Lord Wildwood visited Ildri in the late afternoon. "My lord, have you decided what you would like me to make for you?" she asked hesitantly, hoping it was something that she could indeed make successfully.

"Actually I am here to enquire if you knew of a potion which could force the subject to speak only the truth, something to produce honesty."

Ildri shook her head. "For that man you captured? I'm sorry, there is not any that I know of, my lord."

"That's understandable. Do not fret, we will find a way to extract information. I actually came for another reason as well. I brought you something."

Lord Wildwood held out a package and Ildri took it. She unwrapped it and found a book that was in excellent condition. The title read Potion Almanac.

"It's for you, but I did think that you might make some of these potions for use at Wildwood. I only glanced through, but there are a number that could be useful, most especially anything that could be used for defence if it comes down to a fight on our land. Don't hesitate to ask if you need anything."

"Thank you," Ildri said quickly. "I've already made up some ignition potions and some smoke juice potions."

"Ah, you already gave me a couple of samples of those, didn't you? Go ahead and give the ones you concocted to the head guard on duty. Just explain to them how they work. And speaking of guards, Ildri, while I realize that you can use many of the plants around Wildwood, I would appreciate if you took at least a soldier with you. And perhaps a few of your potions for protection."

Ildri nodded. "That sounds good. I'll do that."

"I'll give them instructions to find someone to accompany you when you need help," Lord Wildwood said. "I'll leave you to it, then. You've done well so far."

Ildri worked until late in the day, and then she flipped through the new book from Lord Wildwood. Some of the potions she had heard of and a couple Maxine had already taught her to make, but there were many more that she had not encountered.

Ildri learned that there were several major areas that most potions fell into. There was a great deal of healing potions that might do anything from nourish wellbeing or as a general healing salve to curing various ills like split ends or specific types of warts. There was also a branch of healing that dealt with animals and even a few that dealt with curing plants of various diseases. There were both defensive and offensive protection spells, as far as Ildri could see offensive protection spells were simply a nice way of saying that you protected yourself by blowing someone else up. There were also a number of poisons, which were not all fatal, some could make people sleep and various other areas. The book also had a good number of miscellaneous potions as well, such as love potions, Ildri could not help noticing, and the standard harm testing potion that Maxine had taught her as well as a potion that would mask the magic of other potions. Of course there were also some disguise spells, but not as many as Maxine seemed to know.

The last few pages of the book spoke of familiars and how one could make an animal one's familiar. It seemed that if an animal really did not wish to be a familiar would resist, not that Ildri was concerned in the case of Keziah. The parrot was sitting on a makeshift perch and preening her feathers.

Ildri flipped to the next page and read a recipe for bringing out the latent qualities of a familiar in potion form.

Ildri glanced over at Keziah. "You must be good for something beside waking me up too early and swearing too much," Ildri said, eyeing the bird.

"Bloody mess," agreed Keziah sympathetically.

Ildri rolled her eyes and looked through the ingredient's list. She had everything readily available, so there was no reason not to give it a try.

"We're going to see what you can do," she told the bird.

Keziah whistled completely unconcerned.

Ildri shrugged and headed back to her workroom, leaving the doors open. Keziah followed her after a few minutes. The potion was a bit intricate but not overly time consuming and Ildri did not find mixing Keziah's magic in was overly difficult assuming that she was doing it correctly. Soon the potion looked to be a very light red.

Ildri put a few drops in the tester solution and swirled it around. It turned bluish green. "It's safe," Ildri said with a shrug. "I suppose I should test it."

"Bloody test it," Keziah agreed.

Ildri took a small amount in a small glass and through it down her throat. It had a lightly fruity flavour that was not really unpleasant.

Ildri could not feel anything, not even a slight tingle of magic. Maybe nothing had happened, but it definitely had magic. Maybe the potion would affect something else, like Keziah herself or maybe it only worked for men or there were any other number of possibilities. Perhaps an expert like Maxine might have an idea, but Ildri herself had none.

And then Ildri felt a slight tingle down the back of her neck. She jumped up and ran to look in the mirror in her room. She looked exactly normal.

"That is so weird," she said to no one in particular. "I can't see any change at all. I wonder if there is some way to find out what the effect was. I hope it's not something odd that I'll never figure out." Ildri went back to her workshop and poured the potion into a vial and stoppered it. Then she picked up Keziah off of her perch and carried the bird out into the main room.

"It seems that this potion is useless for all intents and purposes, doesn't it?" she asked the bird. "Kind of seems like a theme with you, doesn't it? Oh, I should not have said that, I don't know what came over me, Keziah. You're not useless, I didn't mean to be mean. But I guess you can't understand anything I'm saying anyway, can you?"

Keziah cocked her head and regarded Ildri carefully. She squacked and then fluttered her wings. "Pretty lady," she said in her eerie voice.

"You're a pretty lady too," Ildri told her. "I don't know if it's some sort of weird magical bond or something but I really care about you, Keziah. I would be really upset if something happened to you. I mean, you're one of the only friends that I have. Of course I have chef, and she's like a mother to me I guess so it's not quite the same thing. And there's Hanna, but lately I feel like she's in a whole different world than me, if you know what I mean. But why would you know? You're a bird. And why am I even saying these things to you anyway? I don't even want to be talking about this right now. Truthfully I don't even feel like talking about anything right now, which is out of character for me I suppose. I could go for a bit of peace and quiet. I normally—at least I used to normally—love to talk, but lately I haven't been feeling like it. I don't know if it's because of everything that happened or what, but that's just the way it is now. I don't know. And why am I still talking?"

Ildri paused for only a second. "Oh no, I think I just figured out what that potion did. Oh no, oh no. It makes such horrible sense! Why do I even try random potions on myself? I should find a potion tester, slip it into some else's drink. I'm joking, of course, but this is serious. Really, Keziah, that's what you do? Make me talk too much? That's too predictable. And I'm finding that the slightest thought that crosses my mind is what comes out of my mouth. Ah! What am I going to do? How long is this going to last? I know that it's not permanent but how long is not permanent? I only had a small amount, so hopefully it will wear off in a few minutes."

But the potion did not wear off in a few minutes, nor in an hour. By that time Ildri was desperately sick of hearing herself speak without ceasing, something she never could have imagined before. She felt out of breath and yet every thought she had kept flying out of her mouth.

"How did that stupid tester potion say that this was harmless? How is this not harmful!?" Ildri shrieked. "Clearly it's terrible! That tester potion! And now I hear a knock at the door. I should ignore it, I don't want anyone to see me like this!"

"Ildri! I can hear you talking in there, who are you talking to?" she heard Hanna call through the door.

"And now I'm going to open the door, why? I don't want to open the door, but I feel like I have no choice. Don't tell me this potion not only makes me talk but also makes me want to talk to more people than just myself and Keziah. I can't go out because I'll spill every embarrassing thought that goes through my head and that will be—" Ildri opened the door, "Simply awful and I don't know what I'm going to do. Hello, Hanna, it's nice to see you I guess except that this isn't really a good time for me to see you so I'd appreciate it greatly if you would go and preferably lock me in so that I can't escape until this stupid potion wears off which I hope will happen soon because I am getting so tired and my jaw is starting to get very tired and—"

"Ildri!"

"I think I'm giving myself a headache from listening to myself and if I keep going I'll be telling everyone who so much as looks at me about Ty and how much I miss him and that will not be a good thing and—"

"That's why you've been so gloomy? A man? That explains so much," Hanna said looking voracious for detail and speaking over Ildri's muffled protests. "Tell me more about him, Ildri."

"I really don't want to talk about him because it makes me depressed and anyway in case you haven't noticed I'm not able to stop talking right now which I would say is far more important than telling you something that I don't even want to talk about and probably should not because it's not mine to tell and the king told me not to speak of what happened. Well, it wasn't exactly the king, but the orders came from him so it's pretty much the same—"

Hanna broke in again, "So what is going on with you?"

"That's exactly what I was trying to tell you, I tried the potion I just made and it's making me talk like this and I think if it doesn't stop soon I'm going to go mad! I can barely breath for talking and if this keeps up all night I'm going to say something I regret and I don't know what I'm going to do but it is not going to be a good thing and I'm really worried about—"

Hanna shrugged. "Let's see if Lord Wildwood can help, I mean, he knows a lot about magic and stuff like that, right?"