His fellow dock workers described their dreams like bard performances. Nonsensical plots that none-the-less made sense as a whole. Reiden's dreams were more like catching the last few notes of a song he couldn't remember the name of. Vivid, familiar, but disconnected fragments.

A woman's laugh, sweeter than the summer fruit he could almost feel in his hand.

"One of these days, they're going to catch me leaving."

A voice not unlike his own cracking with eagerness.

"So we're going to blow it up, right, Brother?'

"You need to stop it with the blowing things up. There are other spells..."

The sound of wood splintering above his head.

"What the gates are you—"

Reiden snapped awake to his head nestled comfortably into a pillow and his arms knotted painfully above his head. He blinked against the drowsiness still chaining him down. The bump on the back of his head throbbed as he tugged against the ropes on his wrist.

"You should rest more," a voice said to the side of his bed.

Reiden managed to turn his head enough to catch sight on his doppelgänger perched on the edge of a dilapidated stool. He was lit only by a small ball of red magic that floated above his shoulder and hazily illuminated the dusty room. His dark, nondescript clothes blended in with the boards nailed over the windows behind him, making the room as undefined as the man.

"I don't— I don't have money," Reiden choked out through his parched lips. His mind flashed through all the stories he'd heard of people being snatched by their duplicate. Was he a wizard bent on drinking his blood for some dark ritual? Or was that witches that did that...

The man stared at him, half smiling in a way that looked out of place on their shared face. "Nothing new to us."

Reiden's breath grew shallow as the man continued to stare at him like he was expecting something. No. No this wasn't good. He had to get out before he ended up being another horror story the other guys at the dock scared the tavern girls with. Reiden clenched his muscles as tight as he could and flung his whole body weight against the ropes. Wood creaked, and his captor was on him in an instant. The red light from earlier darkened to black before plunging the room into darkness. A cry clawed its way from Reiden's throat as something—the magic from earlier?— shot through the rope and made his wrists burn like they were being cut off.

The red light flashed back to life and lit up the man's face now directly beside his own. "No fighting. Look at me."

Reiden looked everywhere except the man. Was this how wizards got you? Was he going to be put under some spell and made into a killer or a monster?

The man grabbed him by the ear and jerked Reiden around. "Look. It'll fix this. I can fix you."

Something niggled in the back of Reiden's head before fading away. The man stared at him for a long time. Tears finally colluded in the corners of the wizard's eyes, clouding his doppelgänger's already hazy gaze. He dug his nails into Reiden's ear. Reiden gasped in pain as the tiny spikes impaled the sensitive nerves there. "Not working. It's not working, is it?"

Tearing away from Reiden, the man let out a guttural scream, one that seemed to rip open something inside him. The red orb of magic fluctuated, shifting from black to red as it sputtered, growing in size and then shrinking to a prick point.

Reiden yanked against his bonds again, fearing the wizard might burst into magic and kill them both. The same pain from earlier shot through his ropes again, punishing his attempts to escape.

The scream stopped. His look-alike placed his hands on the boards covering the window. "The hard way. I can handle the hard way. You were better, but I can handle it." The man pushed himself away from the window and jerked a nearby sack off the ground. He dug into it like an animal would an abandoned carcass, grasping onto a carefully tied set of papers and tossing the bag aside. Ripping the string off, he shuffled through them, jerking one behind the other with increasing impatience. "Not here," the wizard muttered under his breath. "It's not here. It was supposed to be here, they should've moved it!"

Reiden flinched as the wizard tossed the bundle against the wall. Papers scattered everywhere, shaking in the scarlet light. "What— Who are you?" Reiden choked out.

His captor turned around. The red light wavered again. "Desden. Your family, your only family, your little brother."

Reiden shook his head. "I don't— I don't have a brother."

"You're my brother!" the wizard snarled. "Mine. They took you from me."

Reiden went slack against his ropes. His eyes fell to Desden's face, the face so much like his own even in the eerie magic light. A memory flickered with it, one that had seemed inconsequential at the time. One of the other dockworkers had a brother that visited one day, and the overseer had shouted at him for slacking off, thinking he'd been his brother. Maybe Desden was a doppelgänger...just not the magical kind he'd been thinking. "You knew me before my accident?" he whispered as the tips of his fingers went cold.

"I've known you since I was born," Desden whispered, his voice soft, wavering as much as the light had.

Reiden stilled, staring at the half-mad man before him. The man who'd chased him down an alleyway and tied him up who-knows-where. There was no reason to listen to him.

A familiar scent drifted up from his pocket. His perfume, his handkerchief. His tether to his forgotten life. "You could help me find out who I am? The healers said..."

Desden ran to his bedside, scattering the papers further as he collapsed beside the bed. "The healers," he spat out. "The healers are lying. They're going to pay, she's going to pay for taking you from me, for taking your memories."

Desden grabbed a page off the ground and shook it viciously. "These were going to tell me how they did it, how to fix you. All it does is say what she thinks happened." He crumpled the paper in his hand and let the red light set it ablaze. "Useless."

Reiden pushed away from the fire floating above Desden's hand. Oh, gates, the man really was crazy. This must be why the healers always talked about the dangers of using magic for things other than healing. Maybe, maybe he could talk him down. "So let me out," Reiden whispered. "Let me help. I could talk to the healers—"

Desden chuckled, tossing the ashes aside as he stood. "Don't lie, Brother. I can tell. Just got you back, so you're staying with me."

He moved swiftly across the room and pulled a small box out of the bag from earlier. Opening it up, the wizard removed a thick sheet of paper with several small, uneven slits cut into it like he'd taken a knife and stabbed it through multiple times. He unfolded the paper and held it up for Reiden to see. "You've forgotten our enemies. Don't worry; I'll remind you."

Reiden blinked in the dim red light as the charcoal lines on the page became visible. A woman with her hair tucked into a healer's hood. Her name escaped him—"F" something, maybe?—but it'd be hard to forget one of the first people he'd seen after his accident. She was pretty, although not as pretty as...as...

The thought went up in smoke, leaving only the scent of her perfume behind.

"She took you from me. And now that I know she's in the city—" Desden crushed the paper in his fist. "I'm going to make her break." He set the page ablaze. "And then I'm going to make her burn."

Desden grinned, the fire in his eyes mirroring the fire that had been in his palm. Reiden's ropes fell from his hands with a flick of the wizard's wrist. "You're not the weak man they want you to be. Let me show you who you really are."

"And who's that?" Reiden asked as he slowly lowered his hands down.

"You are Dormaeus Carrow. We are the Carrow Brothers." Desden's voice wavered in excitement as his smile grew larger. "People spoke our names in hushed tones and ran from places we lurked. We were going to go to the Northlands, away from Abreyla's Magic Ministry, and be one of the most powerful wizard duos of our time. Show everyone what we could do together. Until...I lost you."

The pulse in Reiden's wrist banged against the hand still rubbing it. He stared from Desden to the red light as the air seemed to leave his lungs faster than he could suck it in. "No, no, I'm not a wizard," he insisted. The fear of the madman in front of him dimmed in the low light as the strength of that denial brightened. "Wizards are nightmares and monsters. Wizards hurt people. I don't know who Dormaeus is but I'm not him. You're lying."

His courage left with the words. The ropes from earlier spun back around his wrists and burned into him again, cutting off any further denials.

"Happy," Desden snarled. "You should be happy. I'm freeing you. I'm fixing things. Do you want to be a useless dockworker forever, Brother? Do you want to live a lie?"

"You captured me," Reiden managed to gasp out past the pain.

"I'm freeing you," Desden repeated. "From everything that's trying to keep you from being the way you're meant to be." He hesitated a moment then reached forward and stroked Reiden's hair. "You'll understand when I'm done."

Reiden leaned away. A flash of pain flickered across Desden's face as he released a shaky breath. "Think carefully, brother. Has there never been a moment where you could feel beyond their lies? Like you remembered forgetting? You're not a dock worker to submit to the power of others and you're not a scribe to waste away writing down others successes. Let me show you who you should be."

Reiden tried to block out the words but they burrowed into him anyway. How many times had he sat and listened to bard's tales of magic and mages, shivering at the way certain words seemed to prick at his brain? How many times had he clung to the handkerchief in his pocket and silently prayed that this time he might see a face to go with that ghostly laugh? How many times had he pleaded with the healers for help remembering only to be told that forgetting was for the best and he'd only succeed in hurting himself?

"You—you're sure you can help me remember?" Reiden asked, bringing his secret wish to light.

Desden nodded. He stood and floated the red light between his hands. His fingers began moving, shifting the spell he held. Past the outer glow, Reiden could see patterns and symbols flickering and fading inside. They lured him forward like a lullaby even while his shoulders tensed at the dark, foreign energy.

"Soon. Soon I will. You're going to help me. For now, didn't find everything I needed, but doesn't mean I can't trigger a few things." The spell became laced with black as Desden shifted it slowly to one palm. "Sleep again, Brother. Sleep and remember."

The spell hit his forehead. Desden's voice echoed through the room as Reiden's world went dark again.

"We've got another healing house to burn."

***********************

Author's Note: Wow, it's great to finally be able to post this one. I first wrote it back in October and have been tweaking it since. It took a while, but I think I'm finally happy with it. Did anyone suspected Desden from last chapter's snippet? How did you like seeing Reiden again?

Chapter 21: "Not just like old times," Feyla muttered.