There was enough light from the large skylight above, but Al pushed a button on the wall beside the door and it closed, shrouding them in total darkness.

A click and the light inside the Booth flickered, giving Isla a clear view of the rotary phone inside through its glass panel walls. She flinched when Al moved toward it and stepped into the five-meter Erebus surrounding it.

He pulled open the door. It even had the same squeaking sound, noted Isla.

Al raised his brows in question. She lifted her chin and walked toward him. Cris followed.

The Keeper narrowed his eyes at her secretary.

"It's my memory," Cris insisted.

With a dramatic sigh, Al said, "I guess we can squeeze you in."

Her legs shook as she stepped inside. It was suffocating, but she tried to breathe, facing the red rotary phone. As Al joined her inside, she quickly blinked against the tears burning at the back of her eyes. Cris struggled to squeeze into the small space with Al grumbling as he did so.

The three of them cramped inside like sardines in a bottle.

Isla held up her hand, amazed that she was able to control the shaking. When Al handed her the card, she picked up the handset and positioned the receiver against her ear. Looking at Cris' card, she studied his unique Memory ID and dialed 003962. It was followed by two sets of codes, one for the past two years.

As soon as the dial tone returned, she picked one set of codes and placed her finger on the number 1 finger hole and turned the dial down to the finger stopper, noting the problem Al mentioned earlier.

"You'll need to fix this," she murmured.

"You don't have to tell me."

"Instead of painting Esha's nails or forehead or writing that novel," she added.

Al gulped. She looked at him. Now that they were inside an Erebus, she could hear his thoughts. He was still too loud, thinking too many things at once. But she also noted the man's curiosity. He had too many questions about her.

"As I said, I'm doing this to test the Booth," she replied to his silent question.

"She can really read my thoughts."

"I still can, Al," she murmured as she continued to dial.

Cris was silent behind them, watchful and curious.

The moment she dialed the fourteenth digit, and as the finger wheel sprang back to its home position to send the last pulse signals, the glass walls of the Booth began to flicker along with the light. With each flicker, bits of the walls encasing them disappeared, along with the room outside, replaced by a different scene: a garden basked in sunlight. The outdoor wind seeped through the flicker, gently cooling them.

A memory.

"This is what we call the Flicker," said Al to Cris.

"I know."

"It's the invisible wall that separates the safe zone from the memory."

"I know," Cris gritted out.

The floor and glass panels disappeared, leaving nothing but the pedestal and the phone. The roof was also gone. They felt the heat of the afternoon sun that washed over the garden.

Finally, they were free.

Al and Cris stepped away from each other, taking a breath as if they had been trapped underwater for a long time.

Isla squinted against the bright sun before scanning the garden. It was familiar, but the scene before them was not. The sound of distant birds came through the receiver.

"Stay in the safe zone, Cris," Al warned to the young man who had wandered outside the five-meter radius, looking at the other Cris standing nearby, bent on his phone while the three women in the garden talked around a table under an umbrella. They were drinking iced lemonade.

"They can't see us?" Cris asked, waving his hand in front of the other version of himself.

"Of course, they can't, neither can they hear us. We're in a memory. And here I thought you'd know this," Al replied while Isla continued to listen to Diana who was talking to Lola.

The memory version of herself, however, looked like she was listening, but she knew she was not. The look on her face told her she was looking into the woman's thoughts, searching for her lost memories. She looked at her card to check the series of numbers she dialed.

This was a year ago.

"We can't hear them," said Cris, turning to frown at the memory Isla and others.

"The receiver is the only way you can hear anything inside the Booth," said Al.

"This is not exactly how I remember it." He looked over to his other self.

"Our minds remember things we are not even consciously aware of while they happen. The Booth can replay a scene by picking up the memories of all our senses. And it lets us relive those memories. Or at least the one your mind and senses experienced at that time even if your memory of it has changed or faded." Pausing, Al added, "Now, please, get back inside the safe zone." Cris ignored him. "I'm serious, kid. This memory can shift anytime. If the Flicker returns, you'll be left here."

"I know how this works."

"No, you don't. You've read only five fucking books." Al reached over and pulled Cris back into the invisible line that separated them from the memory. "Do you know how many Opulents—how many creatures—went missing in memories? Even their own?"

"I know a few. Two books I read detailed the Booth's history. I know it comes from Pandora's box and that—"

Al mockingly chuckled. "Of course, you did."

"And I know this is not its first form. We adapted this design in the 1800's."

Al gasped dramatically. "Gosh. You're amazing, you know that?"

Ignoring Al, Cris turned to Isla. She knew what he was not asking. And the answer was no—she could not recall this memory.

"Where is this place?" Al later asked, eyes on the façade of the manor behind the three women.

"The Emperor House."

Al turned to memory Lola and Diana. "Who are they?"

"The one with the blue hair is Lola," said Cris.

"My sister," added Isla.

"And the other lady?"

"Diana Westcott," Cris replied.

"Westcott? You mean she's the daughter of—"

"Myra Develler."

"My aunt," Isla absently added.

"The one who has the insanity Curse," Al finished, tone growing more curious. "And this woman is her daughter, the one with hundreds of faces. I know enough about the others, but not much about you, boss."

Cris did not reply. Like Isla, he was busy studying the memory.

It was just as she remembered the Booth to feel like. It took her to a memory of someone else, to actually experience it in all her senses. Her hand tightened around the handset.

Even here, she could still not look into her own head. But she found that she could look through Diana's. But there was nothing interesting there. Then she faced the phone again and dialed the first number on the series. Al reached for Cris, pulling him back just as the air around the safe zone flickered, transporting them into another time, another memory. Al nervously let out a laugh, and said to Isla, "A little warning next time, please."

But Isla was not listening. Using the dial, she forwarded scenes by days and hours. Flashes of Cris doing things, mostly on his phone, rushed around them. Inside the Flicker, days and nights came like lightning. Images of memories flew around them in flashes of pictures, of day and night. And then she stopped, letting go of the dial.

They were in a courtroom. A human courtroom. Isla's jaw tightened, her eyes on a black woman with a bandage over her nose. The human chit who fucked Axon.

"Who is that?" Al asked, pointing at the godly man beside the black woman.

"Axon."

"Human?"

"No. What makes you think I'll consider a human?" asked Isla.

"Her ex," Cris answered Al, watching the memory version of himself seated beside memory Isla at the other side of the room. "It's weird to not hear anything."

"Demigod?" Al asked Isla, still gawking at Axon.

She did not reply as she scowled at the blond, handsome devil holding the black woman's hand. Memory Isla was scowling at the human from across the courtroom while the judge's voice echoed through the receiver and into Isla's ears. The woman started crying.

Isla cursed under her breath. They were in a human courtroom, in a Vesta. She could not read Axon's thoughts, nor could she look into the woman's.

"Tiffany Child has a minor injury—" the judge began, but the woman sprang to her feet and started screaming like an angry pixie.

It was so loud Isla had to keep the receiver off her ear. Al's face stretched in amusement and curiosity. He could not help it, so he pressed his ear against the receiver to listen in when Isla replaced it to her ears. "I can't understand what she's saying. Her voice is all nasal and congested."

"She wants me to pay for her nose job," Isla wryly said.

"Why?"

"Because she broke it," Cris impatiently replied. "This is not a significant memory, Isla. It's—"

"I want to remember her face," she interjected, eyes on the woman. She could not see clearly, but she knew the girl was humanly gorgeous. Curly, long hair; sharp jawline, luscious lips, slender neck, well-endowed breasts, and her hips... gods of Arenas, was it even humanly possible to have those?

Then she scowled at Axon, her godly ex who towered over the woman, his broad chest and muscled arms guiding Tiffany Child back to her seat. She pictured him claiming this human in his bed, sprawling her in the middle like claiming a sacrifice. She could hear his pants of pleasure, his powerful hands as he pleasured this greedy mortal.

She wanted to murder him. The bloody half-breed! She should have listened to Ivor. Demigods were the most imbalanced combination of two species with the worst traits—narcissistic, conceited bastards.

"Isla," Cris prodded. He looked around the courtroom, at the image of herself sitting like a lifeless rock behind a desk with violet-haired Lola beside her. His own version was quietly typing on his phone.

"Are you always on that thing?" Al asked him.

"I have important matters to attend to."

"Like what? Opulense?"

"I don't use social media in the manner that you think, Alejandro."

"Do not call me by that name," Al snapped.

"Why?"

"That's my father's name."

"I know. I read your file, Junior."

"Silence," Isla ordered, echoing the one the judge ordered the court.

The old man added more things regarding damages and settlements, but she was not listening. Her own blood was pounding up to her ears in fury.

"Isla, this is not a significant memory," Cris repeated.

Her eyes fixed on Tiffany Child. Should she find the woman now? Cause her some tragedy? Should she look into the woman's futures? Perhaps lead her to a different end—one that would be a bit more dreadful and immediate? It would not end the world if she did. One human would not make such a significant dent on the universal order.

"Isla," Cris said again, this time more sternly.

Isla blinked and looked at Cris' card.

Then she dialed, bringing back the Flicker that took them to another memory.

A fireplace, carpeted floors, wooden paneling, a large window. "Who is that?" Al asked, although it was clear he knew who it was.

"The Emperor."

"Good gods of the underworld, he looks so... ancient," he said, stepping just far enough behind the invisible border of the Flicker.

The memory Isla was looking into Ivor's memory. He was letting her, thinking she needed this. And from where she stood, she could also feel the pity he felt for her. Her jaw tight, Isla looked down at the dial. She could review these later on her own. For now, she needed to reorient herself with the Booth.

She forwarded the memory. As she moved the dial up and down, she remembered watching her mother do it many times before.

She stopped, and they were inside Cris' bedroom back home. He was reading a book. She placed her finger into the zero hole and moved it to five, forwarding the scene five hours later. Then she took them ten hours further.

The Flicker transported them to the night before her birthday. They were in her office. She did not have to listen to know what she was saying to Cris. And before Al could make a comment, Isla replaced the handset back into its place and the Flicker returned, the panels returning and squeezing them in before. Then they were back in the dark room of the Department of Lost Things.

Cris was fast to exit the packed Booth, wiping sweat. Al followed, whirling on his heels to face Isla. "He cheated on you with that girl, didn't he?"

She looked at Al without saying a word, her icy blue eyes menacing. She had just survived a few minutes inside the Booth, fighting off memories of the last moments she had with her mother. She had no time to talk about Axon or that human wench, Tiffany Child. She would get her revenge, but that would not be now. She had things to fix here.

She pocketed Cris' card and left the room.

"Is she angry?" she heard Al ask Cris.

"I rather we don't find out."

***

Lucas and the girl walked out of the hospital and across the street to a café. He had on his baseball hat and sunglasses. She had on the same dress that had been washed by the farm worker who took her in a week ago.

"This is just our second visit," he told her when they entered the café. "I'm sure the doctors will find more things soon."

"My memory?" she asked.

He paused to think. "Their job is to help you regain it."

Her face was unreadable as she nodded.

The place was quiet, with only a few people around. Good enough for him, he thought, as he led the girl to the counter. "What do you want?" he asked.

She looked up at the menu. "I don't remember how I learned to read."

She did not even sound forlorn. She was just stating facts.

"I'll have something cold," she absently said, looking around the café, her eyes fixed on the woman with blue hair sitting in one corner.

"Milkshake?" he asked, not sure what cold drinks kids liked these days.

She just nodded. "That girl's hair just turned blue."

"Who?" Lucas absently asked, opening his phone to pay.

"That woman." He looked up and threw the blue-haired woman a look.

"Sure," he just said. "Let's sit somewhere quiet"

Once they settled, he looked at the girl still looking at the blue-haired lady. "We need to call you something. Do you have a name in mind?"

She turned to him, face impassive. "No."

He narrowed his eyes with a small smile. "I don't know, but you look like a Jade."

"Jade," she repeated, nodding her head.

"Is that a yes?"

A shrug, and she turned again to look at the blue-haired lady. And her eyes widened. "It just turned silver."

"What?"

"Her hair."

Lucas turned and this time, he paid attention. The woman's hair had turned gray.

Opulent, he thought. But she did not look local.

He lowered his cap and turned away. Too late, because the silver-haired lady noticed she was being watched and lifted her head. The curiosity on her face was shortly followed by instant recognition.

"We'll have to go," Lucas told Jade.

"But our drinks—"

"We can get some on the way home." He jumped to his feet. "Let's go."

He cursed under his breath and guided Jade to the door when he heard the woman gasp in awe.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" he heard the voice call out behind them.

"Walk faster."

"Stop! Stop!"

He did not stop.

"Stop!" the woman hissed behind them now.

Lucas gritted his teeth. Jade looked over her shoulder. "It's orange now. Her hair."

Lucas did not have to turn around because the same woman with the orange hair jumped before him, grinning with stars in her eyes. "Luke Edner," she breathlessly said, brown eyes wide with wonder. "Oh my gods of Olympus! Luke Edner!"