?Chapter 1549:


    Meanwhile, the city of Wront streamed past the windows of a moving sedan. Maia watched the lights blur into ribbons of color, but her mind was somewhere else entirely.


    Without warning, Chris’s image surfaced in her thoughts. Her hands tightened in herp. She wondered what he was doing right now—how his health was, whether he was in pain. The post-operative phase was the most delicate, but Maia’s deepest worry wasn’t his physical recovery. It was whether he remembered his feelings for her. Had any trace of their past surfaced in his mind?


    She had consulted Carsen twice by phone in recent days. Drawing on his extensive expertise, Carsen had identified Chris’s condition as a form of post-operative emotional cognitive dissociation. “Attempting to forcibly restore his memories may provoke resistance—even deepen the psychological rift,” he had advised, after studying simr cases. “Patience is the only path forward.”


    And so Maia waited, holding onto the hope that the Chris who had once loved her would slowly reawaken. It wasn’t that he had forgotten her entirely—only the love they shared had slipped from his grasp.


    Then, unexpectedly, the memory of their first meeting returned to her. A sunlit afternoon at City Hall. Chris stood before her in a simple ck shirt, looking as though he had stepped off the pages of a fashion editorial. She remembered beingpletely arrested by his presence, staring at him as though he were someone famous. His voice, yful and teasing, came back to her clearly. “You’ve been staring for a while now, Miss Watson.” Even now, the echo of her heartbeat from that moment remained vivid.


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    Scenes from their time together yed before her eyes like a silent, treasured film.


    A slow, determined smile touched Maia’s lips. Since when had she started waiting for fate to decide her story? If Chris had forgotten, then let him fall for her all over again—once, twice, as many times as it took.


    A familiar confidence steadied her. She drew a quiet breath, her gaze sharpening with renewed purpose. Turning to Siena, she said calmly, “Take me to Nightshade.”


    There was an immediate, sharp screech of brakes.


    Siena mmed on the brakes without warning. The piercing screech tore through the night, and the tires skidded violently across the asphalt, leaving a long, ck scar on the road. Her pupils dted as she turned to Maia, shock in on her face.


    “Nightshade?” she blurted. “That ce is aplete unknown. Why would you go there?” Her entire demeanor shifted instantly—taut andbative, like someone bracing for a battlefield. “If you really have to go, give me time. I need to gather people.”


    “No. You’re misunderstanding.” Maia raised her hand calmly, her voice even and unhurried. “I’m just going to take a look.”


    Half an hourter, Siena parked along the roadside. They had arrived in a neglected corner of the old town—a ce where dim streetlights barely reached and unsavory dealings thrived in silence, the kind of area that never appeared on tourist maps yet whose reputation everyone seemed to know.


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