The recovery of the children relieved him, but that relief didn't stand long in the face of the enormity of tomorrow. He sank back into his grim worry and excitement, a riot of conflicting emotions that made it hard for him to feel any one way for very long. His mood shifted violently all day, from anger to almost giddiness to depression to fear to almost neurotic concern to stark terror. Sapphire endured it with remarkable stoicism, seeing Tarrin probably at his very worst, consumed by worry and fear and uncertainty over what was to come. She did her best to reassure him, but his own worries and doubts gnawed away whatever comfort her words could instill in him, and made the day creep by with almost maddening slowness.

It was only raw exhaustion that allowed him to get any rest at all. He'd not slept a wink the night before, and the worry and chaos in his mind had expended most of his energy over two days, allowing him to fall into a deep, blissfully dreamless slumber before the sun even went down.

He was shaken out of his heavy sleep, and the return to conscsiousness made his heart seize. He opened his eyes and sat up quickly, and found Jenna leaning over him, hand on his shoulder, with Sapphire perched on her shoulder. "It's time, Tarrin," she said simply, with a neutral expression.

"A-Already?" he asked in a fearful voice.

She nodded. "Phandebrass is waiting outside, and he has it all ready for you. Do you want to drink it here, or somewhere else?"

That question seemed ludicrous to him. As important as this was, and she was worried about where he wanted to drink it? But then again, if something went wrong, he didn't want anything to happen to his room. Maybe he was being paranoid, but he'd already lost all his possessions once, and wasn't willing to risk it happening again. But if he asked to drink it somewhere else, Jenna may think he was being paranoid.

"What do you think I should do?" he asked, a desperate edge to his voice.

"I think you should do whatever makes you feel most comfortable," she told him. "I you want to drink it here or somewhere else, or if you want someone to be there with you, it's all up to you."

"I," he said, then he bit his lip. It was a silly fear, but if it would make him feel better… "I want to drink it outside," he said. "In the gardens. I like it there. It's peaceful."

"Then that's what we'll do," she said with a pat on his shoulder. "You're already dressed, but I think putting your boots on would be a good idea," she winked. "You can't go outside barefoot. People will think you're poor."

The absurdity of her statement struck him, and he laughed despite himself.

After putting on his boots, Tarrin stood up and steeled himself. It was time. All the agonized waiting was over. No matter what happened next, he didn't have to wait for it anymore, and for that, at least, he was glad. He looked down at his little sister, wondering it if was her or the Keeper staring up at him with those beautiful eyes, and he nodded grimly. "Let's get it overwith," he said with surprising calm, belying the turmoil in his mind.

He simply could not remember the trip out into the gardens. Even much later, no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember. It seemed to him that one second he was walking out the door of his room, between the two Knights stationed there to defend him, and the next he was standing in his favorite place in the gardens, by a lovely rose bush surrounded by assorted flowers of every shape, size, and color. It was a place where two widely travelled paths converged, and there was a large white marble bench sitting on the edge of a grassy flat, one of the many grassy lawns interspersed through the gardens to give people somewhere cool and relaxing to lay. Tarrin was sat down on the bench by his sister, and he looked up at them. Jenna was there, with Sapphire silently sitting on her shoulder, and Phandebrass stood beside her, in dirty robes and still wearing that stupid pointy hat, but it was the surprisingly small black stone cup in his hands that had Tarrin's attention.

That was it. That was the potion that was supposed to restore his memory, and could very well destroy everything. But the time to worry about it was over. It had to be done, because if he didn't do it, then nothing would ever get resolved. Besides, he just had to know. He had to know who he had been, who he was, and if that was what he wanted to be once again.

"Drink it quickly," Phandebrass warned him, holding the black stone cup out to him. "Just to warn you, it's going to taste absolutely vile, it will. You have to drink it all, Tarrin. I say, you can't spill a single drop. Do you understand?"

"I understand," he nodded, reaching out for the cup with shaking hands. Jenna reached out and put her hand over one of his, and she gave him a reassuring smile. He felt a little better with her display of compassion, and his hands didn't shake quite as badly as they had just a moment before.

The stone cup was hot, strangely hot, and the blackish liquid inside it smelled acrid and unpleasant. This was it. All his worries and fears would either be dismissed or justified in just a moment. All his almost neurotic fear over losing his identiy would either be confirmed or denied, in just a moment. No matter what, things were about to be settled, and the moment had already passed.

It was time.

He couldn't let himself dwell on it anymore. With a gulp of air, he raised the cup to his lips and let the potion pour in. Phandebrass was not lying about how terrible it tasted, but almost as quickly as he drank it, it seemed to numb his tongue, and then his throat. He felt it wash down into his stomach, like hot, acidic water, burning his belly just before that strange numbness began to creep in. His mouth and tongue felt weird from where they had touched the potion.

"How long will it take to affect him?" Jenna asked.

"I say, there's no definite timeframe," he answered. "It depends on how well the potion was made for him and how accepting his mind is to the magical effect. It could be seconds, or hours, but it will work. The time is the only variable, it is."

"How do you feel, Tarrin?" Jenna asked in concern.

"Strange," he answered. "I don't feel any memory coming back yet, but the potion is making my mouth and stomach feel weird."

"That should pass," Phandebrass told him with calm assurance.

The numbness took full hold of his stomach, and seemed to run its course in his mouth and on his tongue. Then, the strangest sensation replaced it. It was a strange kind of hot buzzing sensation, like pins and needles in his mouth, and it travelled down his throat and gullet and started taking hold in his stomach.

"I feel pins and needles now," he said with a slightly slurred voice. "It's almost tickling."

"What was that?" Phandebrass asked with sudden, intense attention.

"It's tingling," he repeated, then there a very real sense of pain in his mouth. He put his hands over his mouth and winced. "It's burning me!" he said in sudden fear, as that burning sensation seemed to sweep down his throat, following the path of the potion.

"It shouldn't do that," Phandebrass said with sudden worry, looking at Sapphire. "The formula neer mentioned anything about it causing pain!"

"Sometimes formulae leave out the unpleasant side effects," the dragon said calmly.

The burning sensation turned out to be a pittance. All the sudden, Tarrin felt like someone had stabbed him in the stomach with a knife. He doubled over and let out a cry of pain, snapping his jaws shut so tightly that he felt like his teeth were going to shatter. But even they hurt from inside, by whatever it was the potion did to him, filling him from the inside with a burning pain that swept through his body like wildfire. Red haze filled his vision as he struggled to figure out what was happening, what had gone wrong, but conscious thought was scoured away as a pain unlike anything he had ever experience all but consumed him. It roared through him like a flood raging down a canyon, infusing itself into every tiny bit of him inside and out, suffusing him with its searing, burning agony and tearing a scream from him so mindless, so elemental in its conveyance of his pain that it made the two humans cringe and step back.