen barked at once.

“Okay, that was obviously a joke!” Priya sounded offended.

“Truth or dare?” Camila tried. “Like, a party game? Truth or dare, she picks dare, boom—kiss.”

“She’d ask why the ex-boyfriend she just dumped is playing party games in her dorm,” Rachel pointed out. “And she can always just leave after seeing him there, then we’d be back to square one.”

“So what do we do?” Tori asked. “Wait for her to fall for him all over again? That could take weeks.”

“I mean, he did manage to sleep with her within a week before,” Ethan pointed out. “How did you do it the first time around, bro?”

“Honestly?” Magnus rubbed the back of his neck. “I have no idea. It just kinda happened. And every time I asked Alex, she just said it was her secret.”

Awkward silence followed before Maya broke it.

“Okay. Hear me out,” she said, leaning closer to her camera.

Magnus immediately felt a deep, instinctive dread.

“Operation: Sleeping Beauty!” Maya announced it with the gravity of a general revealing a war plan. “She goes to bed. Magnus sneaks into her room. One kiss. Power revoked. He’s out before she wakes up. She never even knows.”

“No,” Magnus said instantly. “Absolutely not. That’s creepy.”

“It’s efficient!”

“It’s more creepy than efficient,” Magnus shot back. “Even if those aren’t mutually exclusive!”

“Wait…” Ethan said slowly. He leaned so close to his laptop that his nose nearly touched the camera lens. “Mechanically speaking, would the System even register a sleeping kiss as a valid power-revoke toggle? Like, does the target have to be conscious for it to count, or does mouth-to-mouth contact mean that would work? Because that’s actually a fascinating—”

Smack!

Chloe smacked Maya’s shoulder hard enough that their entire shared tile jostled on the grid.

“Maya, no! What is wrong with you?!” Chloe half-shouted before turning toward the camera. “Guys, I’m so sorry!” Then she turned her attention back to Maya. “That’s literally breaking and entering. And assault on top of that!”

“Is it really, though? It’s just a kiss from her boyfriend. They kissed each other awake a lot back at the beach house.”

“That’s different!”

“Okay, I’m not saying I agree with Maya’s method,” Valeria cut in, clicking her pen rapidly. “It’s a logistical nightmare. But time is of the essence. Every day this drags on, Alex is going to think she’s going insane—hearing animals talk with no explanation.”

“Exactly!” Maya jabbed a finger at the screen. “And like I said, technically, he’s still her boyfriend! They love each other! Alex would definitely not mind after she gets her memories back!”

“But she doesn’t remember him now.” Jordan’s voice cut through the speakers from the campus bench, flat, hard, and utterly devoid of Maya’s playfulness. “This is wrong on so many levels. She won’t—can’t consent to this right now. And he doesn’t want to force it on her, either.” Jordan turned her head toward the phone camera. “Do you, Chane?”

“Of course not!” Magnus blurted out, his stomach churning at the mere thought.

He didn’t care if the System treated their lives like a game, or if Alex might forgive him once her memory returned. She didn’t know him right now. And that mattered.

“It’s a bad idea,” Aaron said, putting his pen down on his desk. “And not just because of the moral implications. What happens if Alex wakes up mid-attempt?”

“Aaron’s right,” Emily agreed from the couch beside Magnus. “It’s unethical, it’s illegal, and if she wakes up halfway through, it destroys whatever chance he has of rebuilding their relationship.”

“Exactly,” Dash added. “If she wakes up to see a guy she doesn’t remember in her bedroom trying to kiss her, the situation escalates to campus security—and potentially law enforcement. We’re trying to get her to fall in love with him again, not get her to file a restraining order against him.”

Maya held up both hands, undeterred. “Okay, okay! I get why failing would be catastrophic. But Sofia is Alex’s roommate. If she lets him in, it’s technically not breaking and entering. And that cuts the risk of getting caught drastically—”

“Absolutely fucking not, Maya!”

Sofia’s voice exploded so loudly that a nearby pigeon bolted into the air, and Tony — who had managed to get a stolen bag of chips from who-knows-where in the last few minutes and was now quietly attempting to pry it open on the bench between her and Jordan — jerked around to stare at her.

On the screen, Sofia’s tile tilted violently as she leaned in, scowling straight into the lens.

“I want this resolved just as much as you do! And you know I’m on Magnus’s side all the way, blood oath and everything. But Alex is a light sleeper, and she trains in mixed martial arts. There is only one way that plan ends—with Magnus getting a broken nose, and Alex never feeling safe in her own room, or around me, ever again.”

A heavy, suffocating silence fell over both the Zoom call and Harper’s living room.

Maya stared at her camera for a few seconds, then glanced at Chloe, who was still looking at her as if she’d personally suggested setting their dorm on fire, before sagging back against her girlfriend.

“Okay. Okay,” Maya mumbled. “You all were right. That was a bad idea.”

“It was a horrendous idea,” Chloe murmured, but she didn’t pull away.

“But I’m just throwing ideas out there,” Maya added. “We do need them to kiss as soon as possible. That part is still true.”

“Back to brainstorming then,” Dash said with a sigh. “We still need a plan, preferably without anyone getting arrested.”

“Or punched,” Magnus muttered.

“Or both,” Ethan added cheerfully.

Camila elbowed Ethan in the ribs hard enough to make him wheeze.

“Ow! What did I do?!” Ethan complained, rubbing his side.

“Alright everyone, take five,” Harper declared, stepping in before the Zoom call could devolve any further. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples. “Maya’s heart is in the right place, even if she hadn’t thought through every implication yet.”

“Thank you!”

“That wasn’t an endorsement,” Chloe whispered to her.

“I know.”

Harper gave the laptop screen a tired, patient look. “Let’s take a breath, get some water, and come back to this with our heads on straight. We need a solution that helps Alex while she’s awake, without violating her boundaries or making things worse for Magnus.”

Magnus leaned back against the couch cushions, rubbing both hands over his face.

Somehow, the nightmare of his girlfriend losing her memories had acquired an immediate side-quest: stopping her from thinking she was going crazy from auditory animal hallucinations.

And the very first brainstorming session had resulted in a proposal about committing several felonies in her bedroom.

The week had barely started, yet Magnus was hating it already.