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You’re…dying?

His pained expression when he lifted his hand to wipe her memories.

Come find me again, Mira, in another life. One where I get more time with you. One where I get to love you longer.

All the warmth in her body from a moment ago drained away. Something in her shattered irreparably as she relived the same heartbreak.

She fell to her knees, her chest tight, and she couldn’t breathe as heaving cries burned their way through her.

He couldn’t be gone. She had to save him.

She cast a calming white spell to counter her panic attack, and when she was able to breathe again, she got up, put her coat on, and sent a scroll to Obryn. She sent it with an emergency warning so he would get it even if he was asleep.

Then she coin traveled to his office at Ivercrest.

She paced the floor in front of his door, trying not to think about Aidric. Every time she allowed herself to go back to memories of him, her heart broke into a million pieces.

Finally, Obryn unlocked the door and she rushed into his office.

“I remember,” she gasped. “Aidric is dying of the incantation on his chest.”

Obryn’s dark eyes met hers. “So he finally told you?”

“He didn’t. I performed a diagnostics spell on him. That’s why he erased my memories. I…made the shield potion right after I saw him erasing the memory of two students,” Mira remembered, stumbling over her own words, barely keeping up with the images in her head. “I was worried he would make me forget about the murder investigation.”

Never did she think he would try to erase himself from her memory. Back then, all she had been worried about was getting shut out from the investigation. So worried, she had created a potion and then hidden her own notes in case he went through her things.

The fear of losing him returned, burning in her so hot she wasn’t sure she could breathe.

“He told me you tried to save him but it didn’t work,” she said to the Highmage, her voice trembling. “Why?”

“The Dark Magic remnants in his scars keep the incantation locked in place, poisoning him slowly.”

Her hands trembled violently. “My potion to remove Dark Magic from my scar…would it work for him?”

She could remove the leftover Dark Magic and then the incantation.

Obryn looked at her with warning in his eyes because he knew as well as she did that it was too late. But it couldn’t be too late because she could not live with herself knowing he had died all alone in agony as Dark Magic slowly poisoned him.

This whole time, she had been so close.

If only she hadn’t spent weeks traveling with him and instead devoted just one day to her potion. Just one day. That’s all it would have taken.

If only he had told her.

If only.

The dread in her festered like a cancer.

Aidric had been so distraught because he thought he had put her in a coma. It hadn’t been his fault. It was hers. Because of one stupid ingredient.

“How do I remove the incantation?” The fear in her was relentless. “Tell me how to save him.”

Obryn walked her through the different spells and potions to be used in incantation removal. He told her about the specific spells he had used on Aidric in the past to help keep the Dark Magic poisoning at bay.

Now she had a way to save him. Except…if he was truly gone, she couldn’t bring him back.

She swallowed a vial of truth elixir and got a kit of medical potions and supplies ready. “When he removed my memories, he said he had a few weeks, maybe a month left.”