“There’s this weird bit of memories that keeps coming back to me in pieces. I remember prison fairly well, and the battle, of course.” My insides slosh. “But…”

Eyelashes.

A white lab coat.

Something cold on my lips.

“I think I was… I don’t know. There are pieces from a lab or something missing and I’m not sure why.”

“A lab?” Her lips push sideways. “What do you recall?”

“Not much, Bri, really. Fragments here and there. It’s like I’ve lost a huge chunk. And I don’t know why or what caused it.” I pull a book from the bottom of the stack and the others topple. I read its title—Magic Beyond the Grave—then restack them.

“Do the fragments come back in dreams or flashes?” she asks.

“Yes. Both.”

“What about headaches?”

“Nope. None.”

She sits back on her heels, studying my face. “Any extreme physical fatigue or overall lethargy?”

“I was really weak at first. That lasted for several months.”

“Any scars you don’t remember getting?”

I show her the scars at the edge of my cuffs, where Jhamal had sewn stitches forever ago.

She strokes her chin. “Rue, when you woke up, what do you remember about what condition you were in?”

“I’d dreamed of drowning or something. My lips were cracked and peeling. In the cell, I don’t remember much. Just that Jhamal was huddled in a corner bawling his eyes out. When he saw me sit up, talking, he calmed down though.”

“Any weird smells? Tastes?”

“There was some sort of dry powder on my fingers and on these scratches actually. I distinctly remember a cup of water sitting by the gate to my cell. I didn’t drink it though, despite how thirsty I was. I was sure it was poisoned. Oh, and some sort of rancid flowery scent was in the air. It was weird.”

“Rue, those are side effects of a memory loss potion.”

I stop stacking books. Her smile is gone. She’s foreal.

“And those are weird. You can’t really control what the person forgets. You just sort of give it to them and the most recent memories become spotty.” She turns the book in her lap to face me. “Uh-huh, that’s what I thought. The most common side effect of a memory loss potion is—”

I lean over the open pages. “Immobility, extreme fatigue, extreme limitations of basic physical function.” There it is in the book in black and white. That’s why I was weakened. That’s why I don’t remember.

“Rue, I don’t think you forgot those fragments.”

She’s right. “Whatever happened in that lab… he must have not wanted me to know.” The thought sends a chill down my spine, my mind swimming with memories of Jhamal stitching me back together, nursing me back to health. “It took forever to get back on my feet again.”