The Rhinestone Witches Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Addison Creek

  “Best if we get to Burger’s lab as quickly as possible then,” said Gill. “Come on. Follow me.” Without waiting another moment, he dashed across the road in the opposite direction from the building we’d just tried to get into. Lowe and I hurried to follow him.

  Not going to lie. I felt better putting more distance between me and Cynthia. Following her might not have been a good idea after all.

  Gill didn’t go far. There was another huge building, marked “Science,” just around the corner from where we’d been hiding. There were several buildings, in fact, each of them bigger than the unmarked one we had just left.

  Under the large sign was a smaller sign listing all the different types of science that were studied there. Unsurprisingly, there was quite a witchy and magical range. For example: vampire blood type identification lab, werewolf regrowth lab, and so it went on.

  The doors of the building were unlocked. Good thing, I thought, because otherwise that would be two buildings we’d tried to enter without permission in one short visit. What was more, we passed several students on our way in. Gill smiled a hello, but they took no particular notice.

  The science building’s main entrance didn’t have the square footage that the welcome building did, but it was still a large and imposing space. A waterfall burbled gently and birds chirped somewhere out of sight. Mesmerized by the finery, I just stared around with my mouth open. Then I collected myself and followed Gill and Lowe to another directory to find out exactly where Professor Burger worked.

  “I found it. Upstairs. This way,” said Lowe, leading the way up a flight of stairs.

  The second-floor space was just as impressive as the one below it. There were more doors, but I could see what we were looking for spreading out in front of us down the long corridor. At the end of the hall was a whole section marked by a sign that said, “Cauldron research and potion creation lab with Professor Bara Burger.”

  “Looks like you brought us to the right place,” said Gill. “Let’s learn new things!”

  Then he stopped short and his face fell. “I mean, actually I’m already late for my summer internship meeting. I probably shouldn’t go in with you. Especially since you two are definitely doing something snooping-related. Don’t argue. No one in her right mind comes to campus in the summer unless it’s important. I sure wish I weren’t here, but yeah, I should probably get going.” He turned to look at Lowe. She gave him a smile and he smiled back.

  Gill started to walk away, then stopped and came toward us again. “Sorry to rush off like this. It’s been swell today. I can’t remember having so much fun. Will you two be coming to Robin’s Restaurant any time soon?”

  “Um. Yeah, I’m sure we will,” said Lowe.

  “Great. See you both soon then. I want an update on whatever it is you’re doing.”

  Then he ran off.

  Once he was out of view, my cousin’s shoulders relaxed, her jaw unclenched, and we turned to look at the imposing archway.

  “Let’s do this thing. Potions made with feathers. Good times,” murmured Lowe.

  We headed into the fancy lab of Bara Burger.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A small white reception desk guarded another set of glass doors, through which we could see several people in lab coats, obviously dressed for research. Curls of color and sparkle moved behind the glass. Gleaming instruments acting as a backdrop to the many cauldrons.

  The receptionist was a nerdy-looking guy reading a huge textbook. He glanced up at us and frowned. “Yes? Deliveries go out back. I thought I’d told you that before.”

  “We’re here to see Professor Burger,” I said.

  “She doesn’t have any appointments today,” he said.

  “We came on a whim,” I said. I flopped my hand in the air as if that would help.

  “People in the sciences don’t do whims,” said the receptionist. “We do statistical analysis. You’ll have to make an appointment and come back. She’s a very important person. You can’t just expect her to be free whenever you show up.” He was obviously the sort of person who enjoyed saying stuff like that.

  Through the glass we could see a mezzanine level made of metal, where Professor Burger appeared to be eating lunch at this very moment.

  “Maybe we could just find out if she’d willing to talk to us while she eats her lunch,” I said.

  The guy rolled his eyes and his face soured. “Does she know who you are?” he asked.

  “I’m Jade Rhinestone. I think she’ll remember me,” I told him.

  At the sound of my last name he looked up from his book. Before that he’d been terribly opposite to eye contact.

  “I’ll see what she says.” He swooped out of his chair and hurried through the glass doors.

  Lowe and I exchanged looks. I hadn’t known what to expect, but some receptionist knowing who I was and that knowledge making a difference wasn’t it.

  He wasn’t gone for long. He returned and opened the glass door but didn’t step through. “She has a few minutes before her lunch hour is over. She’d be happy to talk with you.” He said it in a way that gave me the impression that his perfectly whitened teeth hurt.

  We followed him into the lab, and it wasn’t until we were through the glass doors that I realized just how fabulous this space was. There were at least fifty cauldrons lined up on either side of an aisle that led between rows of lab tables. Many of the cauldrons were bubbling away with different-colored vapors. There was a purple to my right, and three blue further down, while the other row had a cauldron that appeared to be belching yellow butterflies. Ten or twelve people were milling amongst the cauldrons in lab coats, many with clipboards and protective eyewear.

  This place was incredible. I had never imagined anything like it. The lab even had a large bank of windows on opposite the cauldrons that let in a lot of natural light.

  At the end of the aisle was a metal staircase that led up to the mezzanine, which was like a very large hanging second floor. Metal cables stretched down and reached under metal plates to hold the whole thing in place. This layout would give Professor Burger a perfect view of everything going on below.

  The receptionist led us to the second floor and disappeared back to his post. There was a large communal table near the railing, plus a desk, covered with papers, tucked into a corner. A sectional sofa and a couple of chairs faced each other to create a lounge area.

  Professor Burger was at the communal table with another woman who appeared to be in her forties, not as old as the professor, but not as young as Lowe and I, either. They had their heads bent over a set of papers as their sandwiches waited next to their elbows, all but forgotten.

  Professor Burger looked at us as through her glasses as we came forward. “Ah, Jade. Good to see you again. Enjoying your first few weeks as a witch?”

  She was the same dumpy and disheveled-looking woman I remembered. Queen Carlyle had not been pleased with her at the examinations. Given the emphasis the queen placed on appearance, I wasn’t surprised.

  “There’s something I’m wondering about,” I said, deciding on the direct approach.

  Professor Burger smiled at me and the other woman looked up, revealing startling eyes of a very pale pink. Her face was thin and her hair was cropped short and she looked terribly serious. When she’d taken a good look at us, she gathered the papers on the table and said, “I’ll just get going on these, shall I?” She smiled briefly in our direction and got up to leave.

  “Yes, of course. I’ll be along in a few minutes. Be sure to tell Emanuelle about the new series of experiments starting tomorrow.”

  The woman gave one curt nod and walked past us. She was tall and thin, with a lab coat and no-nonsense heels, the sort of woman who demanded that she be taken seriously.

  “Please sit. Don’t mind my assistant. She always has the next big project to get started on. Three years ago I suggested that she take some vacation and she said she would. I’m still waiting for her to go,” said Pro
fessor Burger with a chuckle.

  Lowe and I had come prepared, and now we sat down to make our pitch. I had brought the pearls I’d taken from Jonathan’s, some unicorn dung, and a couple of owl feathers that Kelly had found around the farm.

  “This is my cousin Lowe,” I said, making introductions.

  “Your turn next summer?” Professor Burger asked.

  “Hopefully,” said Lowe, blushing a bit. “This place is incredible.”

  “Thank you. Isn’t it? My dream was always to head my own lab. Of course, I only imagined that it would look half this pretty. Now that I’ve actually made it a reality, I often pinch myself. The experiments that we get to do here really are cutting edge,” said the professor.

  “How many students do you have?” I asked her.

  “During the summer it’s just the ones you see. For the school year I give big lectures, and then there are about fifty students who cycle in and out of the lab. Only the most serious cauldron students, though,” she added. “We’ve no time for being casual here. We’re trying to create new potions and find new mixes for ingredients. All sorts of experimenting goes into it, so we need the best and most promising students. Slackers and stupidity are not tolerated. For example, at low temperature the water lily can now form the basis for a pond scum potion. At high temperature nothing happens. For years we always boiled the lily, but now we’ve realized that cooling it makes a big difference. Those sorts of findings will really revolutionize the industry.”

  “That’s incredible,” Lowe breathed, her eyes shining. My cousin was a fan of gardening, but she had always taken an interest in potions, too. It wasn’t far-fetched to imagine her trying to attend the university and help out with the kind of experiments being done in that lab.

  “Yes, thank you,” said the professor. “From time to time my husband likes to come in and torture the students. They get used to me and stop finding me intimidating. That’s when I know it’s a good time to have him ‘stop by’ and whip them all into shape again. People think academic life is boring, but I’ve never found it so. I suppose once you find your calling, that’s all that really matters.”

  “That makes sense,” I told her. Of course, my calling was already laid out for me: help with the unicorns. I wondered if there would ever be more to it.

  “Now, I do have a little spare time, but we are very busy this afternoon. What was it exactly that you thought I could help you with?”

  “We were hoping you could help us with some ingredients we’ve come across. We don’t know what exactly they could be used for, in combination,” said Lowe.

  Professor Burger raised her eyebrows. “I suppose this has something to do with your family farm? All young witches get there eventually. If their family has special ingredients, for instance, unicorn dung, they can’t rest until they’ve found a use for it that their mothers surely wouldn’t approve of,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “I remember those days quite well. I’m pretty sure that if my mother could have shipped me off to terrorize someone else, she would have. She often told me that she wouldn’t inflict me on her worst enemy. In later years she admitted that was totally false. She would have totally inflicted me on her worst enemy if she thought they’d take me.” Mrs. Burger threw back her head and laughed. Lowe and I smiled.

  “In this case, I don’t think our grandmother would approve,” I said meekly. I wasn’t sure if the professor was the sort of person to take a joke, but after a single blink her face split into a wide grin.

  “That’s a good one. Well done. I do suppose you have a point. Very well. I will assist you with whatever ingredients you have. I do love talking about potion ingredients, so long as you promise not to do anything terrible with the information I provide,” she said.

  Lowe looked at me in confusion. “She means use recipe lists to blow stuff up and such,” I told my cousin.

  Lowe’s face smoothed over. Such a thing hadn’t even occurred to her until Professor Burger brought it up. Now she was relieved that she wasn’t being asked to do something she couldn’t say no to. Lowe had no interest in blowing anything up.

  “Of course we won’t. We just want information. There are some exceptional ingredients here,” I told her. Since she was doing us a favor, I didn’t want the professor to think we were wasting her time. If she wanted to help us in the name of curiosity, I didn’t want to take advantage.

  “Very well,” she said. “I have a few minutes yet. You’re welcome to show me whatever you like.”

  Out of my satchel I pulled the small containers. I had been careful to remove one pearl from Jonathan’s little box. Just in case Professor Burger or one of her associates couldn’t be trusted, I didn’t want her to recognize it.

  The professor didn’t react when I placed the pearl on the table. Then I pulled the unicorn dung out of my satchel. She was of course expecting that ingredient, given that we were Rhinestones.

  Lastly I pulled the feather out of my bag. I’d brought the ones Kelly had given me that she’d said weren’t very exciting, but we also had the one Michael Fieldcorn had offered us as a token of . . . whatever. Friendship? It was hard to tell.

  Now Professor Burger looked more interested and more curious. She leaned forward, her eyes intent on the feather.

  “Are there important mixtures that can be made with these?” I asked her.

  She glanced up at me. “This is one of Michael’s feathers, isn’t’ it? Given how important our research is, I won’t let our suppliers get their feathers from anyone else. His owls are exceptional. He gave you a special one, too. He could have sold this easily enough. I suppose as a token of friendship you took him some dung? Smart move, the Fieldcorn family doesn’t tend to do favors for others. The pearl is kind of the outlier. Were you not Rhinestones, I would say that obviously the pearl is the most common, even if the trade is regulated. Your grandmother refuses to sell dung to almost anyone. She provides the required amount to the Council every year and has a couple of important partners she works with to stay afloat, but that’s about it.”

  “What would you think this feather would normally be used for?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s an excellent question. Nothing nefarious, I can say that much. Usually truth-telling and sometimes fire-building. This is a straightforward feather without many hidden meanings. A good gift, since it would be very difficult to do any real damage with it,” explained Professor Burger.

  My shoulders drooped a bit in disappointment. I had been hoping for something dazzling, but that was probably foolish. No way Michael Fieldcorn would offer up something of real importance to the lives of the rest of us.

  “What about the pearl?” I asked.

  That was the only one of the three ingredients that was of unknown origin. Michael bred owls and my grandmother unicorns. As far as we knew, the pearls were not from a family farm.

  Professor Burger held it up to her face.

  “Yes, this is very interesting. You know we have standards for pearls. This is of the highest quality. Hard to come by. I should imagine expensive. I’ve seen the like before,” she added.

  I perked up. “From where?”

  She frowned. “You know, now that you mention it, I can’t remember. Let me think about it some more. I’m sure it will come to me. I’ll go look at our pearl stocks this afternoon and maybe that will jog my memory,” she said.

  “Thank you. You really don’t have to go to all of this trouble just for us,” I told her. Guilt suddenly washed over me for taking up so much of this famous woman’s time. When I turned around and looked behind us, I saw all of her students and lab technicians working hard at their cauldrons. That’s what she should be doing, and instead she was up here with us.

  She saw me looking around and smiled. “I’ve never gotten tired of scientific inquiry. I’m happy to help. Now, what is your question about these three ingredients?” she asked.

  “We were just wondering in a general sort of way what would happen if they were mixe
d,” I said.

  Truly, we had brought the dung to throw her off the trail. If she was at all involved in what was going on—and that was hard to believe, though not entirely impossible—then having us ask what would happen when you combined pearls and a specific type of owl feather in a potion would give the game away.

  She took the question at face value. “Very good question. Now let me think.” There was a pause, then she said, “Right, well, unicorn dung is one of the most precious ingredients, because it stands in for so many others and works in so many potions. Not to mention that it performs tasks in an ingredient list that few others can. It’s like vanilla extract in baking. You could leave it out, but there’s really nothing else quite like it,” she explained. “Or maybe a fancy salt.”

  “That’s amazing. I never knew that,” Lowe said, frowning as if she was trying to keep up.

  Weren’t we all.

  “Yes, so there are some things that must be made and they cannot be made without the unicorn dung. That makes the stuff incredibly precious, so long as you don’t have to smell it,” said the professor with a crooked smile.

  “It doesn’t actually smell that bad,” Lowe told her.

  “Good to know,” she said. “I have used it from time to time. Your grandmother does have something of a soft spot for us researchers. Good thing. Otherwise, we’d never make any progress. So, anyway, back to what I was saying. Pearls and owl feathers are a little more difficult because there are many different types of owls. These two”—she picked up the ones that Kelly had given us—”are usually used for blasts, explosions, that sort of thing. Pearls are good for that as well. Different kinds of gas are also possible, although less likely,” she concluded.

  “These are all used for attack methods?” Lowe asked quietly.