'Do you think we should prepare that potion for Adara?' Oliver asked as soon as the nurse had left.

'Are you nuts?' said Rodrigo. 'You heard Mirena. That mix could kill her.'

'So why did Adara insist on showing us those jars?' Oliver continued.

'Maybe she's not in her right mind,' said Aisha. 'She could be delirious. Anyway, what does Adara know about potions?'

Aisha was right. What if Adara's wound had affected her brain? Maybe she would never be the same again. Perhaps she couldn't even remember she was human. She might stay a wolf forever and never tell them who attacked her. Never. Unless...

Unless she already had.

'Listen,' said Rodrigo. 'Imagine if someone attacked you and you woke up days later. What's the first thing you'd do?'

'Run to the bathroom,' Oliver replied. 'I imagine I'd really need to pee.'

'Whatever, but apart from that, the first thing you would do is tell someone what had happened to you, right?'

'Well, yes, after going for a pee.'

'And if you couldn't talk or write because you'd transformed into a wolf?' Rodrigo insisted, becoming more and more exasperated with Oliver's replies.

'That's it!' Aisha explained. 'She would try to send us a message in some other way. That's what Adara was doing. She was sending us a message!'

'Yeah, of course,' Oliver replied. 'She wanted to tell us she was attacked by an army of killer potions.'

'I think I can remember the jars the wolf picked out,' said Aisha, ignoring Oliver's comment. She rose from her bed and neared the shelves. 'Rodrigo, have a look and see if you kind find something where you can write this down. The first one can kill you if you don't mix it with yarrow, according to Mirena. It was violet in colour. Ah, yes. There it is. Irinacea. Then there was a white potion that would leave you with no strength. Yep, rumularia. Then there was one that would knock out a horse, dormilea.'

Aisha hesitated for a moment. Rodrigo claimed a piece of paper and a quill from Mirena's desk, fearing they would burn his hand or worse. Fortunately, nothing happened and he quickly scribbled down the strange names Aisha was reeling off.

'I think the next one was yellow,' Aisha continued. 'There it is. Unerveia. Then there was this one, nidularia, then erfedera, quirinea, ursilaria and incarvillea. Yep, I think that was all of them. Did you write them down?'

'I think I got them all,' said Rodrigo. 'Irinacea, rumularia, dormilea, unerveia, nidularia, erfedera, quirinea, ursilaria and incarvillea.'

'Irdunequi,' Aisha muttered. 'That's odd!'

'Irdu what?' Oliver asked.

'Irdunequi,' Aisha repeated. 'That's the word you get when you take all the initials of these herbs and plants. What was Adara trying to say with that?'

'It must be the name of her attacker,' said Oliver.

'I don't think anyone has a name like that,' Rodrigo replied.

'Maybe we need to take the last letter of each word,' Oliver suggested. 'Let's see, what would it be? Aaaaaaaaa. That's it! She wanted to tell us that her wound hurts a lot.'

'I reckon "Irdunequi" is more likely,' said Rodrigo, laughing. 'I've got no idea what it means though.'

'Whatever it is, it must be important,' said Aisha. 'As soon as Adara woke up, the first thing she did was to try to get this message to us.'

'It might be incomplete,' Rodrigo noted. 'I don't think Adara had finished when she lost consciousness.'

'You're right,' said Aisha. 'It could also be more than one word.'

'We need to tell Balkar,' said Rodrigo. Without waiting for his friends to reply, he took the piece of paper and quill and began to write.

Sir Balkar,

Adara woke up for a few minutes today. As she had to stay in her wolf form, she couldn't talk but she left us a message. She pointed to a series of potions with her nose. We've looked at their initials and we get the word 'IRDUNEQUI'. We don't understand what it means but we thought maybe you would like to know.

Yours,

Rodrigo, Oliver and Aisha

'What do you think?' Rodrigo asked, showing the other two the letter.

'Perfect,' said Aisha. 'What if Mirena reads it?'

'Good,' Oliver said. 'Then she'll realise we weren't lying about the jars. Maybe she'll come round and put some sugar in our medicine tonight.'

'I don't think sugar can improve such a disgusting flavour,' Aisha said, shuddering.

A while later, when Mirena entered the infirmary with a frown on her face and began checking their temperatures, Rodrigo handed her the letter.

'Lady Mirena,' he said. 'Could you give this to the grand master, please? It's very important.'

'Important? The only thing that's important here is that you rest and stay still for a bit.'

'Please, Mirena,' Rodrigo implored with the warmest facial expression he could muster. 'Balkar asked us to send him this.'

'Is this another of your tricks?'

'No, it's not. I can assure you.'

'Very well,' she said as she accepted the letter. 'I'll give it to him but I hope this isn't another example of your silliness.'

Time passed slowly in the infirmary. There was nothing to do and they didn't have much energy anyway. The majority of their time there passed in silence. Rodrigo couldn't stop thinking about Adara's message and he guessed that Oliver and Aisha were doing the same.

'I keep asking myself what was so urgent that she had to tell us about it?' Rodrigo murmured, looking at the wolf.

'We could try to wake her up,' said Oliver. 'I'm sure a nice bucket of cold water would do the trick.'

'Don't be an idiot!' said Aisha. 'The important thing is for her to recover from her wound and to do that, she needs to rest. Whatever she wanted to tell us will have to wait.'

It was time for them to have some more medicine much sooner than they would have wished for. Mirena appeared as suddenly as always and began preparing the mixture with a trace of a smile on her face. She seemed to enjoy making them suffer. For a minute, Rodrigo considered that the nurse was making the potion taste bad on purpose.

'Here you go,' said Mirena, handing each of them a cup full of her repulsive drink.

'How much longer do we have to keep drinking this stuff?' Oliver asked.

'At least another week,' Mirena responded. 'At a minimum.'

'I don't think I can do it,' Oliver said.

'Don't start with your complaints again,' said Mirena with a look that suggested she was not in the mood for jokes. 'Just drink it.'

Seeing that Mirena was still angry with them, the three of them made an effort to finish off their potions as quickly as possible. After collecting their empty cups, the woman disappeared once more in search of their dinner.

'I can't stand it,' Oliver said. 'I think I'm going to be sick.'

Rodrigo watched his friend walk to the bathroom with his head bowed and his hand on his stomach. A moment later, he heard him vomit violently.

'Are you alright?' Aisha asked.

'Now I am,' he replied. 'Much better.'

'You should tell Mirena,' said Aisha. 'You've thrown up all your medicine.'

'So she can prepare me another cup?' Oliver asked. 'Are you nuts?'

'You shouldn't joke about it,' Aisha said. 'It's a serious illness.'

'If I have any more of that potion I'll be sick again. It doesn't work.'

Try as they might, Rodrigo and Aisha didn't manage to convince Oliver to ask for more medicine. Rodrigo went to bed worried and took a while to fall asleep. Mirena had said that the illness was extremely serious and that only her potion would cure them. Why did Oliver have to be so stubborn?

The next morning, Rodrigo awoke shivering and feeling dizzy once more, as he did every day. Oliver was already awake, which seemed odd.

'How do you feel?' Rodrigo asked him.

'How do I feel?' Oliver replied, laughing. 'Better than ever! Look at me. I'm not shivering, I don't feel woozy. I knew that potion couldn't be good for us. That old crazy lady has no idea what she's doing. There's no way I'm drinking more of that nonsense.'

'I wouldn't be so sure if I were you,' said Aisha. 'It's probably only a temporary improvement before you get worse. Illnesses sometimes trick you like that.'

'Well, if I see myself getting worse, I'll start drinking it again,' said Oliver. 'While I'm still fine, I'll puke it up every day.'

Rodrigo was going to answer him and say he was being reckless when he heard a few knocks at the window. He thought it was going to be Darion or Noa, but it was just a pigeon pecking the glass.

'It looks like it wants to come in,' said Aisha. 'Should we open the window?'

'If Mirena comes in and catches us with a pigeon in here, she'll wring our necks,' Oliver commented.

'Wait!' said Rodrigo. 'I think it's brought a message. It's got a piece of paper tied to its leg.'

'So it does!' Aisha said, opening the window and taking the message from the pigeon. She walked over to Rodrigo and Oliver so they could all read it.

Hello friends,

I hope my pigeon messenger reaches you with this letter. Lady Mirena will not let anyone enter the infirmary tower. Not even myself. She is rather stubborn.

I have noticed that you do not have your rings on you. It is important that you never separate from them and remember to use them if you are ever in danger.

I hope you recover soon.

Until next time,

Balkar

'What is up with this guy?' asked Oliver. 'I think he's lost the plot. Doesn't he remember that he's got the rings?'

Rodrigo instantly knew that wasn't the case. Now he understood. It seemed so obvious, he had no idea how he hadn't noticed it before.

'Oliver, you're right,' he said. 'Mirena's poisoning us.'

'Of course she is. That's what I've been telling you all along: that old lady has no idea what she's doing, just like Balkar, who's a bit–'

'No, Oliver,' Rodrigo interrupted. 'I mean she's poisoning us on purpose. It's the way she's got us locked up inside here. She can spy on us, find out about everything and–'

'Steal your rings!' Aisha exclaimed.

'That's it! That's how you fell ill,' Oliver said to her. 'It's not an infection. It's because you drank my potion!'

'And the letters from Balkar were fakes, I'm sure,' said Rodrigo. 'Look at the writing of this letter. It's completely different to the others. She wrote them to make us relax and trust her. Damn it! She must have kept the letter we wrote.'

'Adara's message!' Aisha cried.

'Exactly,' Rodrigo finished. 'Now Mirena knows but Balkar doesn't. Aisha, can you communicate with him?'

'I'm trying,' she replied, 'but I can't find him. He's not in his study or in his bedroom.'

'What do you mean you can't find him?' Rodrigo asked, puzzled.

'I need to know where he is so I can communicate with him. I can't connect with someone without knowing where I have to direct my thoughts to.'

'Have you tried the knight's library?' Oliver asked.

'Yes,' she answered. 'And the dining hall, the armoury and the courtyard. I don't think he's inside the fortress.'

'We have to do something,' said Rodrigo. 'When Mirena appears, the three of us can overpower her and escape.'

'How are we going to overpower her if she only needs to touch her pendant to disappear?' Oliver asked.

'We need to give her a taste of her own medicine, quite literally,' said Aisha. 'Remember that liquid she said would make you fall asleep easily, dormilea?'

'Good idea,' said Rodrigo. 'But how do we make her drink it?'

'She doesn't need to drink it,' Aisha clarified. 'She only needs to smell it.'

'I'll take care of that,' said Oliver, approaching the stacked potions. 'Which one is dormilonea?'

'Dormilea,' Aisha corrected him, laughing. 'It's on the second shelf. It's a clear liquid.

'Yeah, I see it,' said Oliver, slipping the jar into his pocket. Then he climbed into bed and Mirena appeared a moment later. They had avoided being caught by the skin of their teeth.

'Here's your breakfast,' said the nurse. 'How are you all feeling today?'

'Not great at all,' Oliver lied. 'I'm still cold and my head's spinning.'

'It's only been a few days,' she said. 'I'm sure you'll improve soon with my medicine. Eat your breakfast. You'll feel better.'

They began to drink their milk and eat their toast in silence. Oliver continued to glance sideways at the nurse but she refused to take her eyes off them. Oliver made a small gesture at Rodrigo and he understood that he needed to distract her.

'It moved!' he shouted.

'What?' Mirena asked, jumping.

'The wolf,' Rodrigo explained. 'It moved. I think I saw it open its eyes.'

Mirena moved to inspect the wolf and, as she did so, Oliver emptied the jar of dormilea into his glass of milk.

'Are you sure, Rodrigo?' Mirena asked.

'I don't know. Maybe it was just a reflection. It looks like there's something shining from here and I thought it was the wolf's eyes.'

'It must be a reflection,' she said, 'because the wolf is completely unconscious.'

'Mmm. This is great!' Oliver interrupted, licking milk from his lips. 'I really fancied something sweet.'

'What did you say?' Mirena asked, her head and gaze flashing to look at him.

'Ehh, nothing. I really fancied something hot.'

'Give me that,' said Mirena, removing the cup from his hands. She moved her nose towards the liquid and instantly collapsed to the floor like a felled tree. She was out for the count.

'Good work, Oliver!' Rodrigo congratulated him.

'Yeah,' said Aisha. 'That was impressive!'

'It was nothing,' said Oliver smugly. 'We should get out of here and let Balkar know.'

'Nobody will be telling anyone anything,' said a voice behind them.

The three of them spun round and saw a tall man entering the door. His hair was blond and his skin was fair.

It was Donegan.