“So it’s just us, then,” I said. “Hopefully between the three of us, we can undo this unfortunate hex.”
“It’s not a hex! It’s the potion!” Wendell coughed, his head body shaking with every breath. I wasn’t so sure. If Wendell had gotten that tincture from Stella Lytefoot, there’s no way it backfired. She was far too talented to make a such a careless mistake. It seemed more likely that Wendell had been cursed.
“Easy, Wendell. Don’t overexert yourself. You’re not as young as you used to be. As least not for now,” Beau said. His handsome face was shadowed with concern over his longtime friend.
“Is there anyone you can think of who might have a grudge against you?” I asked.
“You shut your mouth, girl!” Wendell replied. “People love me!”
My jaw dropped. I knew some people grew more ornery as they got older, but from what I knew of Wendell, he’d always been such a kind, gentle soul. Whatever was going on with him, it wasn’t just changing his body. It was affecting his personality, too.
“I see where you’re headed,” Beau interjected. In any other situation, I’d agree we should follow that thread. But Wendell is one of the most well-liked witches in Salem. It’s hard to imagine someone doing this intentionally.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s assume his condition is a result of a potion gone awry. What condition is the tincture meant to treat?”
Wendell propped his cane up against the chair and crossed his arms. “I don’t see why my medical information is relevant. We have privacy laws, you know.”
“It’s absolutely relevant. If I know what we’re dealing with, I might be able to guess the ingredients and create an antidote.”
“It’s for …” He shifted his gaze to Beau, then back to me. After a long pause, he cleared his throat. “Vitality.”
“Well, that’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We could all use a little energy boost once in awhile.” As shifty as Wendell was being, there had to be something more to his story. “Do you know what goes into the recipe?”
Beau set his cup down on the table. “I have a sample of Stella’s Vitality Tincture at home. It lists the ingredients on the bottle. I’ll go back and get it right now.”
“No!” Wendell put up his hands in protest. “Don’t bother. That won’t do any good. It’s … a special recipe. Custom made for me.”
“Okay.” He sure wasn’t making this any easier on us. “We can probably figure it out by scent. Can you pass me the bottle?”
He closed his fist over the vial with a frown. “I’d rather not.”
Beau glanced at me and nudged my knee with his. I tried to ignore the fluttering in my stomach as he leaned in, his warm breath ghosting across my skin as he whispered, “He’s hiding something.”
“Definitely.”
As he sat back, his lips brushed against my earlobe, and I sucked in a breath. He smelled divine, like sandalwood and cardamom with a hint of vanilla. Get it together, Gemma. That was an accident, not an attempt at seduction. I leaned back, careful to create enough space that we didn’t have another near-kiss in front of Wendell Wickersham, and nodded.
“Wendell, give me the bottle,” Beau ordered.
“No.” Wendell shook his head, using his free hand to cover his closed fist as if that would somehow make us forget that he was clutching the only clue to solving this problem—his problem.
“We can’t help you if you don’t cooperate,” I said.
“You earth witches are supposed to be good at this sort of thing. You should be able to fix it without my help!”
“Wendell,” Beau warned. “I don’t want to get physical, but you leave me no choice. If you won’t give it to me, I’m going to have to take it from you.” Beau stood and took a step toward the old man’s chair.
“I said no!” Wendell shouted, his voice shaking. “It’s my last bottle, and you can’t have it!” He picked up his cane and wielded it like a sword, swinging it wildly to fend off Beau as he approached the chair. “Mine!”
“He’s not just getting older by the minute,” Beau said, ducking to avoid the frenzied swipes of Wendell’s cane . “He’s getting crankier by the second!”
“Do you have your wand?” I asked. “Immobilize him!”
Beau reached into his pocket as he dodged another swing, then raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “It’s back at the wand shop for repair. That’s how I stumbled across … this.” He gestured to the still-frantic Wendell.
“Mine’s upstairs. Just keep him contained. I’ll be right back!” I ran to the base of the staircase just as Titus came tearing down, tail puffed up to four times its normal size. She bolted across the room with a feral yowl, leaping onto Wendell’s lap, vaulting off, and bounding over the coffee table before vanishing into the back room.
Wendell threw his hands in the air, crying out in surprise as the vial slipped out of his fist and flew upward. He lunged to grab it, but he wasn’t fast enough. Beau caught it as between two deft fingers as it spun dangerously toward the ground, tucking it into his pocket with a sigh of relief. I watched, mesmerized, wondering if he was always that good with his hands.
“You okay, old friend?” he asked, patting Wendell on the shoulder. “You didn’t have to make that so difficult.”
“Sorry my familiar is such a spaz,” I offered. “But at least we didn’t have to use a spell on you.”
“Who’re you calling a spaz?” Titus reappeared, sauntering into the room as if nothing unusual had happened. Which was actually accurate, if I considered how many times a day she freaked out over something inane. But I had to hand it to her. She did loosen the vial from Wendell’s desperate grasp, even if it was an accident.
“What in Bast’s name were you running from?” I asked Titus.
“Nothing,” she replied, her tone haughty and apathetic. “Just having crazy time. I’m done now.” She tossed her chin in Beau’s direction. “Let me know when he’s gone, and maybe I’ll come back down.” With a flick of her tail, she darted up the stairs and vanished into my apartment, probably intending to knock every single thing off of every single surface in protest.
“This must be what parenting a teenager feels like,” I muttered to myself. I took a deep breath, blew the air out of my cheeks, and turned back toward my guests with a smile. “Alright, gentlemen. We have some serious witching to do.”
“I don’t get it.” I tapped my pencil impatiently against the gray marble prep counter. We’d been working on the potion for hours but seemed to have hit a wall. Darkness had already fallen, and time was running out. “I’m sure I selected the right ingredients, but my tincture smells exactly like the one Wendell brought in. If someone tampered with his potion, we should be able to pick up on the extra ingredient. What are we missing?”
“It’s hard to say.” Beau leaned over the counter and peered at the list of items scrawled into my notebook. “Cherry blossoms for beauty, bergamot for youth, colloidal silver for health, bee pollen for energy, red garnet for renewal, pomegranate seeds to ward off death, and a phoenix feather for longevity. And water, of course.” He picked up the beaker, swirling the red liquid like a glass of fine Bordeaux, and inhaled. Beau’s family owned a vineyard, and having grown up around wine, he had an even better knack for picking up ingredients by scent alone than I did. If I missed something, Beau would figure it out. “I can’t detect anything else.”
“Every one of these ingredients should make someone appear younger, and feel healthier. So why did it do the opposite for Wendell? If he’s taken it before, why would it suddenly backfire on him?” I slumped against the counter, feeling defeated.
“Maybe he has some insight,” Beau said.
I craned my neck to check on our rapidly aging friend. He was fast asleep in the chair, snoring like a freight train. “Even if he did, he probably wouldn’t tell us. He’s been so sketchy about this whole thing, right from the beginning.”
“Do you think he lied about the reason for
the taking the potion?” Beau asked.
“Maybe …” I worried my lower lip as I wandered along the wall-to-wall bookcases, gliding my fingertips across the soft leather spines, flipping through random volumes, then returning them to the shelves. “He was cagey about his medical information. Maybe he has some sort of health condition that interfered with the potion’s usual effects.”
“Like a newly developed allergy,” Beau offered.
“Exactly. Or maybe …” I trailed off as my gaze fell on the silver lettering of the book in my hands. The Font of Eternal Youth: A History. “You told me the first day we met that everyone in Salem has a secret. Maybe Wendell’s is the secret ingredient in his so-called Vitality Tincture.”
“What are you thinking?” Beau asked.
I hugged the book to my chest and hurried over to him, splaying it open on the counter. “We know the potion contains water, right? But we used normal, everyday purified water. What if the water in this potion is special?” I flipped to the center of the book and rested my fingertip on a photo showing a thousand streams of water arcing out of a cerulean lake.
Beau turned the page and began to read. “The Font of Eternal Youth, located immediately in front of the Capitol Building in Avalon, flows with enchanted water, known to locals as fey water. It grants the gifts of a youthful appearance, perfect health, and eternal life. Long ago, fey water was available to all who made the journey to the Font, but in recent decades, Avalon’s governing officials made the decision to charge exorbitantly for fey water. Now, only the wealthiest individuals can afford to keep fey water stocked. In order to reap the benefits of fey water, one must consume it daily. Any interruption in the daily regimen will result in the individual reverting back to his or her rightful state of being.” He closed the book and looked at me intently.
“So, you think Stella is selling fey water out of her shop?”
“No,” I said. “I think she’s selling fey water to Wendell, as part of his custom potion.”
“Gemma, fey water is illegal in Salem. The Council banned it seven years ago after a particularly nasty trade dispute with the Mayor of Avalon.”
“Oh. It is? That … Wait! One second,” I told him. I ducked under the counter and pulled out the tenant ledger for the row of shops adjacent to mine. As the custodian of Mortimer Montcrief’s shop and real estate investments, it was my job to manage all of his tenants, including Pixie Potions Apothecary. Morty’s books were a disaster when I first took over, but since I’d spent months painstakingly organizing his records, I knew exactly what I was looking for. I flipped to the records for Stella and Kayleigh’s lease agreement. “Seven years ago. Right about the time Stella and Kayleigh opened Pixie Potions?”
“That sounds about right,” he said. “What’s going through that clever brain of yours?”
I pointed to the rental ledger for Pixie Potions. “It says here that the deposit for the shop, as well as the first year’s rent, was paid by someone with the initials W. W.”
“Wendell Wickersham.”
“The book said you’d have to drink fey water every day to maintain the effects, or they’d go back to their rightful state,” I said. I looked over at Wendell and lowered my voice. “Do you think that’s what Wendell is really supposed to look like?”
Beau caught his chin between his thumb and forefinger, his expression pensive. “You know, Wendell has looked exactly the same for as long as I can remember. I always chalked it up to his skin tone, his heritage, anything but an illegal potion. But now that I think about it, I can’t recall him ever sprouting a gray hair, getting wrinkles or even celebrating a birthday.”
“What if his tincture wasn’t tampered with at all? He just didn’t get enough fey water in his last dose, and turned into ... that.” I motioned to Wendell, still snoring in the chair. With every wheezing exhale, his chest rattled like that of a man on his deathbed. “Beau, he seems really sick. Do you think a few drops of fey water would set him straight, at least until Stella comes back and can figure out a longer-term solution?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“But you said fey water was banned in Salem. Where can we find some on such short notice?”
“I think I know someone who can help,” he said. “Someone who isn’t afraid to bend the rules or keep a secret or two herself. Keep an eye on Wendell. I’ll be back in half an hour.” With that, he pulled on his coat and scarf and ventured out into the cold February night.
When Beau returned, he had an unexpected companion in tow: Nora’s landlady and housemate, Ruby True. I didn’t know much about Ruby, as she pretty much kept to herself, even when shopping here for supplies. I did know that when I arrived in Salem, she was the town’s only psychic and spirit witch. Rumor had it she was training Nora to take over for her, which added to my curiosity about the other new witch in town. But that was a question for another time.
“Ruby!” I greeted her. “Thank you for coming. Let me take your … coats.” Ruby’s personal style consisted of multiple layers of long robes—today in various shades of red and pink—and to be honest, I couldn’t tell where the robes stopped and the coat—or coats—began.
“Nevermind that,” she said. “I won’t be here long. I’m here to help Wendell and return to my humble abode. Nothing more.”
“Thank you. We think he—”
“Hush, dear. No time for small talk. Beauregard filled me in on the way here. Now, where is that potion of yours?” I had a feeling Ruby never had time for small talk.
“Right here.” I motioned for her to join me at the counter and pushed the glass beaker toward her. “What do you need me to do?” I asked.
“Get me a pipette.” She retrieved a small blue bottle from the depths of her many robes and gave me a pointed look. “This fey water was obtained long before the ban, and the fact that I possess it is not public knowledge. I don’t need every narcissistic old fool in Salem banging down my door for a taste, nor do I need to worry about that dull-witted moose shifter deputy making an example of me. After tonight, we will never speak of this again.”
“Agreed.” I pulled a clean pipette from a basket below the counter and set it next to the beaker.
“It wasn’t an offer, dear; it was a statement of fact,” she said. “If this were anyone else, I would have turned Beau away from my door. But Wendell here …” Ruby’s expression grew wistful, just for a fleeting moment, before she flattened her mouth into a hard line. “Let’s just say we go way back. Sometimes you have to be willing to break the rules, especially when it means saving a life.”
“Understood,” Beau said as he walked over to stand next to me. “Your secret is safe with us.”
Ruby unscrewed the bottle cap, drew some of the liquid into the dropper, and deposited three drops into the potion. She picked up the beaker, gave it a quick swirl and a sniff, and nodded approvingly. “That’ll do it. Now, focus your intention. That’s where a potion derives it true power from. It will work best if we join forces.” She extended her arm over the counter and grabbed my hand.
“Intention is everything,” Beau agreed. “But a situation this dire calls for an incantation, too.” He caught my free hand in his, causing a little shock of energy to zap my palm. I jumped, casting a confused glance his way. Was that static electricity, or something more? Beau flashed a grin, revealing his perfectly straight, white teeth, as he arched a brow. “Do I detect a little spark between us?”
I stifled a giggle, the moment of intense attraction taking a backseat to my surprise at the illustrious Professor Beauregard Bachhus, stone-faced serious academic, making an actual joke. Or attempting to, at least. “That was horribly cheesy.” Cheesy or not, I liked this side of him.
“But it made you laugh, and that’s what counts.” Wendell wasn’t the only one exhibiting a shift in personality. But where the old man had grown surly, Beau seemed softer somehow. Still determined, still confident. Still sexy as all spell. But also relaxed, even a little vulnerabl
e.
My fingers squeezed his involuntarily, and he squeezed back. Was there a chance he was warming up to the idea of us being together? Every quivering muscle in my body wanted to throw my arms around his neck, press my lips to his and find out. Thank goddess some tiny part of my lust-addled brain remembered that Wendell was counting on us to finish the potion.
“We should get started,” I said.
“Agreed. Wendell hasn’t got all night,” Ruby said.
Beau nodded. He joined with Ruby to complete the circle, then spoke an incantation. Ever the academic, Beau’s spells always consisted of a Latin phrase and its English translation. Since he was my mentor, I followed in his footsteps, but I had a lot more to learn about the Latin language before I felt comfortable coming up with an incantation—especially one this crucial—on the fly. “Donum vitae. The gift of life.”
Ruby and I joined in, repeating three times in unison as we focused our intention on the potion. As we chanted, the potion roiled and bubbled, a sure sign that it received our intention. Ruby dropped our hands and filled the pipette with a full dose.
“Now all we have to do is wake Sleeping Beauty over there and tell him to drink up,” she said. I looked over at Wendell, relieved his ordeal was almost over. He was still conked out in the chair. He hadn’t moved in the last two hours, but at least his snoring had finally died off.
Died? Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me.
“Beau,” I whispered, nudging him with my elbow. “Go make sure he’s still alive.”
“Gemma, I’m sure he’s fine,” he said. But I could see the concern shadowing his face as he rounded the counter and walked over to inspect the situation. With his broad hands gripping each of Wendell’s frail shoulders, he gave the old man a gentle shake. “Wendell? Wake up, buddy.”
But Wendell didn’t respond.
Beau cast a worried glance my way. I rushed to his side, Ruby following close behind, and I placed my hand on Wendell’s knee as I leaned down so my face was level with his.
“Wendell? Can you hear me?” I asked. I leaned in to listen to his breathing, which seemed shallow at best, nonexistent at worst. “Wendell, we need you to wake up!”
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