Page 27

Ipaced my study in frantic strides, clutching a swiftly copied version of Victoria’s curse in one hand and my phone in the other. I’d sent word to Genie and Persie to meet me here before I moved on to stage two of proceedings, mainly to make sure that the former was okay and her diversion had gone without a hitch. She, by rights, should’ve been back at the Infirmary, but she’d informed the medics that she refused to go back and had essentially discharged herself for the sake of this mission. They’d agreed, likely glad not to have to butt heads with her anymore. My heart flapped in my chest like a restless bird, struggling to cope with the nerves and adrenaline and fear crashing through my bloodstream.

What if I’m overcomplicating matters because of my history with Victoria? The thought hadoccurred to me many times during the rushed copying of her chilling hybrid curse and on the hurried dash over from Victoria’s office, and even in the initial reading. After all, in situations such as this, it served to implement the philosophy of Occam’s Razor—in layman’s terms, that the simplest option was the right one.

Could she really have been the one to cast the curse on Reid? I removed my spectacles, using the comforting familiarity of wiping them on my shirt to slow the pace of my racing mind. She had created a curse very similar to the one that was affecting Reid. She was likely the only one with access to her Grimoire. She’d hexed the book to keep out prying eyes, and she had erased the evidence of those two pages—all highly suspect. I put my glasses back on and sighed, distressed by the implications of the discovery. But why would she curse Reid? Was he more local than he’d let on? Had he trailed Victoria before he’d trailed Persie, and Victoria had retaliated? But if that were the case, surely he’d remember her. It wasn’t as though she was easy to forget. Goodness, this was a mess. And if she’d cast the curse, when?

My futile QA with myself came to an abrupt halt as Genie barreled through the study door, grinning like a madwoman. “Aloha!”

“There you are.” I waggled my phone at her. “I was waiting for you to reply!”

“I thought it’d be quicker if I just came straight to you. Plus, there’s less of a paper trail this way.” She flashed a wink and pointed to her phone. “Speaking of which, you should delete any messages about Operation Sneaky Weasels.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“I blame the flu meds.” She stooped to catch her breath, a sure sign that she was still feeling a few side effects from the resurrection and the cold she’d contracted.

I waited for the third member of our party to stagger in, but she didn’t appear. “Where’s Persie?”

Genie gestured behind her vaguely. “We thought our plan would work better if we all had a decent alibi for our whereabouts. Oh, and I didn’t have the energy to conjure up my invisibility spell to cover both of us, so we went back to her room and made sure a bunch of people saw us both go in. Then I snuck out, all invisible-like, and spray painted the crap out of Victoria’s apartment door.” She laughed deviously. “Persie’s eagerly awaiting news.”

“What did you paint on her door, out of curiosity?” There was a bit of concern in my question, too, considering she had been borderline bananas before we’d undertaken this endeavor. In hindsight, letting her loose with a can of spray paint might have been a terrible idea.

She wiggled her eyebrows, still giggling. “I left the kind of message that’ll make Victoria wish she’d worn her brown suit today. ‘You think you’re all-powerful. You think yourselves superior. The day will come when we show you are nothing but dirt beneath our feet. Your days of power are over. You are in our world now.’”

“You didn’t leave any evidence behind?” I had to be sure, given that she’d been wielding chopsticks as swords about an hour ago.

“Not a lick! I made sure of it. What about you? How did Operation Softly Softly Catchy Cursey go?”

“I appreciate these creative names.” I laughed and waved the copied curse in her direction. “I think I got what I was looking for, but I won’t be able to conjure up an antidote myself. That isn’t my field of expertise, but I know someone who can help.” I didn’t say any more about what I’d found than that. I felt horrified by the curse in my hands, but I didn’t want to cast aspersions on Victoria before I had concrete evidence. Even with Genie, I couldn’t begin theorizing without being certain. Perhaps there was a part of me that wanted to remain decent and honorable when it came to Victoria, despite what I had seen.

Someone else could still have stolen it from her Grimoire, and it was entirely possible that Veritas had managed to acquire a dangerous piece of magical technology that had gone awry because they didn’t know how to use it properly. I knew of one such item—a Devil’s Bomb—that could emulate what had been done to Reid. They were very rare, but they did exist. Devil’s Bombs were orbs crafted from Arabic gold, which usually held the spirit of a djinn. The spirits were imprisoned in the same way a genie got sucked into a lamp, and, once released with the right incantations, it melded human and djinn together. Who was to say there wasn’t a Fear Dearg version of a Devil’s Bomb? If such an item had fallen into inexperienced hands, then it could well have been the cause of this—instead of someone deliberately inflicting a curse. Maybe I was being na?ve, but I found it difficult to think ill of Victoria.

Genie nodded. “Then lead the way to our mysterious assistant.” Her eyes brightened. “Ooh, that’s what I’ll be! I’ll be a scholar’s assistant’s… assistant.”

I chuckled. “You have no idea how many times I’ve been snowed under with work and wished that was a real thing.”

“I’m not called ‘Genie’ for no reason. Don’t you know I grant wishes?” She flashed one of her most disarming smiles, and I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing.

It occurred to me at that moment that we were alone together in my study. Had we not had the pressure of an infectious monster curse on the loose, this would have been another chance to kiss her. Alas, there were more pressing matters afoot, and we needed to get going before Victoria came looking for me to finish our conversation.

“This way.” I walked past her and out of my study, looking down at the ground and trying not to think about the heady waft of her perfume that hit me as we came within touching distance.

Walking through the Institute’s hallways with Genie bounding along beside me, I was reminded of the vast scale of this place, with its cavernous ceilings and imposing stone and glass structure. I had been here for almost six years—first as a student, then as a scholar’s assistant and Repository caretaker—and the magnitude never failed to inspire awe.

Fifteen minutes later, we arrived outside the medieval door of the Hex Lab, complete with a rusty black iron knocker in the shape of a stag’s head. I reached for it and heard the bang of my knock echo through the room beyond.

“Where are we?” Genie whispered furtively. “It’s got creep factor coming out the wazoo.”

I looked left and right, noting how dingy and narrow this part of the Institute was in relation to the rest. “I’ve never noticed that before. I suppose it is a bit… shady. I imagine that’s because it was built around the ruins of where the old castle’s dungeons used to be.” I shrugged off the sudden prickle that ran up the back of my neck, thinking of all the ghosts that must have been floating about down here. “But this is Ariana Gilmore’s laboratory—scholar of hexes and potions. Nothing weird, I assure you, unless you call being an expert in breaking curses creepy.”

“Depends on the person,” Genie replied, staring at the medieval door. An original relic, if memory served.

Then, the door swung open to reveal Ariana herself. She rubbed her hazel eyes as though we had just woken her from a nap, or perhaps she had been so deep in her work that she had forgotten the intensity of daylight. I had certainly been there before. A moment later, a smile spread across her face, and she tucked her long, dark-blonde hair behind her ears. She and I had come to the Institute around the same time—myself as a student, her as a scholar’s assistant—and she had always been a welcome sounding board to bounce my ideas off of. And I’d always found her Yorkshire accent charming.

“Ey up, if it int the Beast Master himself.” She swung the door wider, revealing the dimly lit interior of her lab: ancient, splintering workbenches adorned with test tubes and vials and bottles, all filled with liquids of unknown origins. A pungent scent of chemicals and the earthy note of herbs and dried plants drifted out of the room, making me sniff in pleasure. “What brings ye to my door? Not that ye’ll find me complainin’. Ye know I’m always happy to have ye swing by for a brew.”

Genie stiffened beside me. “Does he do that often?”

“Not so much, as of late, but the lad’s been busy, so I’ll not hold it against him.” Ariana winked at me, oblivious to Genie’s suddenly frosty glare. I observed Genie discreetly, a half smile tugging at the corners of my lips. Was she… jealous? I wasn’t the sort of person who thrived off the jealousy of significant others, nor was I the type to play games, but it added a bit of kindling to the flame of hope that she liked me as much as I liked her.

“If you could resist holding anything against him, that’d be great,” Genie muttered under her breath.

Ariana tilted her left eye toward us. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that, love. I think I’ve gone a bit deaf from this explosion we had the other day. Ye shoulda seen it! Coulda taken out this entire hallway if I hadn’t jumped in sharpish.” She showed her hands, which were covered in the fading marks of chemical burns. “Me mum always said me hands would never be pretty. Guess she were right!”

You’ve got nothing to worry about, I wanted to tell Genie. Ariana and I were just friends and colleagues who shared research woes over a cup of tea every now and again. This was the way Ariana acted with everyone; it was part of her Northern nature to tease and be friendly with anyone who came to her door. Genie just didn’t know that.

“Did you get everything cleaned up all right?” I asked politely.

Ariana nodded. “Oh, aye, nothin’ I couldn’t handle. Me lab already looks like it’s taken a beating or twenty, so no one’s gonna notice.” She cackled, her laugh deep and throaty. “Anyway, much as I’d like to flatter meself, I’m guessin’ this int a social call?”

“Right!” I segued into the task at hand. “There’s a curse I need help with—or, rather, an anti-curse—and I thought I’d pick your brain about it. Have you got time?”

Ariana waved a singed hand at me. “Barrels of it. I were just porin’ over a few new defensive hexes when ye knocked, so I could do with a change of pace. I’ve been hittin’ dead ends like no one’s business. Maybe thinkin’ about somethin’ else’ll get the creative juices flowin’ again.” She turned and beckoned us to follow. Genie strode in first with a prominent scowl on her face, and I brought up the rear.

Once you got past the potent smell of acridity and nostril-burning spiciness, the lab was a place of historic beauty. Built underground to lessen the impact of any explosions that might take place, the room had low, vaulted ceilings and stone walls that were draped in elaborate tapestries depicting everything from ancient magical battles to Roman and Grecian gods and goddesses, plus a few monsters thrown in for good measure. Iron sconces with flickering torches clung to the walls between the tapestries, which probably went against fire regulations, but they illuminated the lab in a clandestine glow. There were electric lights, too, but Ariana liked to add atmosphere to her domain, and she claimed that it was easier to see the colors of flames, curses, and hexes when the lights weren’t too bright. A very important factor in hexwork.

We crossed the lab to Ariana’s personal workbench at the far side of the room: a hulking block of wood, scorched in places, with a slab of gray marble laid across the top. There, she perched on the stool behind the workbench and gestured for us to do the same on the opposite side.

“Sit your arses down. There’s no standin’ on ceremony ‘ere.” She sipped from a mug as she waited for us to take our seats. “Can I get ye aught before we start?”

“No, thank you,” I replied.

Genie smiled a little too sweetly. “I’m good.”

“So, what’s this curse, then?” Ariana wasted no time getting down to business. She was blunt to a fault; it was a characteristic that people either loved or hated, and I sensed Genie might not be the biggest fan. “T’aint ofen that the great O’Hara has summin’ so interestin’ for me to lay me peepers on. If it int monsters, it’s not worth talkin’ about. Int that right, love?”

I chuckled nervously. “This is sort of monster related, but I think it’ll be right up your street.” I fumbled with the copied version of Victoria’s curse, deciding against showing it to her outright in case it was too obvious that I’d gotten it through underhanded means. “Have you ever heard of a curse that takes the abilities of a monster and… combines them with a human, blending the two entities? I should clarify—it’s not two entities existing in the same body; it’s the abilities of the monster melding with human anatomy, which then allows the human host, so to speak, to phase into that monster, usually at times of heightened emotion.”

“Ah, ye mean an Anghenfil Curse. Nasty stuff.” Ariana slurped her tea more vigorously, thinking. “I’ll be honest wi’ya, there hant been a recorded curse of that sort in centuries. The Primus lot used to use ‘em for revenge and stuff, when witch hunters came botherin’ magicals in their villages and that kinda thing. I’ve not seen one in a modern book, mind. I only know about ‘em ‘cause I like to read the dusty tomes.” She winked, making Genie grip the edge of her stool until her knuckles whitened. “Even then, ye wouldn’t find a book about ‘em anywhere ‘ere. I read about ‘em when I were a guest speaker at the Cardiff Coven.”

Well, that would explain the gap in my knowledge. My Welsh was extraordinarily rusty, but I knew that “anghenfil” translated to “monster.” Welsh was the first language of magic, so it made sense that such an old spell would be found solely in their archives. Upon this discovery, I wondered if I had been na?ve in assuming that Victoria was involved. If such curses were readily available, as long as one knew where to look, then perhaps her similar curse was mere coincidence. Or maybe I just wanted to believe that.

“It’s funny you should say that, because I was searching through some very old papers that came through from Swansea. I asked for some archival material for a research paper on Welsh monsters, and there was a curse like that in one of the files they sent me. I think it must’ve accidentally found its way in there,” I lied, the words tripping smoothly off my tongue. “But it wasn’t called an Anghenfil Curse. It was called a Fear Dearg Curse. Does that ring any bells?”

Ariana shrugged. “It sounds Gaelic. It’s probably a variation from some magical in Ireland. Magical folks, back then, were always takin’ the raw materials of a curse and adding their own flavor to it. It’s like storytellin’, I suppose—ye know, embellishments and that kinda thing get added each time a tale is told. It were the same with curses, back in the day.”

“Do you think it would be easy to find an anti-curse for a spell like that?” I tested the waters, knowing she would bite.

She grinned. “I’d not be so cocky as to say it’d be easy, but I love me a challenge.”

“I translated the pages as best I could.” I’d finally reached a good moment to show her the curse I’d copied, now that I had a solid excuse. “Do you think you’d be able to make a cure for this variation?” I slid the paper over the workbench toward her. She lifted it closer to her face, squinting as her eyes darted left to right, absorbing the words and ingredients.

“Depends,” she said, after a lengthy pause.

I tried not to show my disappointment. “On what?”

“What yer want a cure for?” She gave me a knowing look, which suggested I didn’t have her entirely fooled. “Has someone gone in a bit over their head?” Her eyes glanced at Genie for a moment.

“I haven’t!” Genie protested.

Ariana laughed. “Hey, I dint mean no offense by it. I’ve just never seen ye here before. I know who ye are, of course, and I know ye’ve got power comin’ out yer arse—big fan, by the way—so I wondered if ye’d taken it a curse too far, if ye catch me drift, and ye were tryin’ to fix things before they got out of hand.”

“Oh…” Genie fidgeted, like she was about to bite the bullet and admit that was the case, to give us a valid excuse for not getting Victoria involved. However, I knew the rules of being a scholar, even if I wasn’t one. If Ariana thought there was a potential danger, it was her duty to report it to Victoria. That meant we had to come up with another excuse, and fast.

“Genie is just helping me out, as my assistant. She’s shadowing me, and I’m sure there are a thousand things she’d rather be doing on a Saturday, but I encouraged her to come along and meet you,” I confessed, sounding so genuine that I almost tricked myself into believing it. “As you well know, the scholar of hexes and potions is a student’s best friend, especially if they want a few bespoke hexbags and potions to give them an edge in hunting.”

The suspicious expression on Ariana’s face softened to a wry smile. “Ah, don’t ye be flatterin’ me, Nathan O’Hara, ye old dog.” She leaned across the workbench toward Genie. “But he’s right. I am a student’s best friend, and I don’t mind brewin’ up somethin’ special for students who’ve got bags of promise. So, don’t be forgettin’ that when ye get into ye second year, aye? I’ll be wantin’ to chat to ye for hours, since I bet ye know of hexes and spells that I han’t even dreamed of!”

Genie shifted awkwardly on her stool. “I don’t mind sharing a few bits and pieces.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Ariana made a fist of triumph. I had neglected to consider how useful Genie’s position might be in terms of bargaining. After all, Ariana would have given the entire contents of her potion cupboard for a sliver of information about Atlantean hexwork. It was a well-known, and somewhat irksome, fact that Atlantis continued to conceal most of its magical knowledge from the surface world. I myself would have given up all of my bourbon biscuits, and maybe my hobnobs, for a chance to study the creatures in the Atlantis Bestiary, but there was a complete embargo on outsiders entering such places. Surface magicals could visit Atlantis after a rigorous application process, but they were escorted at all times and could only see what Atlantis wanted them to see. Most of its deepest, darkest magical secrets remained exactly that… secret.

“Anyway, that isn’t why we want an anti-curse.” I brought the conversation back around. “I was hoping to surprise Victoria with both the curse and the anti-curse for her birthday and write it up in elegant calligraphy, maybe with some posh bindings. You know how she adores and collects ancient spells. Now that you’ve told me the Primus Anglicus were particularly fond of these Anghenfil Curses, I have to make this her present. Primus Anglicus spells are her favorite kind.” I’d garnered most of these tidbits from the loose tongues of drunken scholars, but I knew how to make them sound like personal knowledge. It was all in the eagerness with which the words were spoken, like an excited child on Christmas morning. Plus, it stood to reason that Ariana would know this to be true, since she was the one who’d told me about Victoria’s love for all things Primus Anglicus after one too many Guinnesses at The Sail and Anchor.

“Ah, O’Hara, yer barkin’ up the wrong tree there.” Ariana clutched her stomach as she belly-laughed. “I know ye’ve not had much luck with the lasses over the years, but don’t tell me ye’ve gone and got a fancy for Ms. Jules? She’d eat ye alive!”

A chemical explosion would be good right about now… I glanced at Genie out of the corner of my eye and felt my heart sink at the sight of her thousand-yard stare. She probably thought I’d tried my luck with every woman in a ten-mile radius, but that could not have been further from the truth. In my six years at the Institute, I had barely flirted with women—and the sparse few that I had flirted with had turned me down flat or gotten bored swiftly because I’d prattled on about my monsters instead of listening to them. Genie was the first person I’d met who made me forget the monsters and think only of her.

I shook my head. “It’s nothing like that. I just wanted to find something unique for her birthday, as a way of thanking her for letting me order new things for the Repository to make the monsters more comfortable.” I stared down into my lap. “Besides, my ‘fancy’ is… elsewhere.”

Ariana’s eyes widened slightly as she looked at Genie with new understanding. “Ah… I see it now.” She reached over and gave me a playful nudge. “I pity the poor lass, and ye’d better treat her right, O’Hara, else ye’ll have me to deal with. If I hear ye’ve bored her to death, I’ll have to mix ye a love potion that’ll stick.” I was grateful that she hadn’t explicitly named Genie as the object of my affections, but I was far more grateful for the sweet, secret smile on Genie’s face as she glanced back at me.

“Do you think you can do it?” I struggled to focus with Genie looking at me like that, but I was aware of time ticking by.

Ariana snorted. “A love potion? Aye, no bother.”

“The anti-curse,” I replied, with an obligatory eye roll.

She looked over the pages once more. “Like I said, I’m a sucker for a challenge, and I know Victoria would go crackers for this as a surprise birthday present. Let me see what I can rustle up. There’s tea and coffee over there if ye get thirsty—this might take a while. But I’m guessin’ neither of ye’ve got anywhere else to be, since yer already together.” She grinned mischievously as she slid off her stool and walked to the floor-to-ceiling cupboards on the far right of the room, where she began ransacking the shelves for ingredients.

I stole a look at Genie and thought about taking hold of her hand. But she had already turned away to watch Ariana work, leaving me gazing at the elaborate design of the silver barrette at the back of her head.

* * *

An hour later, I clamped a hand over my mouth as a plume of lurid green smoke puffed out Ariana’s latest trial and error experiment. It seemed we were finally getting somewhere. Genie and I had gone through two cups of tea apiece, an entire packet of custard creams, and several packs of Ready Salted crisps—or chips, as Genie called them. All the while, we’d watched Ariana toil away at her anti-curse creation. Countless bottles of liquid littered the workbench, and there were pouches of herbs and plants and powders scattered everywhere. Precious metals and rarer items were stored in little metal boxes, and Ariana used delicate scoops as she tested different quantities, trying to get the cure right. She was mesmerizing to watch, working like a Michelin-starred chef, adding drops of this, pinches of that, and sprinkles of something else into the row of beakers lined up before her.

“Well… that’s the right smell, but it int the right color.” Ariana lifted her safety goggles for a moment—an accessory which she had neglected to provide for us—and mopped her brow with the back of her sleeve. “From what I can tell—and this is a lot of guesswork—the smoke should be red, not green. I think I put in too much wolfsbane—aye, that’ll be it. It wants more belladonna.” Sliding her goggles back on, she started afresh with a clean beaker, going back through the motions that had resulted in the green smoke.

I dusted some biscuit crumbs off my lips. “Can I ask you something?”

Ariana peered at me through the magnified lenses of her goggles. “Aye.”

“Have you ever heard of any of these Anghenfil Curses being contagious?” I’d been waiting for the right moment to bring up that part of the Fear Dearg curse. Now seemed like a prudent time, with her attention mostly fixed on the ingredients. I hoped she wouldn’t dig any deeper into my question.

She frowned. “Chaos, no. The Primus Anglicus liked to tinker with their revenge curses on non-magicals, but they weren’t sadists. They only bit if they got bit first, if ye know what I mean?” A soft chuckle fogged up the lenses, obscuring her eyes with condensation. “Mess-ups can happen, though.”

“What do you mean?” Genie entered the conversation, her eyes squinting with curiosity.

“Well, if they put this ‘ere curse on the wrong person or summat,” Ariana replied, adding a few drops of what looked like liquid gold into the beaker. “These curses are intended for non-magicals. That’s how they were designed, and this one int any different. If it accidentally got cast on a magical, say—full, half, any kind—there’d be no way of knowin’ what the effects would be. It’d go haywire, I’d guess. I definitely wouldn’t want to be anywhere near if that happened. Why’d you ask?”

I wonder… Perhaps that was exactly what had occurred, and it had made the curse on Reid contagious, turning others into Fear Deargs as well. Although, that would have meant that Reid was, in some way, magical. That didn’t seem particularly likely, considering the group he belonged to. I firmly believed, regardless of what Victoria had said, that Veritas and the witch hunters were the same. But there was no way Reid would be allowed into their gang if he was even remotely magical.

And yet it was the only logical explanation that I’d heard thus far as to why the curse was infectious. Could it be?

I put on an expression of nonchalance. “No reason. I’m just hypothesizing, since you said that the Primus Anglicus used it for revenge. I wondered if they’d ever tried to spread the net of revenge wider by killing lots of birds with one stone.”

“Nah, I see where yer mind was going with that, but there’s no reason and no precedent for it turning contagious if it was cast on a non-magical,” Ariana reiterated. “The Primus lot were powerful, but they weren’t daft. Turnin’ a whole village into monsters would only bring more enemies and alert more folks to somethin’ fishy goin’ on. They’d have kept it targeted on whoever had pissed them off and let said village believe that the person in question had been touched by the devil or summat.”

So… something went wrong. It was becoming clearer by the moment that the spread of Reid’s curse was an unfortunate side effect, and it suggested there was more to him than met the eye. Perhaps the person who had cursed him didn’t know he had any magic in him. Perhaps Reid himself didn’t even know. It wasn’t always obvious in a person, especially if they were born Mediocre. Either way, as long as Ariana could come up with a cure, we would have a way to fix all of this. We could delve deeper into Reid’s Chaos-potential later, once the spread of the contagion had been stopped.

Ariana scooped up a tablespoon of belladonna and dropped it into the freshly made mix of ingredients, which had settled into a faint orangey color. The moment the belladonna hit, the liquid began to bubble violently, unleashing a red smoke which spilled out over the edges of the beaker and wafted across the workbench. The moment I saw that smoke, I knew she’d found the cure. It looked exactly like the red mist that had enveloped the Fear Dearg.

“That’s the badger!” Ariana whooped. “Smells right, looks right. I’d say it tastes right, but ye wouldn’t want to drink it.” With a spring in her step, she opened up a drawer in her workbench and took out a small bronze ball. Deftly, she twisted a tiny circular panel in the ball to reveal a hole. Lifting up the beaker, she poured the contents into the bronze ball, then twisted the panel back into place. She shook it a few times to make sure nothing leaked before holding it forth proudly. “One anti-curse hex ball to add to yer surprise birthday present. Though ye had best give me credit for this.”

I held out my hand and she placed the ball gently on my palm. It felt almost painfully hot. “I will, I promise.” I had used enough hex balls in my time to know how this one worked. In essence, it was more of a potion ball than a hex ball. When grabbed tightly in the hand, which I took care not to do, a needle inside the ball would be triggered, injecting the liquid into the desired target.

“It didn’t say in that curse ye found, but it’s important to know, so ye should probably add it when ye write everythin’ out—if this were bein’ used in a real situation, ye would have to give the anti-curse only to the one who got cursed. Sounds obvious, but some folks need it spellin’ out. I’m sure Victoria int one of those, though it pays to have all bases covered.” Ariana took off her goggles and started cleaning up the materials she’d used. “Now that I’ve put in all that effort, I’m tempted to use one of them curses on someone just so I can find out if it works. I won’t, but I’m tempted.” She grinned, gathering up an armful of bottles.

I smiled. “Victoria is going to love it. Thank you so much for going the extra mile.”

“I just wanted to see if I could,” she replied, seemingly content. “But I mean it—I best get some credit when ye hand the gift over.”

“Cross my heart.” I wished I could keep that promise, but obviously we had other intentions for this hex ball. “Do you need any help tidying up?”

Ariana snorted. “Nah, I’ve got everythin’ under control. The two of ye should go and enjoy some sunshine before the weather turns chilly.” She glanced at Genie. “But remember, come next year, I want to have a word wi’ya about Atlantean hexes and potions.”

“No problem,” Genie replied, already halfway off her stool. I guessed she was eager to get to Persie and tell her the good news.

“Thank you again.” I tapped my mug. “And thanks for the snacks.”

“Ye owe me a fresh pack of biscuits! Good ones, not the cheap crap.” Ariana cackled to herself as she loaded the provisions back into their respective cupboards.

I pocketed the hex ball. “Will do. Only the best for you.”

With that, Genie and I exited the lab, each of us gulping down a lungful of the fresh air in the corridor outside. I hadn’t realized just how stuffy it was in the lab and wondered if all of that chemical-tinged smoke could be good for Ariana. I didn’t have too much time to contemplate it, however, as Genie set off toward the residential annexes, where Persie would be waiting.

I fell into step with her and handed her the hex ball, so she could pass it on to Persie. She looked sideways at me with a strange, bemused expression. “You really are a cabbage, aren’t you?”

“Pardon?” I wasn’t sure if I needed to feel insulted.

“Hidden layers,” she reminded me with a smile. “You’ve got this innocent, shy, toeing-the-line vibe going on, but you’ve just played two of the most important people in the Institute. And you didn’t even break a sweat. Hell, I believed everything you said even though I knew you were lying. I’m thinking I need to get you an Oscar or something. Or, maybe I need to be more on my guard.”

I gaped at her. “No… you never need to be on your guard with me. Never. You already know the only lie I’ve ever told you, and you know why I told it. I wouldn’t ever try to fool you or manipulate you like I’ve just done with Ariana and Victoria.” I didn’t know if she was toying with me, but the possibility that she wasn’t made my heart hurt. “With you, I’m sincere and honest. It would kill me to ever find myself lying to you.”

“Are you sincere? About me?” Her voice softened, her gaze probing mine.

“I am.” I swallowed my fear, riding the bravery wave that I’d been on since going to Victoria’s office. “And that’s why I want to ask you out on a date. A proper one, once we’ve dealt with Reid.”

Genie’s mouth fell open in shock. “What?”

“I want to invite you on a date, with me, after all of this is over,” I repeated.

Her lips curved into the most glorious grin. “There you go, getting more cabbage-y by the minute.”

“Is that a potential yes?” I asked, a bit too hopefully.

“It’s not a potential yes,” she replied, touching my arm for a fleeting moment. “It’s a hell yes.”

And with that, my heart, much like Ariana’s potions, exploded.