“Um, sorry,” I said, shifting my empty bowl away from her sharp gaze. I felt sick. Memory potions were illegal because they didn’t break cleanly. Unlike amulets and ley line charms, they created a physical change in the brain to block the memories, and physical changes couldn’t be reversed with salt like chemical changes could. I needed a counter-spell.

Gathering my courage, I blurted, “Mom, I need to reverse a memory potion.”

Eyebrows high, she looked at my neck again. “You want a Pandora charm? For who?”

She wasn’t nearly as mad as I’d thought she’d be. Heartened by that as much as her knowing there was an actual name for what I wanted, I winced. “Me.”

My voice had been pensive, and hearing my guilt, my mother’s face grew almost scared. “What do you remember now that you had forgotten?” she demanded.

Cradling my coffee in my hands, I tried to warm my soul. The furnace was on against the cold afternoon, but it wasn’t able to touch the chill at the pit of my being. My fingers traced the lines of Kisten’s bracelet. It was all I had of him—that and the pool table. “Being bitten by the vampire who killed Kisten,” I whispered.

Her entire posture melted, and sighing with forgiveness, she reached to take my hand. Her frumpy dress made her look middle aged, but her hands gave her away. I wished she’d stop living like she was nearing the end of her life. It hadn’t even started yet.

“Sweetheart,” she said, and I pulled my gaze to hers to see it pinched in compassion. “I’m so sorry. Maybe you should forget about it. Why do you even want to remember that?”

“I have to,” I said, wiping my eye and pulling out of her reach. “Someone killed him. I was there.” I blinked fast, trying to rein in my emotions. “I have to find out. I have to know.”

“If you made yourself forget, then you won’t like what you find,” she said. An old fear unrelated to me simmered in the back of her thoughts, showing in her face. “Let it go.”

“It was Jenks—” I started, but she took both my hands, stopping my words.

“Tell me,” she said suddenly. “What were you doing when you remembered? What triggered it?”