Page 10 of With the Potion in the Courtyard
"It’s about a bunch of glass pieces we found in the courtyard," Robbie said.
She narrowed her blue eyes. "Of course you two would start nosing around."
"Was it from one of your potion bottles?" Iignored her glare.
She let out a sigh that seemed to take all the remaining air out of the room. "Yes, it was from one of my bottles. And yes, I'm researching it." She waved a hand dismissively toward a cluttered corner of her desk where papers covered in scrawling letters were stacked beside a small bowl filled with more glass fragments.
"Is there any potion residue on them? Can you tell us anything about it?" Robbie said.
"Absolutely not," she snapped, her voice still betraying her with its helium-induced pitch. "This is not your responsibility. The hunters and the teachers do not require your help in figuring it out."
"Thanks anyway." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear in frustration as we turned to leave.
Robbie and I rushed to dinner to meet up with Jessie to tell her what little we’d learned. The dining hall buzzed with conversation and the clinking of cutlery, but our table was an island of conspiracy.
"We talked to Ms. Ingow," I whispered across the table, leaning in so only she and Robbie could hear. "She confirmed the glass was from her potion bottle, but she wouldn't give us more than that."
Jessie's eyebrows shot up in interest.
"I'll find out what it is, somehow," I said. My fork stabbed at the greens on my plate, though my appetite had waned with the mystery gnawing at me.
Robbie nodded in agreement. "We saw some notes on her desk. I think we should sneak back into the classroom in a couple of days. See if we can get a closer look."
Brilliant. "It’s time for some more sleuthing."
CHAPTER FIVE
I frownedat the shard of glass on the breakfast table, turning it over in my hands. The edges were sharp, but the mystery it held was even sharper. Jessie and Robbie came over, their plates full of the morning's offering.
"Morning."
"Morning," I greeted, turning the piece of glass over in my palm.
"What are you doing?" Jessie peered over my shoulder.
"Trying to figure out what spell is on it or what potion was in it," I said. "But since I have no experiencewith this kind of stuff, all I’m really doing is glaring and wishing I had some answers."
"It’s not a lot to go on." Robbie frowned as he took a bite of his eggs. "Owning a chain of hardware stores hardly prepared me for magical mysteries."
"Having a background as a dental receptionist is equally helpful," I told him dryly. Then, I turned to Jessie. "How many potions do you know that could blow something up?"
"Quite a few," she said. "But I think the key here is that Jaylyn disappeared. She didn’t explode herself, or we’d find… well, evidence of that."
I wince. "Yeah, there was definitely no evidence of that." Body parts would be hard to miss.
"The spell has to slice cleanly through the statues but just make her vanish, which is a lot more complicated. I don’t know a spell that could do that."
We all sat in silence for a few minutes, devouring eggs, French toast, and bacon. The whole meal would be enough to lift my spirits in any other situation. But right now, they just felt out-of-place given the problems surrounding us.
Outside the cafeteria doors, I spot the two hunters walking down the hall. My stomach tightens, and my appetite flees. What will happen if I get blamed for this too? What will the hunters do to me?
I don’t want to find out, so that means we need to figure this out. We need to turn this shard of glass into something more. A true clue.
"Wish we had someone who knew their way around bottles or magical trinkets," I say. "Because there’s surely got to be evidence on this glass, if we just had someone knowledgeable enough to look at it."
Jessie plopped her fork into her eggs. "You're not serious, are you?"
"Of course, I wish we magically had someone like that," I answered with a huff. "But Ms. Ingow is the only person specializing in any of this, and she’s not about to help us."