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"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. "What happened?"

"He possessed her husband and tried to conquer the entire village. It took three covens working together to get him out again."

"Nope!" I shook my head. "Definitely not that one! I have enough trouble with Garrik being bossy—I don't need to accidentally turn him into Attila the Hun!"

"Probably wise," Goody Albright agreed, turning the page.

We went through several more spells, all of which seemed to have increasingly ridiculous requirements. One called for the caster to collect thirteen different kinds of graveyard moss, but one of them only grew on the tombstones of kings who had died on a Tuesday. Another required the heart of a dragon—which sounded absolutely horrible to me—and yet another involved bathing the sleeping body in the milk of a moon cow, whatever that was.

Apparently, bringing someone back from the brink of death was a lot more complicated than I'd realized. I was beginning to think we'd never find anything that would work when Goody Albright suddenly stopped turning pages.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, leaning forward to peer at the book. "Now this is interesting."

"What?" I asked, feeling a little hopeful again. "Did you find something?"

"Possibly." She ran her finger down the page. "It's an old spell, one of the oldest in the book, actually. It's called True Love's Kiss."

I felt my cheeks getting hot.

"True Love's Kiss?" I repeated. "You mean like in Sleeping Beauty?"

"Something like that," she said, nodding. "But this is considerably more complicated than the version in the fairytale. It's specifically designed to restore a spirit that has been forcibly separated from its body by Dark Magic."

"Well, that's exactly what happened to Garrik!" I exclaimed.

"Indeed." Goody Albright was reading rapidly now. "It calls for a Veil Witch to perform the spell, which is rather remarkable considering how rare your kind of magic is. It also requires several rather unusual ingredients, but nothing impossible to obtain."

"So…you think it might work?" I asked hopefully.

"I believe it might!" She smiled at me. "Oh, this is exciting! I haven't come across this particular spell before. Let's see…" She began reading further, but then her expression changed. Her smile faded and she shook her head. "Oh, no. No, that won't do."

"Why not?" I demanded, feeling my hopes sinking again. "What's wrong with this one?"

"Well, the kiss is the most important part of the spell," she explained. "It serves as the bridge between the spirit and the physical body, allowing the Veil Witch's magic to guide the spirit back to where it belongs."

"Well, I could kiss him—I mean, I can touch him, after all," I pointed out, feeling my cheeks getting even hotter.

Honestly, why had I said that? Now I was sitting here discussing kissing Garrik Blackthorn with a woman I'd only just met! And I was pretty sure the cat in my lap was enjoying every minute of it.

"Oh yes, that sounds purrrrfect," Bartleby purred, giving me the eye again.

"Will you stop that?" I demanded, looking down at him. "I'm only talking about kissing him because it's part of the spell!"

"Of course you are," he said innocently. "And I'm sure you haven't given any thought at all to what it might be like to kiss the extremely handsome Garrik."

"I have not!" I protested.

Which was a lie, of course. I mean, I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about it, but after the way Garrik had held me that morning when I'd been so frightened by the troll, I couldn't help wondering what it would be like to have those strong arms around me under different circumstances.

Not that I was going to admit that to Bartleby!

"Well, I'm afraid it isn't quite that simple," Goody Albright said, interrupting my embarrassing thoughts. "You see, for the spell to work, you can't kiss the spirit—you have to be kissing the body that the spirit was ripped away from and Garrik's body is gone."

"Oh." I frowned. "But I thought he told me he wasn't really dead. He said his spirit had been separated from his body and that was why he was stuck between worlds."

"Yes, but his body disappeared after the curse was cast," she explained. "At least, that's what everyone assumed. No one has seen it for over a hundred years, and without it, I'm afraid the spell won't work."

"Well, that's rather silly," Bartleby remarked from my lap.