Page 39 of Rewitched

Artorius scoffed, frantic and over-excited. “Is it time? Can you try it? Oh, go on, just a sip. Let’s see what happens, Sav. You’re being an awful bore.”

Artorius’s grip was so tight that it tipped the cauldron at an angle, sending a splash down to their feet. The boys yelled and leapt backwards simultaneously, narrowly avoiding it.

“Careful! Patience, little brother. Any warlock worth his salt knows that you cannot rush good magic, idiot.” Savaric grinned smugly and ruffled his sibling’s sandy hair.

Artorius scowled up in his patronising direction. He hated being called “idiot,” “stupid,” “fool”…But the worst was “little brother.” He was a warlock now. The coven said it was so, officially, because his powers had finally been instated last month for his fifteenth birthday. One day, he’d be thought of as the man of the family and would fire insults back at Sav with relish.

“First light tomorrow,” Savaric reassured him, not realising that his gentle tone was grating on Artorius’s last nerve. Both brothers peered down with almost identical freckled faces, one with the faintest etching of worry lines, preparing himself to take on responsibilities that he wasn’t sure he was ready for. In a matter of weeks, on his thirtieth orbital completion, Savaric would step into the role that his father had left waiting for him and become high sage of Selcouth. The idea terrified and thrilled him, although he’d never admit the former to anybody. Not even to his younger brother, who was his closest ally despite their constant bickering.

The liquid in the huge pot simmered and smoked as though it could come alive. The colour of a sunset melting from daytime into night, the potion was blending from a peachy shade of inviting orange into a much darker blood-like hue. As Savaric had anticipated, an enormous bubble suddenly filled out like a creature surrendering a deep breath underneath the surface. It popped with a slow, gelatinous splash.

“Oh, go on, Sav. Do we have to wait another night? How much more can it possibly steep?”

“I’ve told you a million times that there is no nobler branch of magic than Alchemy, it’s patience and artistry combined. Real magic comes in the study, the art, the patience of waiting for it to knit together properly.”

Artorius sighed as he heard the snobbish resolution in his older brother’s voice. “Fine, fine.”

Savaric rolled his eyes, then hesitated. “I suppose a small extra sprinkling of spearmint wouldn’t do too much harm. Some extra fire for this one, little brother? Let’s make sure we put on a show for Selcouth.”

The younger boy punched the air, thrilled that Savaric was taking a rare risk for their secret project. Sav had had no choice but to share his plan when Artorius stumbled across him brewing up a literal storm in the dilapidated barn, the smoke already choking as it leaked out under the doorway.

His plan to perform the most complex and impressive of magic to mark the beginning of his coven leadership began when Sav discovered the spell stored away in his father’s grimoire, the original of the coven. Incandesco Caelestis. Wings to span across the sky, impossibly tough scales of iridescent armour, a breath of the wildest fire. Normally a man of level head and sensible shoulders, he could barely contain himself at the idea of dragon transformation for his sage ceremony. It would be the perfect majestic display of power for Selcouth and the promise of unflinching leadership—especially for those who had doubted that he would be able to fill his father’s shoes. Savaric had sworn his younger brother to secrecy, allowing him to help and promising a ride on his transformed back in return for keeping the secret. Since learning of the plan, Artorius had spoken of nothing else, and not always quietly.

Savaric crossed the barn and rummaged through the ingredients cabinet. Second shelf, behind the dried dandelions. He pulled out a stoppered jar of shredded spearmint leaves, emptied a little into his palm and passed the offering to his brother. Artorius immediately took one to chew on, then threw the leaves into the potion. It swallowed the sprigs of green into its murky depths.

“Come on, muggins,” said Savaric as he loomed over and squeezed his brother’s shoulders. “The sooner we sleep, the sooner the spell is ready. It’s going to be quite a day tomorrow. We’ll both need our strength.” Savaric laughed as he pretended to give a boot to the bottom of his young sibling to hurry him out.

Artorius scowled. “Don’t do that, Sav! I hate you sometimes.”

NIGHT FELL. PARTICULARLY dark, with so many stars overhead that Artorius wondered whether each one had arrived especially to see his brother’s sacred show tomorrow. The song thrush had not yet shared its singing, but scuffed shoes appeared at the barn door all the same. Tiptoeing noiselessly across the weathered floor, creeping to the ingredients cabinet filled to burst. Grubby fingers reached inside. Second shelf, behind the dandelions. Spearmint, for extra fire.

The tin of bonfire ash, charred and filthy. The jar of fireflies, beads of flame. The bottle of black salt, earthy, sharp and jagged. A combination of ingredients for an unbridled inferno, gathered and carried with difficulty by young freckled arms to the cauldron. Lids opened and cast aside, each element was thrown into the cauldron unmeasured and unchecked. Almost instantly, the promising layer of bubbles ceased, and instead smoke breathed out from under the surface.

“Let him burn.”

Jars and bottles were hurriedly discarded. The latch was closed again. Scuffed shoes scurried like mice back to bed, and then the song thrush began.

“BURNED INSIDE OUT, he was,” Bronwyn said. “A potion of pure flame, pure fire, liquid ember and ash created while Savaric slept. Oblivious to the changes, he consumed it that very next day, pulling the stoppered bottle from his cloak pocket as his endarkenment and sage ceremony came to its conclusion. Unaware that Artorius had tampered with it in the night, ignorant of its guarantee of grim death. It killed him without warning in front of the whole coven.”

Bronwyn rose to her feet and went to the grimoire. From it, she pulled out two loose leaves of paper, which had been placed between the back pages for safekeeping. One small cutting was torn at the edges, ripped from a newspaper.

MYSTERY FARMHOUSE MURDER

Laverlett Village woke to shock and mourning on Monday when the death of 30-year-old farmhand Savaric Day was confirmed. Day, popular and well-loved amongst locals, is said by devastated family and a sweetheart to have howled in pain and dropped dead before their eyes under most mysterious of circumstances. While Day’s body appeared unafflicted to those who witnessed his death, a post-mortem later revealed severe burns throughout Day’s inner and skeletal form. Sources tell the Globe that Day’s younger brother, Artorius Day, has been missing since the tragic incident occurred. A formal investigation is currently under way by Laverlett police.

Belle felt sick to her core. A boy with murder on his mind, and another meeting a dreadful death. “What happened to Artorius?”

“Nothing, to begin with. He never came to his brother’s endarkenment, slipped from the scene, wasn’t found again for years. He couldn’t be linked to Savaric’s death by the police, by the non-wicche community, because how could he have had anything to do with it? A freak accident, they said. Blamed it on ‘internal combustion’ in the end, would you believe?” Bronwyn said with air quotes.

Belle sunk back into her chair, reeling. The pair sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping every now and again at their cups for unconscious comfort.

“To die like that. And at the hands of a family member, too…” Belle said. “But he was a child, Artorius? Only fifteen, only new to his powers. It had to be an accident. There’s no way he could have known it would turn out the way it did.”

“No accident, Belle.” Bronwyn shook her head regretfully. “When Artorius was eventually found three years after Savaric died, Morena and I had only just found Selcouth ourselves, only just learned the history. He was barely alive, hiding in an abandoned outhouse through a bitter winter. He’d used complex magic to keep the coven from finding him for all that time, remarkably skilled for his age—dangerously so. He confessed immediately to killing his brother. He was brought to Hecate House, and he told the coven outright that he’d committed the murder. Guilty as sin itself.”

“But why would he do it? Sure, Savaric wound him up, but to kill him…”

“Who can say? He researched it in their late father’s coven grimoire, gathered all of the ingredients that he knew would turn their potion into darkest magic and threw them into the cauldron with one thought: to kill Savaric.”