I’m surprised when Reggie flushes, moving forward. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to. I thought I was helping.”
“Oh, it’s all right, dear,” Aunt Dru says. “You get as old as me, you get used to things a certain way.” She heads into the pantry, and I watch as she touches a few of the jars, pulling them down and considering them before putting them back. And I also notice that Reggie moves right behind her, subtly turning the jars label out and putting them back in their original spots.
A neat freak. I think about the tightly folded clothes upstairs, the color coordination, and slowly smile as Reggie discreetly turns another label face out. She turns to look over at me—or maybe to see if she’s been caught—and when she catches me staring, her expression grows both embarrassed and defiant.
I feel as if I’ve suddenly uncovered a cache of ammunition. Quietly, I nudge one of the kitchen canisters behind me on the countertop, turning it so it sits out of place, the strawberry-shaped lid askew. As my aunt emerges from the pantry with her arms full of spices and jars of herbs, Reggie follows a step behind her. I deliberately tweak the lid of the jar at my side so she sees what I’m doing, and her nostrils flare with anger.
I wait for her to march over to my side and fix the jar, but she doesn’t. The way she keeps glancing back at it, though? She’s aware of it, and it bothers her.
Good. Now I’m under her skin like she’s under mine. Pleased, I watch as my aunt pulls out a bowl and begins to work. “Now, Reggie, I’m going to start the spell, and I want you to hand me the ingredients as I ask for them.”
“I can do that.” She gestures at the bowl on the island countertop. “Are we making a soup of some kind?”
“A potion,” my aunt says. “We’ll boil it up and then run it through the blender just to get the crunchy bits handled, and then we bottle it.”
“Ah.” Reggie slides over to the far side of the counter and discreetly moves toward me. Toward the canister I’ve set askew. “Shouldn’t we work over the stove if we’re going to be boiling things? Won’t we need a burner?”
She casually reaches for the canister without looking behind her.
I move it just out of her reach.
“Oh, we don’t need a stove.” Aunt Dru beams at me and her familiar. “Now, let me call down my power. Before I do, though, I need your agreement that you’ll act as my conduit.”
“Familiar,” I murmur, practically whispering it in Reggie’s ear.
She jumps, turning to glare at me. “Assistant, right?” She corrects us, as if we have no idea what we’re talking about. “You want me to assist?”
“A good familiar is her witch’s conduit,” my aunt continues. She pulls out an ancient cuff bracelet. “If you wear this, it’ll allow me to bond to you, familiar to witch.”
“And if I don’t?” Reggie asks, wary.
“There’s the door,” I say helpfully, pointing. I should not be having this much fun, but I can’t seem to stop myself.
She gives me a withering look and practically snatches the bracelet out of my aunt’s hands, slipping the cuff over her slender wrist. “There. Bracelet done. Now what?”
“Now you watch me combine the ingredients,” Aunt Dru says. “Because you’re going to want to learn this potion. It’s quite a handy thing. Someone always needs a healing potion. You can make a pretty penny off something like this.”
To my surprise, Reggie leans over, paying attention as my aunt takes a pinch of leaves and tosses them into the bowl. “Should I get a pen and write this down?”
Aunt Dru gasps. “Of course not! One of my enemies could steal my spells.”
“Enemies,” Reggie echoes.
“They’re everywhere,” Aunt Dru agrees, adding another pinch of herbs. “Trust me.”
As if she somehow doesn’t quite believe this, Reggie shoots me a look. I don’t know if it’s amusement or chiding—or both. I do know she doesn’t believe my aunt has enemies, though. On the surface, Aunt Dru seems like a slightly dotty, harmless older woman. Of course Reggie wouldn’t believe that she’s Drusilla Grattidia Magnus, two-thousand-year-old sorceress, and that she has a lot of spells that other casters would definitely kill to acquire. It’s one reason that it’s so important she has the right apprentice.
Freckles or not.
Reggie makes a face as Aunt Dru continues adding ingredients to the bowl, her small nose wrinkling when Dru pulls out a few dried bugs and then hands Reggie a stone pestle. “Grind these up, my dear. We don’t want chunks getting stuck in the throat of our poor sick patient.”
“I thought you said she had an injured knee.”
Aunt Dru reaches over and flicks Reggie on the nose. “A potion is for drinking. You don’t rub it on your knee, dummy.”
Reggie yelps and pulls back, giving me an indignant look as she rubs her nose, as if this is somehow my fault. I just smirk.
Reluctance oozes out of my aunt’s familiar as she picks up the pestle and begins to grind the concoction. “So after we add all the ingredients, how does this work? Do we dance around a fire and say prayers to the four corners of the earth?”
“Of course not.” Dru adds one last pinch of herbs to the bowl and then dusts off her hands. “We’re not Wiccan, darling. We’re Roman. Veneficae.”
“My mistake.” The contents under the pestle make a sickening crunch, and Reggie blanches, pushing the bowl away. “I think that’s . . . pretty good.” Her voice sounds faint. “Did I mention I’m not a great fan of bugs?”
Aunt Dru just pats her on the shoulder. “I’ll allow it since this is your first potion, but you’ll probably need to get over your squeamishness. Bugs are a lot easier to use than, say, lambs. It’s dreadfully hard to find a nice lamb at midnight when living in the city. In my day, we’d just steal one from the nearest farmer, but that sort of thing brings all kinds of questions now, especially if you get pulled over for a speeding ticket.” Dru gives the pestle a few merry whacks into the contents, her movements making Reggie’s expression turn green, and then she gives the bowl a nudge. “Now we channel a bit of power and call on the gods.”
“The . . . gods,” Reggie echoes.
“Roman gods,” I add helpfully.
My aunt closes her eyes and extends her palms outward, the picture of concentration. She’s crafted this particular potion hundreds of times and has no need for the theatrics, so I’m guessing this is for Reggie’s sake. Reggie, meanwhile, gives her a pitying look, as if things have gone too far.
The bowl in front of them begins to smoke. The scent of charred bugs and leaves fills the air with an acrid, familiar stink. I watch, waiting.
Reggie peers at the bowl in surprise, her brows going up. “There’s a chemical reaction happening in our ingredients.”
“It’s not chemical,” Dru says without opening her eyes or moving a muscle. “It’s magic.”
“Mmm.” Reggie glances over at me, her expression disapproving.
The weight of the air changes, becoming heavy and redolent. I can feel the magic activating, like a caress on my skin. Reggie rubs her arm, chasing away goose bumps as she watches the smoking bowl, and again, I’m surprised at how good her instincts are. Her body reacts to the energy even if her mind won’t allow her to believe it’s real. The sensation of magic hangs in the air, and I can feel my aunt pulling on Reggie’s reservoir of energy. A strong, hard pull of a lot of magic.
My aunt opens her eyes slowly and then winks at me.
“So, what now?” Reggie blinks, leaning heavily on the counter. “Oh.”
“Dizzy, my dear?” Aunt Dru beams at her. “Gosh, that is weird, isn’t it? The timing of it? Given that magic’s not real or anything.”
I look at Reggie’s bleach-pale face and jump to my feet seconds before the girl’s eyes roll back in her head and she collapses. I catch her in my arms before she slumps to the ground. “Drusilla! What did you do?”