Page 63 of A Time of Witches

She thought of how he lovingly passed the mug into her hands, leaving the air awash with the pungent fragrance of steeping herbs. In her mind, she savored how his hands moved over hers, the heat of his palms chasing away the chill from the vinegar wash.

For in that moment, she was cared for. Cherished.

Safe.

Then she closed her eyes and drank the cup of rancid ale and swore she caught the sweetness of honey.

A guard’s voice broke through the memory. “Kat Calver.”

Sybil’s eyes flew open, fear for her friend flaring like a stoked flame.

Kat stomped toward the prison door. “I’ll have ye know that I’m with child…”

In an instant, she was gone, but in her wake, she had left something Sybil hadn’t possessed in far too long. A trailing glimmer of hope. For herself, but also for Jacinda.

Chapter Thirty

Lilith

Eager to implement what she’d read in the grimoire, Lilith rushed back to the bed and breakfast to pull together the ingredients. The home was quiet within, Aunt Jacqueline’s door closed with the sound of a running shower inside.

Meaning Lilith had some time to herself.

The first thing she did now that she was connected to Wi-Fi was google the daunting items mentioned in the old book.

Crystal was simply clear quartz.

Tin stone was cassiterite.

Laurel leaves were bay leaves.

Dragon’s glass was obsidian.

And snakeroot was echinacea, the heads being flowers.

Those weren’t nearly as terrifying or impossible to acquire as anticipated and were almost laughably boring. She thought back to the stones and crystals still scattered around the grimoire. One appeared to be amethyst and another quartz. If she was correct, she had nearly half the ingredients for the charm.

The rest she could likely locate in the house. The kitchen was her first stop, where she found some dried bay leaves conveniently stored inside a plastic spice jar.

She tucked the stiff, fragrant leaves into a necklace pouch she found in her luggage, fortunately absent any florals despite having belonged to Mama.

Outside, the sun gilded the world in brilliant light, its warmth enhancing the fragrance of grass and the various blossoms.

Lilith was spared foraging in the forest by Aunt Jacqueline’s garden.

The colorful rows were not just flowers as initially anticipated, but various herbs: lavender, chamomile, and the wonderfully recognizable pink of echinacea blossoms.

Lilith plucked a couple of the latter and secured them in the necklace pouch alongside the bay leaves.

Rosemary was just as easy to identify with its spiky stalks and sharp, medicinal scent.

She carried her findings to her room. This enchantment that had seemed impossible over an hour before now felt entirely doable.

And she’d accomplished it all by herself.

A warm sense of pride unfurled in her chest.

She slid her small, precious harvest into her back pocket, ready to return to the manor to retrieve the crystals. But as soon as she stepped outside, Asher’s black Mercedes pulled into the driveway.