She was losing control. Of her magic, her business, her life. And she had no idea how to fix it.
“Okay.” Junie straightened her shoulders and reached for her smallest cauldron. “Okay. One thing at a time. Mrs. Watters’s arthritis tincture. Simple. Basic. I’ve made it a thousand times.”
Glimmer’s scales flickered doubtfully.
“Your faith in me is overwhelming.”
The snake coiled on the hot stones near the brewing station, prepared to watch the impending disaster.
FIVE
JUNIE
Two hours later, Junie was covered in soot, her third cauldron had developed a concerning wobble, and the arthritis tincture had somehow turned sentient and was attempting to crawl out of its container.
“Stay.” She pointed at the gelatinous purple mass. “Stay in the jar. Good potion. Nice potion.”
It burbled at her reproachfully.
The shop’s front bell chimed.
“We’re closed!” Junie shouted, not looking up from her containment efforts. “Come back in an hour! Or never! Never works too!”
Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate. The kind of walk that belonged to someone who expected the world to rearrange itself around them.
“Ms. Reed.”
The voice hit her like ice water. Deep, restrained, faintly accented in a way that spoke of expensive education and boardroom negotiations. She knew that voice. She’d been trying not to think about that voice all morning.
Junie turned.
Leo Castellan stood in the archway between her shop’s retail floor and brewing station, looking exactly as out of place as a lion in a china shop. Which, technically, he was. Today’s suit was charcoal gray, perfectly pressed, probably worth as much as her monthly supply budget. He’d rolled his sleeves to the elbow—the only concession to casualness she’d seen from him—revealing forearms roped with muscle and dusted with fine hair.
His face was all sharp angles and tension. Strong jaw, currently clenched. Mouth set in a flat line that might have been disapproval or might have been his default expression. Tawny hair cut short and precise. And those eyes—she’d thought they were unremarkable brown last night, but in the daylight streaming through her windows, she could see the gold flecks in them. Warmth in a cold expression.
“Glim, what?—”
The snake’s attention was fixed entirely on Leo Castellan. Her body had gone rigid, coiled tight, every line radiating hostility.
Leo’s attention dropped to the familiar. Recognition flickered in his expression—or wariness—before he smoothed it away. “Protective creature.”
“She’s not usually—” Junie scooped Glimmer up, feeling the tension vibrating through the snake’s body.What is wrong with you?
The response was a jumble of impressions. Danger. Change. A disruption that couldn’t be stopped. And underneath it all, an irritation so profound, it bordered on fury.
Helpful. Very helpful.
“Can I help you with anything?” Junie kept her voice cool as she draped Glimmer around her neck, where the snake continued to glare. “Because as you can see, I’m in the middle of?—”
The sentient arthritis tincture chose that moment to make a break for freedom, oozing over the rim of its container with surprising speed.
“Shit!” Junie lunged for it, grabbing a containment jar from the shelf and slamming it over the escaping potion. The purple mass quivered reproachfully under the glass. “Stay. Stay.”
When she looked up, Leo Castellan was watching her with an expression she couldn’t read. Those gold-flecked eyes traced slowly across her brewing station—the soot-covered cauldrons, the scattered ingredients, the general chaos of her workspace—and she felt every inch of his assessment.
“Surge effects.” It wasn’t a question.
“Why are you here?”
