Or if it didn’t.
22
Sylvie
Every step towards the cauldron is more difficult, my feet impossibly heavy, the ground impossibly sticky.
The spell is doing something—that much is blatantly obvious.
My throat is hoarse from chanting, though it feels like barely any time has passed.A cold wind whips up all around us, despite the sunshine and eighty-degree forecast.
I press on, watching Aiden’s head bob above the others as he sweeps with everyone else.
Finally, we reach the cauldron.
Nearest to me, Ivy’s voice shakes and the sound tells me I must not be the only one struggling.
We have to finish this.
Tilly and Tara, both still chanting, pull the cart with the orange ten-gallon jug towards the cauldron.The Fire Cider potion is the key—and I hope with all my heart I didn’t get it wrong.
There’s something funny about the fact we’re hauling potion in what is essentially a sports jug—and I grin as I continue to chant, the spell coming out easier with the smile.
Tilly and Tara manage to balance the orange jug on the edge of the cauldron, and with a dramatic flourish, Tilly turns the spigot so the rest of the Fire Cider pours into the belly of the great iron pot.
Smoke immediately pours from the top, and my eyes widen, the chant on my tongue faltering slightly.
My heartbeat speeds up.
What if I did it wrong?
What if this is all about to go horribly wrong?
The smoke’s not the pale green from the horrible encounter with the former coven—it’s a rich, sparkling yellow gold, and it floats merrily from the top of the cauldron all around and through the crowd.
Though a surprising turn of events, it doesn’t feel wrong, doesn’t have the slimy ooze of sour magic like the ghost coven showed me.
No, it feels… right.Pleasant.
The cloud of smoke finally winds around me, and Prudence sneezes from where she walks beside me.
“It smells like cinnamon and apples,” she says, and I exhale in relief.
It does, too: like cinnamon and apples and nutmeg and fresh-baked pie and everything fall should be.
I close my eyes in relief, reciting the last word of the spell for the last time, hoping with everything in me that it’s worked.
A cry goes up from the crowd, and my eyes fly open in time to see an army of toads leaping from the cauldron.
Dozens of gray-green bodies, croaking in a choir of froggy voices.
More laughter echoes off the buildings, an awed susurration of voices as the frogs hop around for a long moment, until the very last one jumps from the edge of the cauldron.
The building magic, the syrupy, heavy feeling of it, disappears as the last frog hits the ground.
And all the frogs explode into golden sparkles.
“Well, I didn’t expect that to happen.”Prudence raises her back leg and begins grooming herself.
