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I couldn’t face any of this without you.
I also wouldn’t have been in this mess without him, but maybe this fiasco—both the emotional rock bottom that had brought me into this shop and the fear of realizing my memory was gone—had been exactly what I’d needed to realize what he meant to me.
And maybe, just maybe, all this was what I’d needed to make forgiveness possible.
Ronan cleared his throat. “Most people don’t want to regain their memories if they were bad enough to be erased in the first place.”
“I get that, I said. “But I mean… I’m a year behind everyone else. I lost a year of… God, everything. And I’m going to catch up on all of that anyway once I go back to work and I’m around my family and…” I flailed a hand. “So it’s all going to come back one way or the other.” I sighed, motioning toward Matteo. “I already know about the part I wanted to forget, so… what’s the point?”
Ronan’s smile was a little more sympathetic this time. “And I explained this to you when you came in. It’s why I made you wait three days before I gave you the potion.”
I swallowed, though it took some work. “I waited three days?”
“Yes.” He chuckled softly. “You weren’t thrilled about that at all. But I always insist. And with as furious as you were when you came charging in through my front door, I certainly insisted with you.”
I glanced at Matteo, who watched me warily.
What in the world had set me off a full year after he’d cheated? Because I could kind of see me being depressed and miserable after that long, but heated enough to come storming in here and demand Ronan erase my memory? That was… odd.
Suddenly, I wanted more than ever to remember the last year. I needed to know, especially if things were potentially moving forward again with Matteo.
Keeping my voice as calm and even as possible, I asked, “Can it be reversed?”
“It can.” He didn’t move. Didn’t say anything further.
I inclined my head. “So… how do I go about reversing it?”
“Are you sure that’s what—”
“Yes,” I snapped. “I fucked up when I asked you to erase my memory. I can’t live like this. Whatever it is, whatever it costs…” I took out my wallet and plunked it down on the case, making the glass rattle in a way that tickled some faraway synapse. Like déjà vu, even though I couldn’t pull any actual memory into the light.
Ronan studied me silent for a moment. Then he shrugged and called out, “Ignacy! Bring me cuimhnigh.”
At the other end of the store, there was some rattling and flapping, followed by another crash and what sounded like an irritated squeak. Matteo arched an eyebrow, peering in the direction of the noise with an expression that screamed,“Oh God, what creature do I have to deal with this time?”He loved his job and all the animals—even the basilisks—but he’d be the first to admit there were creatures who made him consider going into something safer and less stressful. Something like, say, testing batteries with his tongue or being a human crash test dummy.
The thought almost made me chuckle. Almost. I was way too tense right now, though, and admittedly, I was a little worried about the noise myself. What the hell was—
Right then, there was a thump, and as a cloud of dust rose from behind a shelf, the fae’s raróg appeared at the end of the case. Like a superhero striding away from an explosion, it strode toward us as something toppled and more dust rose behind it. Smoke curled up from its nostrils, and it held a leather string in its beak. At the other end of the string, rattling along on the glass, was a small bottle with a corked top.
“That’s a good lad,” Ronan cooed. “Bring it to Papa, Ignacy.”
The raróg—Ignacy, apparently—marched up to Ronan and dropped the string. When Ronan reached for it, Ignacy snapped at him, catching his index finger in that tiny but vicious beak.
Ronan hissed and drew his hand back, shaking it, but then he just tsked. “Rarógi. What can you do?”
Ignacy made an indignant sound. Behind me, so did Matteo. I suspected he was biting back a tirade about how people—even fae—shouldn’t be keeping them as pets. Fortunately, he kept his mouth shut.
“So this”—Ronan picked up the bottle and held it between his fingers—“will reverse the spell.”
I gazed at it, my mouth watering with the almost irresistible impulse to grab the potion and pound it. I was a little wary of it, though; like the bottles we’d seen when we came in here, the viscous amber liquid inside wasglowing. And it wasmoving. And that was just fuckingweird. It was like there was some kind of light coming from the center of the bottle, and also a current keeping it all swirling and churning.
It probably tasted horrible, too. I had no reason to know what fae potions tasted like, since I’d presumably forgotten drinking it along with everything else, but I had this weird certainty it wouldn’t be pleasant. It was a visceral, physical feeling, as if I were staring down that monstrosity my sister had called tuna casserole back before she’d learned to cook. A memory, maybe? Some lingering recollection of the first time I’d drunk a fae’s poison? Hard to say, but it didn’t matter—I was drinking this shit.Tonight.
My voice came out as a croak: “How much?”
“Five hundred.”
I barely had time to sputter, “Five hundred dollars?” before Matteo slapped a credit down on the counter.
