Ben’s bold words turn circles in my head for the rest of the day. He doesn’t come back to the kitchen, so I finish dipping the candles and leave them hanging. I twitch with the need to organize the components he’s left out, but I also don’t want to piss him off. For some reason, our developing friendship matters to me. Maybe it’s because he saved me and that places him ahead of most people. Whatever it is, I don’t want to ruin this strange, fragile thing between us.
So I head to the library and begin the process of organizing books. I’ve made a spreadsheet of all the titles and the colors of the spines, along with a brief description of what each book is about, and what shelf I’m placing it on. I’m not sure why I can read the titles now when they were blurs before, but I try not to think about that too hard. I figure I can email it to all of us and we can have a quick reference to find books easily. I’m a little more concerned about what I need to do with the scrolls, given that I can’t read the languages they’re written in, so I make careful note of the appearance of each one in my spreadsheet, copy the first few words (if the characters are on the keyboard), and categorize them that way. All the categorizing soothes the restless part of me that desperately needs control, and by the time I’ve returned a few more books to their places in the library, it’s getting late and I haven’t eaten a thing since breakfast.
Stomach growling, I return to the kitchen just in time to see Dru pouring tea leaves into the Keurig’s water reservoir. “Wait! What are you doing?”
Dru turns and beams at me. “Hello, darling. Do you want some tea? I’m just about to make some.”
“But . . . that’s not where the tea leaves go.”
She gives me a blank look. “Where do they go, then?”
“In the cup?”
“Well, then what’s the point of this idiot machine?” She puts her hands on her hips. “Ben gave it to me last solstice, and I swear I can’t figure it out. You don’t put leaves in it, you don’t put honey into it—what’s the point?”
My eyes want to cross at the thought of Dru putting honey somewhere inside the Keurig. “It heats the water for you. If you have a K-Cup, you can use it to make tea. Otherwise, you heat the water and put your flavorings and everything in your cup.”
“Why wouldn’t I just use a kettle?” She looks utterly indignant. “Kettles have been perfectly fine for two thousand years.”
“You can totally use a kettle,” I reassure her, making a mental note to hide the poor Keurig before she breaks it. “I’ll put some water on for you right now.”
“You’re a sweet child,” she says, patting my arm. “Thank you.”
I fill the kettle with water and then set it atop the stove. As I do, Dru hums to herself and gives a fresh bouquet of flowers a sniff. She must have brought those in with her when she returned. I want to ask how her day was, but I wonder if she’ll see that as too nosy.
“Where’s my nephew at?” Dru asks suddenly.
I can feel my face heating with a blush, because my mind immediately goes to that naughty, naughty crystalball image. I look around the kitchen, but it’s been cleared of all of Ben’s spell components. “I think he’s avoiding me,” I joke. “He’s holed up in his rooms, probably working.”
“Hmph,” Dru says. “Did you piss him off?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” I watch the kettle and then glance over at her. “I’m still working on the library, by the way.”
She waves a hand in the air. “That’s fine.”
I should probably confess how badly I failed at spying, too. “And as for last night’s mission—”
Dru jumps to her feet. “Old news. I don’t need to spy on Livia anymore. Want to make a curse tablet? I can show you how.”
I blink, more than a little confused at the sudden change in topic. “But I thought you needed me to spy on her. You said it was urgent last night. I put my life in danger to spy on her. Her dog almost ate me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. You weren’t in danger. You would have figured a way out. You’re smart and capable. Don’t sell yourself short.” The old woman fixes her expression on me. “So . . . curse tablets? Or are you too busy?”
Her strange, jumpy, almost brusque attitude is throwing me off. “Are you mad at me, Dru? Did I do something wrong?” Am I about to get fired?
Dru’s expression softens. She approaches me and puts her hands on my arms. “I’m sorry, dear. I’m in a strange mood today. Things aren’t quite working out how I planned, and I’m trying to think of new approaches. If I seem like I’m surly, it’s not you.” Her smile brightens. “I bet that bitch Livia cursed me to make me like this, don’t you think? We should curse her back.”
“Should we?” It seems a little petty to me, but she’s also my boss and rather moody today. I don’t want to get fired, not while I’m still new to everything.
“Well, we won’t really curse her back,” Dru admits. “Livia is an old friend-slash-rival. But maybe we curse her dog so he doesn’t like the taste of cats.”
I actually don’t mind that thought. “We can curse a dog?”
“We can curse anything we want,” she says with a chuckle. “Curse tablets are the basic blocks of our particular talent. It’s why it’s so important to show you how to create one. Especially now that you know magic is real.” She pauses. “You do believe magic is real, right? We’re still on the same page?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m a believer now.”
“Thank goodness.” She smiles brightly. “I was getting tired of going back and forth with you. Short of having a unicorn show up, I wasn’t sure what else to do to get you to open your eyes.”
“If we’re voting on things to happen in the future, I would absolutely pick a unicorn over being turned into a cat again.”
She giggles. “Come on. Let’s go down to my lab so you can learn how to make tablets. It’s such a handy skill to know. Given time, you might be able to make them on your own! Won’t that be exciting?”
The way she describes it with such enthusiasm, she makes it sound like we’re making a pie and not bringing ill upon someone’s dog. “Thrilling,” I agree, amused.
When we’re situated down in her messy study, I watch as she pulls out a large lead bar. “I once went to pencil factories to get lead in bulk,” Dru tells me. “And did you know that pencil leads aren’t even made with lead? The nerve! So I get my lead bricks through Amazon. Now when I get them, I have my apprentices melt them down and pour them into these sheet molds.” She points at a few thin pans hanging from a spot on the wall. “You’ll learn how to do it, and Caliban can help you if you need assistance. My eyes are getting too bad for the detail work.”
I nod slowly.
“Lucky for you, I already have a few sheets made from when Lisa was here.” She pauses, sighing. “I do miss Lisa. Such a sweet girl and chatty as could be. Always had the best gossip. Wasn’t afraid to sleep with anyone to get a bit of good information.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to be offended by that or not. “Um, is sleeping with people part of the job? Because I don’t think I can do that.”
Dru waves a hand. “It’s not at all. Lisa’s just . . . dedicated, you know?”
Her clear adoration for Lisa makes me feel awful, like this is just another job I’ll never quite get the hang of. Like I don’t belong. Square peg in round hole. It’s the story of my life, and it makes me ache inside. I can’t be Lisa, but I can at least be the best familiar that Reggie can be.
“Tablets?” I prompt. “How many do we need?”
She pulls one square of dull metal out. “Just one. You can use multiple sorts of mediums for this kind of thing—pewter, silver, copper, papyrus, paper, whatever. But your curse only lasts as long as your tablet is intact, so I like something long lasting.” She lightly strokes the blank front of the metal square. “I spent weeks making papyrus curses, only for them to get destroyed at the first good rain. Such a waste of time and energy. And if you make a lot of tablets out of silver or precious metals? They tend to get stolen. So . . . lead is the best. It’s cheap and it’s hard, much like my first husband.” She barks a laugh.
This is the first time Dru has mentioned marriage of any kind. “Oh, were you married?”
“I’ve been married six times,” Dru confirms. “Most of them were quite lovely gentlemen, but my first husband was a real piece of shit. He didn’t like magic and broke my fingers when I tried to cast.”