“Start from the beginning. What time did you arrive?”
“Six-thirty. Maybe six-forty.” Junie stared at her bleeding palms, watching red well up around the tweezers. “The windowdisplay was dark. I knew it was wrong, but I thought—power surge. Ley line fluctuation. A fixable problem.”
“Door was locked?”
“Yes. No signs of forced entry.” Her brain was starting to work again, logging details she’d been too shocked to notice. “The lock clicked normally. Someone had a key or?—”
“Or magic.” Wyatt dropped a shard into a small evidence container. “There are spells that can bypass mechanical locks. Most of them require either significant power or significant knowledge of the target location.”
Someone who knew her shop. Knew her wards. Knew where she kept the book.
Junie’s stomach turned.
“Walk me through what’s missing.” Wyatt finished bandaging her hands and stood. “Beyond the obvious destruction.”
She forced herself to look. To really see the damage rather than drown in it.
“The Special Requests cabinet is empty. Those were custom formulations—not dangerous, but valuable.” She moved through the wreckage, Glimmer riding her shoulder, scales still that troubled crimson. “The Wellness section is destroyed, but I think that’s collateral damage from—” She stopped. Stared at the floor near her brewing station.
Scorch marks. Deliberate ones, forming a pattern she almost recognized.
“Wyatt.”
He was beside her in two strides, crouching to examine the burned symbols.
“That’s an amplification sigil. Someone was using your ley line access to power a larger spell.”
“The ley line—” Junie turned toward the basement door. It hung open, the lock melted into a twisted lump of metal.
She was down the stairs before she could think about whether it was safe.
The basement was worse.
Her carefully organized ingredient storage was ransacked. Aging racks overturned. But that wasn’t what made her stop dead at the bottom of the stairs.
The ley line access point flickered and sputtered. Weak. Damaged. The brilliant light that had filled this space days ago was dimmed to barely a glow.
Someone hadn’t stolen from her. They’d drained her.
“They siphoned the ley line.” Wyatt stood at her shoulder, his presence solid in the violated space. “Used the amplification sigil to channel power into a device or spell.” He paused. “This is beyond standard break-and-enter, Junie. This is a coordinated magical attack.”
She knew. God, she knew.
The buyout offer from three weeks ago. The shell company with the too-generous terms. She’d thrown the letter away without reading past the first paragraph because Moonrise Mixology wasn’t for sale, would never be for sale, was the only thing she had left of?—
Her grandmother’s book. The ley line. Both targeted.
This wasn’t random.
TWELVE
JUNIE
Wyatt called for backup. Made phone calls. Cordoned off the shop with caution tape that felt absurdly cheerful against the backdrop of destruction. Junie watched from the sidewalk, arms wrapped around herself, Glimmer tucked against her collarbone.
Main Street was waking up. Dahlia emerged from the bakery next door, her face going pale when she saw the tape, the broken window, Junie standing hollow-eyed in front of it all. She was across the street in seconds, wordlessly pulling Junie into a hug that smelled of cinnamon and yeast.
“I’m okay,” Junie said automatically.
