Holden and Sable waited in the apartment for the ghost girl’s astral projection spell to wear off, chatting all the while.


    Sable had a particular question in mind that he had wanted to ask ever since their talk with Alwin. “You know, I never asked, who is this Concordia person you and Alwin were talking about? An old lover perhaps? A secret love child?”


    “She’s a mutual acquaintance. Alwin and I have known each other ever since I moved to Chrimoria. Concordia and I- We’ll, let’s just say we don’t talk much anymore.”


    Sable noticed the pause when Holden spoke, but couldn’t determine what he was feeling due to the neutral expression on Holden’s face. Sable concluded that Holden probably wanted to conceal the nature of his relationship with Concordia for reasons Holden wasn’t likely going to explain.


    Sable knew that getting Holden to open up about this would take some work. It was better to change the subject for now, and revisit it when Holden trusted him more. “And where exactly did you move from, if I may ask?”


    “I’m from the Bransworth Kingdom. Doubt you’ve heard of it. It’s a small kingdom on the southern end of the continent.”


    “And you were a spy for this kingdom?”


    “No. Not for them. For somebody else.”


    “Any chance you’ll let me know who?”


    Holden laughed without seeing a word, giving Sable the impression that he wasn’t yet ready to share that part of his life yet.


    “Very well. Stupid human.”


    “Dumb cat.”


    The two of them chuckled at each other bringing a smile to the ghost girls face who was watching them the entire time. “You two are absolutely hopeless. I bet you’ll end up being good friends.”


    Sable turned his head away from the ghost girl and Holden in embarrassment. “Me in this man friends? He’s chopped liver as far as I’m concerned.”


    Holden rolled his eyes. “Do I want to know what you and the ghost girl are even talking about?”


    “Yeah. I think you two will be just fine,” the ghost girl reiterated. “Sable, tell Holden I said thank you to the both of you. I’m afraid of what might happen next. But I hope I’ll be able to see you both again so I can thank you properly.”


    Sable was a little choked up by her gratitude. It was something the cait-sith wasn’t used to, so shyly stared at the ground, trying to think of the appropriate response. “I’ll let him know. And I hope we-.” Sable lifted his head to face the ghost girl. However, she was nowhere in sight. “I hope we get to see each other again.” Sable’s ears folded backwards as he tucked his tail between his legs. “I hardly got the chance to know you.”


    “What’s wrong, Sable?” Holden asked, noticing his companion’s somber tone of voice.


    “She’s gone. And she wanted me to express her gratitude toward you for all you’ve done.”


    Holden saturated gently stroking Sable’s back in an attempt to comfort him. “It’s kind of funny. You were scared of her at first; now you''re about to cry because she’s gone.”


    “Shut up.”


    “Well, Cat, what should we do next?”


    Sable stretched out his entire body and yawned. He hadn’t slept for almost a full 48 hours. Between that and the emotional goodbye, all the cait-sith wanted to do was sleep. “Time to go to bed. I need a good, long, catnap.”


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    “Here comes the cat, who hates being called a cat, yet uses cat puns.”


    “Shut up, Chopped Liver.”


    Holden playfully shoved Sable. “Back at you, dumb cat.” Holden then looked up at the night sky, thinking of the days events. He then had a sudden realization, which caused him to pause. “Wait a sec. We pulled an all nightery at a library, and broke into a secret government facility to solve this case. Yet all we needed to do was wait for her to run out of magic.”


    Holden and Sable then looked at one another. Both of their faces contorted as they said inunison. “We’re both idiots.”


    “Alright,” Sable said. “So we both agree. W’re never telling anyone about this.”


    Holden nodded his head. “Agreed. I can already imagine the look on Elliandra and Alwin’s faces if either of them found out.”


    “It would dbe awful,” Sable said. “They would mock us until we died of shame.”


    “Then we let no one find out.”


    “As if we could allow them to anyway. Remember?”


    “Yeah. That’s right.” Holden looked up at the ceiling recalling that he now owed Alwin a huge favor. The thought made him sigh. “Guess that’ll have to be a problem for another day.”


    ***


    The ghost girl awakened in a hospital bed with absolutely no memory of who or where she was. The encounter with Holden and Sable was also absent from her memories. Everything that had ever happened to her had been wiped from her mind. The girl could recall basic things like language and what things where, but it appeared that any personal memories were gone.


    “What’s going on? Where am I?”


    At that moment, a male doctor walked into the room with a clipboard in hand. The doctor’s eyes widened when he saw the girl was awake. “Oh my. Elisia are you alright?”


    “Huh? What? Elisia? Who’s Elisia? And who are you?”


    “Oh, right. Sorry,” the doctor said remorsefully. “I suppose you wouldn’t remember. “The doctor sighed. “You’ve been comatose for over twenty years now. The whole time we’ve been observing you, we noticed that your body has been using magic uncontrollably.”


    “I’ve been in a coma? And I have magic?” The girl, who was no longer a girl, but a woman in her thirties, stared blankly at the ceiling trying to recall everything the doctor had told her. However, she couldn’t remember anything. “Doctor, why don’t I remember any of this?”


    “It’s because you''re a psychic magic user. Your overuse of psychic magic while you were in a coma wiped your memories.” The doctor placed his clipboard down on a table by the doorway, then pulled up a stool to sit next to her. “What you should know is that your name is Elisia. And your memories will come back to you in time. Even the memories you made while you were comatose.”


    “How can I make memories while comatose?”


    “There’s a psychic mage who works in the hospital. Once you started showing signs of magic depletion we called him in. He tried connecting with you telepathically a few times, but apparently you were using astral projection. You projected your mind to somewhere else in the world. It’s actually kind of impressive that you were capable of such a thing. I was told that you were a real prodigy, though.”


    Elisia became light-headed from the shock of everything she had heard. She lay down on her bed, trying to remember anything. Unfortunately, her memories were blank. “Doctor, how did I end up here?”


    The doctor nervously gulped, then placed his hand on top of Elisia’s to comfort her. “You and a friend of yours were severely injured in an accident. The two of you were hit by a carriage.”


    “Oh.” Elisia sighed from sadness, then a thought popped into her head. Maybe she could talk to her friend. Doing so might trigger some memories. “Doctor, where is the friend I was with?”


    The doctor shook his head remorsefully. “Unfortunately, she didn’t survive the accident.”


    “Oh.” It was distressing to hear, but not because she had lost her friend. Elisia couldn’t recall anything about this friend of hers, so it was like hearing that a total stranger died. However, Elisia was convinced that she would start to feel grief if her memories really did return. For now, Elisia just felt numb.


    The doctor continued to talk about the friend who had died in the accident. “Your friend was around the same age as you. The report I have on the incident said she was visiting you from Chrimoria. Apparently, your parents knew each other, and you’d visit her a lot. I think this was the first time she came here, though.” The doctor then chuckled. “Your parents said you loved visiting the little apartment your friend and her family lived in. I wonder if that’s where your mind went off during your astral projection spell. I guess we won’t know until your memories come back.”


    The doctor decided to leave after that. There was a lot of information she had to process, and he wanted to give her time to process it all. Elisia tried going to sleep, but something the doctor said kept bugging her. “An apartment in Chrimoria. Why does that seem so familiar? It feels like I was there recently.”


    Elisia couldn’t recall anything specific; just this vague feeling of gratitude that brought a smile to her face. This feeling made her curious. Curious enough that one day, even if she never got her memories back, she would try to find that apartment. Hopefully then she would understand what about it made her feel so grateful.