Remain Nameless Audiobook Novels & Stories

I can’t look away from him, and I hate it. “What’s your name?” he asks finally. My chest squeezes. “. . . Eris.” He repeats it softly. “Eris.” The sound of it on his tongue does something to my spine that I don’t like. Like hearing my name through smoke and memory. “Pretty name,” he murmurs. I want to tell him to shut up, to stop talking like that, like we’re strangers on a plane instead of the ghost and the woman who tried to bury him. But my throat locks.

Elderly, weak, but firm. “Who’s speaking?” He looked at the page again. The name written above that phone was just a nickname: Lina. No last name, no additional reference. “My name is Alexei.” Silence. The woman seemed to repeat the name to herself, as if tasting an old flavor, a dormant memory. “Alexei…?” “Yes.” “Alexei what?” He hesitated for an instant, just one, but enough to feel the weight of the answer. Then he spoke, his voice controlled:

She smiled—a shark’s grin, softened by a teacher’s grace. "The Debt is never settled," Hope whispered, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Because the Interest is called Adventure." She hit 'Send.' Outside, the New York sky began to shimmer with a familiar, black-glass light. The "System" wasn't returning to destroy. It was returning to Invite. A new title appeared on every screen in the world, scrolling in a font made of starlight: "BOOK TWO: THE MARS AUDIT. PROTAGONIST: HOPE THORNE-VANCE. STATUS: INITIALIZING..."

"You do not get to decide what happens to her grief simply because you have decided her grief belongs to you." The light pulsed once, and somewhere inside it, faint and impossible and unmistakably a voice, something spoke a name none of us had ever heard before, and it was not Maris's name it called. "That is not possible," Wren breathed, flipping desperately through her journal. "That name is not in any record my family ever kept."

At the cup on the shelf that somebody fills and empties and fills again for a person who has never once asked for it. “What was she like?” I say. “Loud,” Isen says. “God, she was loud.” And that’s what does it. Not the pull, not the story, not the price on my blood. It’s a man in a cellar using the past tense about somebody who is lying right there in front of him. I stand up. “Don’t,” Maren says sharply. “I’m not touching her.” I go to the bed and crouch beside it and put my hands flat on my own knees where everyone can see them. “Nell. My name is Wren. Apparently it isn’t, but it’s the one I’ve got.”

"Cecilia, can you not make things difficult for me right now? There's water everywhere over here! I'm hanging up. Get a ride yourself. I'll reimburse you for it." The line went dead. I stood there holding my phone in front of the empty parking space, feeling like the world's biggest fool. Reimburse me? Did he think everything could be measured in money? Did he think my dignity, my feelings, could all be given a price tag? In the end, I called for a ride. Sitting in the back seat, I watched the city scenery blur past the window. The winter sunlight in Halfort was pale and weak, offering no warmth at all.

"You were the first person you removed." "Stop." "You didn’t lose your name because someone took it." "Stop." "You gave it up." The woman struck Eliane across the face. Malric caught Eliane before she could fall. Darius moved forward, but Luna raised a hand. The Nameless woman stared at what she had done. Her hand trembled. Eliane straightened. "Why?" The woman looked towards the burning books. "Because I thought a person without a name could never be owned." Silas approached slowly. "What was it?"

“Thomas Arden.” Emmy crouched. “Who is the Nameless?” Fear replaced confusion. “I don’t know.” “You were working for it.” “I was?” “You burned archives.” His face collapsed. “No.” “Yes.” “No, I—” He grabbed his head. “I remember giving something away.” “What?” “My name.” Emmy’s voice softened. “Why?” “Because it promised…” He began crying. “What?” “That it would take the pain too.” Emmy waited. “My wife died.”

he ignored my remark easily. He was somewhere around my age. He wore his blond hair short to the scalp. Full lips. A wide nose and blue eyes. Something in me relaxed as I deemed him not dangerous for me. He was funny and kind. Yet, I had to stay on the guard; I didn’t know him, yet, I didn’t know the Duke either. Both of them, such weirdos. Did you think I would believe you didn’t know who I was? I bet he kept his eyes on us the whole time. He raised his hands ordering beers, which the waitress brought playing with a strip of her hair. “I am a nameless Traveler, Aurelia.”

Another long pause. "So if you're looking for Claire's murderer..." "...you're looking for the wrong person." The nursery fell deathly quiet. Everything they believed... Shifted. Again. Morales immediately took out his notebook. "Keep playing." Daniel's breathing could be heard. Slow. Heavy. "There was someone else." "I never learned his real name." "We only knew him as..." The recording crackled. Static swallowed the next few seconds. Rebecca stared helplessly at the speaker. "No..." The audio returned.