“What’s his amnesia like?”
“What does that mean? It’s amnesia. I don’t know specifics.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “This ismagicallyinduced. I don’t know if therearerulesto how it’s supposed to go. And if there are, I didn’t see them on the page with the spell.”
She shakes her head. “We are so screwed. But! Let’s be positive. You didbringthe book.”
I hold it up. “Here it is.”
“Let’s see if we can find a reversal spell.”
We rush into the office and open the book. This time, the breeze that flicks through my hair doesn’t faze me. We turn to the spell we used, looking for—hell, I don’t know what, an antidote to jump off the page.
Cristina points to a black smudge. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“This. I think it’s words.”
“It’s so tiny. It looks like dirt.”
She pulls open desk drawers, frantically searching. “There’s got to be a magnifying glass in here somewhere.”
I frown at the book. “You thinkthoseare words?”
“Pretty sure.”
Then I need to schedule an appointment with the eye doctor, ’cause I don’t see it.
“Found one!”
She crouches above the page, holding the lens. “Yes! It’s words. See?”
I huddle beside her and gasp as text comes into view. “If things go awry and the spell-caster needs an antidote, it can be found on page 462.” I raise my brows. “Wow. That’s very specific—and I don’t remember seeing numbers on the pages, do you?”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, numbers float to the top of one corner, like seagrass surfacing on a lake.
She straightens. “Did you see that?”
“I saw it,” I squeak. “Maybe we imagined it.”
“Nope. Not imagined. I’m going to scoot on over to page 462.”
“Good idea.”
My voice is no louder than the sound of a mouse scrabbling across a floor. I shove down the mix of worry and fear that’s pooling in my belly and wait until Cristina finds the page.
“Here. There’s a spell.” She scans it and flaps her hands in excitement. “This is doable. You could absolutely do this. Yes! Okay. Oh, wait.”
Her expression falls and so does my hope. “What? What’s wrong?”
“This one ingredient, lunaria bloom. What it that?”
I’m about to look it up on my phone when the sound of someone clearing their throat comes from the doorway. Stone stands at the threshold, holding the lambicorn in one hand and an apple in the other. He talks between bites.
“Good news.”
“You got your memory back?” I ask.
“No. The lambicorn is aheand I’ve named him Hercules.”
