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Farther down on the page she read:

Taste: extremely sour (too sour?) with notes of cacao.

Sour. The feeling of déjà vu returned in an instant. It was probably a coincidence, but it didn’t feel like it. Sour.

When her fingers brushed over the very top of the page, the blood in her veins froze.

Her whole world narrowed in on the words she had written there.

Potion Against Memory-Erasing Spell

53

Mira’s breath caught as she stared at the words in her notebook. It couldn’t be. Silently, she placed the notebook on the desk for Rylan and Obryn to look at.

“What…what exactly does this mean?” she asked. “Did I make a potion undoing memory-erasing spells?”

The Highmage shook his head. “Impossible. Memories are permanently wiped. Nothing can undo it.”

She knew that, but she wasn’t willing to let go of the tiny grain of hope in her. Perhaps there was a way to regain her memories? But…how had she even known she would need this particular potion? Was it just a coincidence?

“We just invented something everyone deemed impossible,” she said. “How can we be certain this doesn’t bring my memories back?”

“There are many unknowns in potion-making,” Obryn countered. “That’s the beauty of learning magic arts. But when you erase something, you can’t undo it. I told you before, memories are lost forever.” He grabbed an empty scroll. “Take this scroll. With different spells, I can fill it with words or do any number of things with it.” Then he lit it on fire until it burned down. “But I can’t do anything with ashes. There is no spell or potion to bring back something that’s gone.”

Mira stared at the pile of ashes on the desk that represented all of her memories from the last few months. Nothing was going to bring them back. It was impossible.

“Did you experience any side effects?” Obryn read through her notes intently.

“It tasted too sour,” she mumbled, almost more to herself.

The Highmage nodded. “Of course it did, with the amount of foxweed you put in it.”

She pointed at a passage. “I had to since I needed to balance the dried silvertail hair.”

Obryn shook his head. “All you had to add was half an ounce of dandelion root and then use a normal amount of foxweed.”

She rubbed her eyes, feeling defeated. “Well, it’s pointless now anyway since it doesn’t work.”

Rylan read through her notes. “What if this isn’t a potion to reverse the spell?”

“Then why did I write Potion Against Memory-Erasing Spell on it?”

“Because maybe it’s not reversing the spell—it’s shielding against it.”

A shield. Of course! It made so much sense now that she thought about it. Rylan had been working on a shield potion, so perhaps she got inspired.

The way Obryn’s eyebrows rose slightly was the only indication that he was intrigued by the idea.

“Hand that to me,” he snapped as he took the notebook back from Rylan and read through the spell again with that new information.

Erased memories could never be recovered, but perhaps her memories weren’t lost at all. Maybe they were simply hidden behind a shield. But why did she not remember anything?

Sour. Too sour. “What if the amount of foxweed I used messed it all up?”

Obryn sighed in frustration. “Indeed it did, Miss Winters. While the rest of the potion could potentially work to protect your memories, the amount of foxweed would have created a blockage.”

“That’s why I fell into a coma. It wasn’t Dawson’s fault. It was the potion.”