I ended up staying the night at the Daniels’ home.
Miss Daniels insisted.
“You’re not going wandering around town in your condition.”
I tried to protest.
I didn’t have anywhere else to go, but admitting that felt worse than pretending I had a choice.
Miss Daniels didn’t let me get far.
“You can barely stand upright.”
“I’m standing.”
“You’re leaning against the wall.”
I looked down.
I was.
After everything that had happened, and after embarrassing myself in front of the entire family at dinner, I didn’t have much fight left in me.
So I stayed.
They gave me a small room on the second floor.
The bed was narrow but soft, with a thick quilt folded over it and a small wooden table beside the window.
Someone had left a clean shirt and trousers on the chair.
They were a little too large.
I didn’t care.
I changed out of my stiff, stained uniform that I didn't remember how I acquired.
Then lowered myself onto the bed, and stared at the ceiling.
Sleep didn’t come.
Every time I closed my eyes, the same questions returned.
Who am I?
Where am I?
How did I get here?
I rolled onto my side.
The room was so quiet I could hear a faint hiss in my ears.
A thought kept circling in my head.
What if I wasn’t innocent?
Until now, I had assumed my missing memories were something that had happened to me.
A head injury.
An accident of some kind.
Something outside my control.
But what if they were deliberate?
What if there was a reason I couldn’t remember?
I knew strange things.
The Cold War.
The Soviet Union.
Russia.
Spies.
I didn’t know where any of that knowledge came from.
I just knew it.
One phrase kept resurfacing.
Sleeper agent.
The thought sounded ridiculous.
Then I remembered that ghosts existed.
Magic existed.
A man had apparently been able to bring back the dead.
Ridiculous no longer meant impossible.
What if someone had made me forget?
What if my memories were gone because they were supposed to be?
What if I wasn’t supposed to remember until something happened?
Something familiar enough to pull everything back.
I stared at the ceiling.
That should have sounded comforting.
I had spent the entire day wanting to remember.
Instead, the thought made me anxious.
I didn’t know why.
Maybe I was afraid of what I would remember.
Maybe I was afraid of what kind of person I had been.
I imagined waking up tomorrow and suddenly knowing my name.
Not Xu XiaoXing.
Something else.
Someone else.
I should have wanted that.
I did want that.
I pulled the blanket tighter around myself.
At least, I thought I did.
I barely slept.
---
When I opened my eyes again, pale sunlight was slipping through the curtains.
For several seconds, I didn’t remember where I was.
The unfamiliar ceiling made my body tense.
Then the smell of warm bread drifted beneath the door.
The Daniels’ home.
Right.
I sat up slowly.
I was much more sore than I anticipated.
My shoulder ached.
My back felt like it lifted every ounce of that giant of a man I tossed.
My legs especially were sore.
Someone had left a basin of water outside the room.
I washed my face, and headed downstairs.
Voices came from the kitchen.
Jonathan noticed me first.
He was already seated at the table with half a piece of bread hanging from his mouth.
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
Miss Daniels turned from the stove.
“Did you sleep well?”
“I did.”
She looked at me as if she could see right through me.
To my relief, she didn't press the issue.
Jonathan swallowed.
“You look terrible.”
“Jonathan,” Miss Daniels said.
“What? He does.”
Daniella looked up from her tea.
“He looks better than yesterday.”
“That isn’t saying much.”
I lowered myself into the empty chair.
“Good morning to you too.”
Jonathan grinned.
Lynne sat beside me.
Her hair was tied loosely behind her head, and although her eyes remained slightly swollen, she looked much more rested than she had the night before.
She gave me a small smile.
“Good morning.”
“Morning.”
Miss Daniels placed a plate in front of me.
“Eat before Jonathan does.”
“I don’t eat that much,” Jonathan said.
Every person at the table looked at him.
He glanced between us.
“I’m still growing.”
After breakfast and tea, for several minutes, I almost felt normal.
Then the thought from the night before returned.
I stopped chewing.
Maybe I shouldn’t ask.
Then again, if anyone knew whether something like this was possible, people living in a world where ghosts and magic were ordinary seemed like a reasonable place to start.
I looked around the table.
“I was thinking last night.”
Jonathan nodded gravely.
“There’s your first mistake.”
Daniella kicked him beneath the table.
“Ow.”
Daniella took a slow drink of tea.
“What were you thinking about?”
I hesitated before trying to explain.
I understood the concept I was trying to explain, I just didn't know how I learned it.
“Have any of you ever heard of a sleeper agent?”
Blank expressions met me.
Jonathan tilted his head.
“Like a sleeping soldier?”
“No.”
“A soldier who fights while asleep?”
“No, It’s a kind of spy.”
Daniella frowned.
“What kind?”
I tried to search that strange part of my brain that kept feeding me this concept, in an attempt to describe it.
“Someone raised or trained by another country.”
“That sounds like a normal spy,” Jonathan said.
“They don’t know they’re a spy.”
Jonathan looked interested now.
“Their memories are hidden somehow. Then something happens and they remember who they really are.”
Daniella shook her head.
“Memory magic exists. But not like that.”
Lynne looked toward me.
“Why are you asking?”
I stared down at my hands.
“What if that’s me?”
Nobody answered.
The question sounded worse after leaving my mouth.
“What if there’s a reason I can’t remember? Like what if the memories didn’t disappear by accident?”
Everyone was looking at me.
I forced myself to continue
“What if one day something happens and I become someone completely different?”
The same unease from the night before tightened around my chest.
“What if I hurt someone?”
Jonathan watched me for several seconds.
Daniella took another sip of tea.
“Didn’t you already shoot someone with a crossbow?” Daniella said flatly.
I looked at Daniella and blinked
“That wasn't nessicarily what I– ”
“You also threw someone through a glass window, using a shovel.” Jonathan added while Tearing off a piece of his bread.
“I mean it was a good shovel.”
Jonathan started laughing.
“You would make the worst spy in the history of spying,”
I don't know why, but for some reason I was offended by that last statement.
“What do you mean?”
I felt like their last two points proved my fears of being a sleeper agent.
How did I know how to to use a cross bow and flip someone twice my size, but did not know my own name?
“What kind of spy looks at the mirror, sees you, and thinks: Xu XiaoXing, yeah that's perfect!”
Daniella pressed her lips together.
“I didn't know my name! I thought I'd figure it out by process of elimination.”
I desperately defended my work performance as a theoretical sleeper agent.
“So why wouldn't you choose a name that actually looks like you, like, I don't know, a Rohan or Aditya or something.”
“Jonathan.” Miss Daniels said giving her a stern look from her side of the table.
“I didn't remember my name! I just took the last nametag left!”
“And why would you admit that? Then go on to draw all the attention on yourself, fighting one of the most notorious gangs in the harbor?”
“I didn't know who they were! I just saw they were chasing Lynne, so I tried to get them to stop.”
“And I appreciate that you did. You saved my baby sister.”
He motioned towards Lynne who was trying not to smile.
“But then you showed up to our house all like “I don't know where I'm from! What's my name?”
He said the last part imitating the sounds of me crying.
“Jonny! Stop!” Lynne was trying to scold her brother, but she was trying harder not to laugh.
“What? He cried like a bitch.”
“Jonathan.” Miss Daniels said sharply.
“What?”
“Do not call our guest a bitch.”
“I'm not calling him a bitch…I just said he cried like one.”
Daniella finally broke and let out a single laugh before quickly turning away and covering her mouth.
Even Lynne let out a small choking sound next to me before turning her head away.
Miss Daniels however was not amused, she glared at Jonathan who shrugged with his palms open as if to express bilwiderment and innocence.
“I'm just saying, what kind of spy tells everyone they think they're a spy and cries about it?”
“But they don't know they're a spy, because they're a sleeper agent!”
I don't know why I was so desperately trying to defend my theory and my potential as a spy.
“Then whatever country invested in sleep spy magic needs a refund.”
This finally got Lynne, she started laughing.
“If the crown informed me they invested in training you to become a spy, I would simply stop paying taxes, and it would be fair.”
Both Lynne and Daniella were trying their hardest not to laugh.
Even Mrs. Daniels cracked a smile just slightly for a moment before returning to her stern expression.
“Why would you even want a sleepy spy when you could just hire one that's awake?”
Jonathan leaned back against his chair
I stared at him.
Maybe I had done a terrible job of explaining what a sleeper agent was.
But he also had a point.
“I don't know how it works, but–”
Exactly, you'd be a terrible spy.”
A laugh escaped Lynne.
I looked at her.
She immediately covered her mouth.
“Sorry.”
She was still smiling.
Even Miss Daniels was trying not to laugh now.
I looked toward Daniella for support.
“I accused you of being suspicious yesterday.”
She took a slow drink of tea.
“This is somehow making you less suspicious.”
“That feels backwards.”
I looked down at my plate.
The fear was still there.
I still didn’t know whether my memories had disappeared naturally, and what might happen if they came back.
But somehow, sitting at a breakfast table while Jonathan explained why I was incompetent at espionage made the whole thing feel less enormous.
Maybe it was ridiculous.
I hoped it was.
---
Later that morning, Lynne went outside.
I sat on the porch steps, enjoying the sunlight.
The garden stretched behind the house.
Rows of herbs grew beside flowers in small stone-bordered beds.
A narrow path wound toward a wooden gate at the back.
Lynne knelt beside a patch of white flowers.
She was speaking quietly.
From where I sat, she appeared to be talking to empty air.
Occasionally, she nodded.
Then she smiled at something I couldn’t hear.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
Daniella stepped onto the porch carrying two cups.
She held one out.
“Tea.”
I accepted it.
“Thank you.”
She leaned against the railing beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then she looked toward the garden.
“I owe you an explanation.”
“You already apologized.”
“I know.”
She traced one finger around the rim of her cup.
“But I don’t think you understood why I acted that way.”
I looked toward Lynne.
“She’s your little sister.”
“That’s part of it.”
Daniella was quiet for another moment.
“I wasn’t trying to attack you.”
“I felt like a spy getting interrogated.”
She chuckled
“I'm sorry, I was trying to protect Victoria.”
I glanced toward her.
“Victoria?”
“That’s her name.”
“I thought it was Lynne.”
“Victoria Lynne Daniels.”
I looked back toward the garden.
“Oh so that's where Toriya comes from ”
Daniella smiled.
“That one is June’s fault.”
I turned toward her.
“How?”
“When June first came to Albion, she had trouble making some of our sounds.”
“What sounds?”
“The V in Victoria, mostly.”
Daniella’s smile widened.
“She kept saying something closer to ‘Bictoria.’”
I stared at her.
“Bictoria?”
“Lynne thought it was hilarious. She teased her about it constantly.”
“That sounds a little mean.” I still chuckled imagining it.
“It was.”
Daniella took another sip of tea.
“June hated it.”
I could imagine that surprisingly well.
“So what happened?”
“June eventually got tired of trying to say the whole thing and just gave up?”
Daniella smiled.
“She dropped the beginning and started calling her Toria.”
“Oh, but cause if her accent it sounds like Tori-ya.”
I thought back to the academy when June called her name.
But there were other students using the same name.
“And everyone else copied her?”
“Not everyone. Mostly the students from Zhong Hua and some of the other eastern countries.”
“Why?”
“A lot of them met Lynne through June.”
Daniella shrugged.
“They heard June calling her Toriya and assumed that was actually her name.”
“And nobody corrected them?”
“Lynne thought it was a cute nickname.”
Of course she did.
“So she’s Victoria, Lynne, Lynni, and Toriya.”
“Yup.”
“Why not Vicky? Or Tori?”
Daniella shook her head
“Never call her that, she hates those names.”
I took another drink of tea.
Then something occurred to me.
“Wait.”
Daniella looked over.
“If she’s Victoria Lynne Daniels…”
I pointed toward her.
“Why is your brother Jonathan Morgan?”
Her expression changed slightly.
“Because Victor wasn’t his father.”
I lowered my cup.
“Oh.”
“Jonathan and I are Lynne’s half-siblings.”
I looked through the open doorway.
From where I sat, I could see the portraits hanging in the entrance hall.
Daniella followed my gaze.
“Mum was Sharon Morgan before she married Victor.”
“The other two portraits.”
She nodded.
“Our father and our older brother.”
That explained the resemblance.
The young man hadn’t merely looked like the older one.
He had been his son.
“Your brother was older than you?”
“The oldest.”
Her fingers tightened slightly around her cup.
“He was killed in the war.”
I looked toward the portraits again.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniella gave a small nod.
“Our father survived him.”
Her voice became quieter.
“For a while.”
She turned her head and looked off into nothing in particular.
“And then…He was killed too.”
“I'm sorry”
“No, it's not your fault.”
The garden suddenly seemed much quieter.
“So your mother lost her son…”
“And then her husband.”
Three portraits.
Three sets of fresh flowers.
Whatever had happened to this family really had happened more than once.
“Did Victor know them?”
“He knew our family.”
“Before he married your mother?”
“Long before.”
Daniella rested both forearms against the railing.
“He tried to bring my brother back.”
I looked at her.
“He couldn’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“The way he died.”
That was all she said.
Something in her expression told me not to ask for details.
“And your father?”
“Victor tried with him too.”
I already knew the answer.
“It didn’t work.”
Daniella shook her head.
“There were some deaths even Victor couldn’t undo.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
I thought about everything Lynne had told me yesterday.
Victor visiting the families of people he couldn’t save.
Helping widows find work.
Paying school fees.
Bringing food.
Sometimes just sitting with people because there was nothing else he could do.
“He stayed with your family.”
Daniella looked at me.
“Yes.”
“After your brother died.”
“He spent a lot of time with us.”
Her expression softened.
“Mostly helping Mum.”
“Did she want the help?”
“Mum has always been very good at pretending she doesn’t need any.”
I almost smiled.
“That sounds familiar.”
“Don’t tell her I said that.”
“I barely know her.”
“Exactly. I’m trusting you.”
I nodded solemnly.
“Your secret is safe.”
Daniella smiled faintly.
“Victor brought food. Helped with expenses when Mum would let him. Made sure Jonathan and I had what we needed.”
She paused.
“And after Dad died, Victor stayed.”
“He helped raise you?”
“In a way.”
She looked down at her tea.
“He never tried to become our father.”
That seemed important to her.
“He never asked us to call him Dad. Never acted like our father was someone we were supposed to forget.”
Her eyes moved toward the portraits.
“He was just there.”
I understood what she meant.
Or at least I thought I did.
Sometimes just being there was probably enough.
“And eventually he married your mother.”
Daniella nodded.
“Eventually.”
“And then they had Lynne.”
She looked toward the garden.
“Yes.”
Something warmer entered her expression.
“Victor’s first child.”
“First?”
“And only.”
I looked toward Lynne again.
She was still kneeling among the flowers, listening to someone I couldn’t see.
“So you and Jonathan kept Morgan.”
“It was our father’s name.”
“And Lynne got Daniels.”
“Victor was her father.”
That made sense.
I looked back toward the portraits.
“She told me Victor could bring people back from the dead.”
Daniella glanced at me.
“She told you that already?”
“Yesterday.”
“That saves me an awkward conversation.”
“I’m still not completely sure what she meant.”
Daniella frowned.
“What part confused you?”
“All of it.”
“That’s fair.”
“When she said he could bring people back…”
I tried to find the right words.
“Did she mean, like, really bring them back?”
Daniella stared at me.
“What else would that mean?”
“I don’t know how magic works I thought maybe she meant something like…”
I gestured vaguely with one hand.
“A body that moved.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“A body that moved.”
“Without the person actually being there.”
Daniella’s face twisted.
“That is horrifying.”
“I didn’t say it was pleasant.”
“You thought Victor made corpses walk around?”
“I didn’t know what resurrection meant here.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“So they weren’t like…Zombies?”
Daniella stared at me.
“What is a zombie?”
Huh, so they know about vampires not not zombies I thought.
“Apparently another thing only I know about.”
“That is becoming an alarmingly long list.”
“Forget I said it.”
She lowered her cup.
“When Victor succeeded, the person came back alive.”
“Actually alive.”
“Yes.”
“Not brainless?”
“No.”
“Not some kind of animated corpse?”
“No.”
“The same person?”
“As far as anyone could tell.”
“They remembered people?”
“Yes.”
“Their families?”
“Yes.”
“They could talk?”
Daniella gave me a look.
“Yes.”
“Eat?”
“...Yes?”
She looked at me incredulously, with growing yet suppressed frustration.
“... Brains?”
“What?”
“Nevermind.”
She gave me a deadpan stare
“Sorry.”
She shook her head.
“They were people.”
I looked toward Victor’s portrait.
That somehow made his failures worse.
If he had actually succeeded before, then every time he failed he knew exactly what he had been unable to give a family.
“So he could really do it.”
“Yes.”
“But not for your brother.”
“No.”
“Or your father.”
“No.”
Her voice remained steady, but quieter.
“There were limits.”
I stared at the flowers beneath the portraits.
“And Lynne?”
Daniella looked toward her.
“What about her?”
“Can she do that?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
“At least not now, and we don't know if she ever will.”
I watched Lynne.
“But she can see ghosts.”
“Yes.”
“How clearly?”
Daniella followed my gaze.
“As clearly as she sees us most of the time.”
I looked at her.
“That explains a lot.”
“She really thought that ghost boy was alive.”
“Vincent?”
“Yes. When she talks to them she sees people, and there's no markers for her to tell the living from the dead.”
“So how does she figure out who's dead?”
“She doesn’t always.”
“That seems like a serious problem.”
“It can be.”
I watched Lynne listening to the empty space beside the flowers.
“How many are around her right now?”
Daniella looked into the garden.
“I have no idea.”
“She doesn’t tell you?”
“Sometimes.”
“And the rest of the time?”
“She thinks it frightens us.”
I looked again at the empty garden.
It probably did.
“The Crown noticed her gift when she was little,” Daniella said.
I turned back toward her.
“The ghosts?”
“That was part of it.”
“What was the other part?”
“Who her father was.”
“Oh yeah, of course.”
“Victor Daniels could bring back the dead.”
I nod.
“And then his only daughter starts seeing them. People drew their own conclusions.”
“But she can’t resurrect anyone.”
“Not yet, at least.”
The way Daniella said it bothered me.
There was no excitement in her voice.
Everyone else seemed to be waiting for Lynne to become like her father.
Daniella sounded as though she hoped they would stop.
“The Crown thinks she’ll become like him one day?”
“They hope she will.”
“And that's why she attends the academy I was at yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“The Crown pays for her education?”
“Most of it.”
Daniella gave a quiet, humorless laugh.
“The finest tutors. The finest instructors. Physicians. Researchers. Examinations.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“It is.”
“Why invest that much into one person?”
Daniella raised an eyebrow.
“Her father could reverse death.”
I looked down at my tea.
“That would do it.”
“The Crown calls it an investment in the future of Albion.”
“And what does Lynne call it?”
Daniella’s expression softened.
“She calls it studying.”
There was something sad in the way she said it.
I looked toward Lynne.
She had moved to another flowerbed.
Still talking quietly.
“Does she want all of that?”
“She wants to learn.”
“But does she want all that?”
Daniella looked at me.
Then back at her sister.
“She likes studying…but no.”
The answer was quiet.
“There is one thing that keeps her going.”
“What?”
Daniella looked through the open doorway.
Toward Victor’s portrait.
“She believes that someday, if she learns enough…”
Her voice lowered.
“…she’ll be able to bring Dad home.”
Something tightened in my chest.
I looked toward Lynne.
Yesterday she had spoken about Victor as though he remained close enough to reach.
Maybe that was because, in her mind, he was.
Just not yet.
“So that’s why people pay so much attention to her.”
“That’s one reason.”
Daniella turned the cup between her hands.
“People try to get close to Victoria.”
“What people?”
“Anyone who thinks they can gain something from her.”
Daniella starts listing on her fingers
“Nobles, politicians, researchers, affluent merchants, treasure hunters, foreign agents, wealthy families, sick people, dying people, people afraid of becoming either.”
Daniella had used up all her fingers.
“So basically anyone looking for immortality.”
She nodded.
“Some pretend to care about her.”
Her eyes hardened.
“They’re really interested in her gift.”
I understood now.
The questions at dinner.
The suspicion.
The way she had watched every answer I gave.
“So when a mysterious boy with no memory appeared beside her…I thought you wanted something.”
“That makes sense, I would’ve thought the same.”
Daniella looked at me.
“You chased several armed men into the academy after knowing her for only a few hours.”
“I thought that made me seem brave or something?”
“It made you seem insane.”
“Ah, that too.”
“You couldn’t explain where you came from.”
“I still can’t.”
“You were wearing the name of someone from another country.”
“It was the only tag left.”
“You claimed you had no training while moving like a soldier.”
“They said kingsguard, not a soldier.”
“That doesn’t help your case...”
I rubbed the back of my neck.
“I don't really know what they are.”
“I noticed.”
For the first time since meeting her, Daniella smiled without any suspicion behind it.
“A normal conman would have invented a perfect story.”
“I could still invent one.”
“You had your chance.”
“I was under pressure.”
“You told us you didn’t know your own name.”
“Cause I didn't.”
“Exactly.”
She laughed quietly.
“You did the exact opposite of what a liar should do.”
I looked down into my tea.
“Damn, maybe Jonathan was right, I am a shit spy.”
Daniella laughed
“Yes, and that, this morning you asked whether you might secretly be a spy.”
“It sounded totally possible last night.”
“It did sound a little possible.”
“It did! Didn't it?”
Daniella laughed harder.
“You’re hopeless.”
Her laughter faded, but the smile remained.
“I still don’t know who you are.” she said, but there was no bite in her tone.
“Neither do I.”
“And I’m still going to watch you around Victoria.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“But…”
She paused.
“I don’t think you came here intending to hurt her.”
The words relieved me more than I expected.
Daniella stepped away from the railing and turned toward me.
She extended one hand.
“Let’s start over.”
I looked at it.
Then at her.
“I’m Daniella Morgan.”
I took her hand.
“Xu.”
Her eyebrow rose.
“You still think that’s your real name?”
I looked down at the borrowed clothes.
The name tag was no longer pinned to my chest.
I had left it upstairs beside the bed.
“No.”
“Then why use it?”
I thought about orientation.
The table covered in names.
Everyone waiting for an answer I didn’t have.
“Because I still need something people can call me.”
Daniella considered that.
Then she nodded.
“Fair enough.”
I smiled.
“Probably not Xu forever, though.”
“Good.”
“What’s wrong with Xu?”
“Nothing.”
She released my hand.
“It simply doesn’t suit you.”
“What does suit me?”
Daniella picked up her tea.
“I’ve known you for less than a day.”
“You already interrogated me like I was a spy.”
“That isn’t the same as knowing someone.”
She walked toward the door.
Before stepping inside, she glanced back at me.
“For now, Xu will do.”
I watched her disappear into the house.
In the garden, Lynne suddenly looked toward the porch.
For a moment, I felt the faintest pull somewhere behind my chest.
Warm.
Almost familiar.
It disappeared before I could understand it.
Lynne smiled at me.
I smiled back.
Xu would do.
For now.