Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“They said that you had what we were looking for.” Kierse offered him the paper.
The goblin glanced at it with a frown. “Sure. I have this. Memory potions are tricky things.”
“Payment!” his partner cried from the other side of the room.
“Yes, qīn’ài de.” There was both affection and resignation in his voice. “Sorry—how were you planning to pay for this?”
“We’re here for fair value,” Graves said as he removed a handful of goblin marks from his pocket. They were dented bronze coins with a notch missing out of the middle.
His partner handed the baby to Niamh and hustled over. She took one of the marks and bit into it, then spoke swiftly to Rizz. He nodded along for a while, until his eyes bugged out of his head. Whatever he said back to her must have made her mad, because she stomped back to the baby, cursing him under her breath.
“My wife believes since the item is so rare, it would cost a quarter million, but I…”
“Done,” Graves said.
Rizz gaped at him. Kierse did the same. Since when did Graves not negotiate and haggle for price? He sure had with her.
“I’d like to get this over with,” he added. But the glint in his eye said something else. She tilted her head and realized what it must mean…the potion was likely worth more than that amount. And what was a quarter million marks to someone like Graves?
“Well,” Rizz said, flustered. “All right. Let’s uh…get to business, then. Tell me about these memories. How were they lost?”
“A spell was put on me to make me forget.”
“Ah,” he said, crossing the room to a large cabinet filled to the brim with knickknacks. Kierse didn’t recognize a single thing inside that appeared to her to be of value. “So now they’re all jumbled up.”
“Yes.”
“You need a smoother to go with that.”
“A…smoother?”
“I don’t know the word in English,” he confessed. “But it will help put it in order, and then you’ll take the memory one after to make you remember.” He threw a few boxes aside and then selected a small plastic bottle, dropping it onto the counter. “Smoother.” He gestured to it. “Cheap.”
“Rizz!” his partner snapped.
Rizz went back to searching through his cabinet. “Memory is harder. Much harder. It’s tricky. I can’t guarantee you’ll get a specific memory back. Are you hoping for one in particular?”
“Well, I wanted something about my parents.”
He grimaced. “Doesn’t work like that.”
“Fine. More specifically, I want to know why my memories of my parents were taken.”
“You’ll need a direction, too.”
“How do we give it direction?” Graves asked.
Rizz looked up at him in surprise as if just remembering he was here. “Intent.”
Graves grinned. “Ah, yes. You need to use the magical intent to push it toward what you want.”
“I mean, intent.” He dropped another bottle on the counter. “Probably can push it in the direction you want.”
Kierse frowned. Two bottles and still no memory potion. “Do you have the memory part?”
“Right!” He muttered to himself in Mandarin as he reached deeper into the depths of the cabinet. “Sold one of these already. So I just have the one.” He dropped it onto the counter. “Not cheap.”
“We’re good for it,” Graves said.
“Right. Right.”
“What’s in them?” Kierse asked, picking up a bottle and inspecting the little thing.
Rizz shrugged. “I didn’t make them. They were payment for something else.”
Niamh held the now-quiet baby against her chest and grabbed one of the bottles from the counter. “Do you mind?” She plucked the top off the “smoother” and sniffed. “Rosemary for protection. Mandrake root for healing. Moonstone dust, usually for divination, but I would guess here it’s for intuition. And a mix of water and oils. I bet it tastes great.” Niamh stoppered the bottle and set it back down. “Probably from a healing witch. Looks real to me.”
“There you have it,” Rizz said with a shrug.
Niamh inspected the other bottles and proclaimed them all real magic. The market would have a lot to answer for if someone were selling faulty goods.
“All right,” Kierse conceded. “So I take it in this order.”
Rizz nodded. “Smoother. Intent. Memory. Then find a soft surface and prepare to see what you hope to see. But remember I’m not responsible for what you see. How much or how little or if it’s what you want or if you don’t like the outcome.”
“Got it.”
“And no refunds,” his partner called out.
“Right.”
“Anything else?” Rizz asked with a worried glance to his wife.
“No. This is all we require,” Kierse said.
She took the little bottles in her hands and hoped after all she’d gone through to get it that this was the answer she had been looking for.
Chapter Nineteen
A chair clattered over as Gen jumped to her feet anxiously when they entered the apartment. She looked as if this was the first breath she had taken in hours. Her oldest, most-worn tarot deck was laid out in front of her. “You’re okay.”