Page 20 of With the Potion in the Courtyard

"Comes with being a mom, you learn a thing or two about distractions." I winked at him, and we both laughed quietly, continuing our slow-motion cleanup operation.

True to form, our classmates showed no interest in lending a hand. They continued their way, noses buried in their spell books or chatting idly about their plans for the afternoon. It was like we were invisible, but today, invisibility was our ally.

"Hey, watch it," Jessie said as a student nearly stepped on her hand. She pulled back just in time, clutching a tube of lip gloss like it was a precious gem.

"Sorry," the student said, not even pausing in her stride. Typical.

We didn't have long to stew in the slight, though. Ms. Ingow burst out of the potion's classroom, her long blonde hair trailing behind her like a comet's tail. Her attention was fixed on her watch, and she was muttering something about an appointment.

"Perfect timing," I whispered to Robbie.

"Got it." My heart raced as the last of the students filtered out, leaving the hallway eerily quiet, save for the distant echo of footsteps and the occasional creak of ancient stone. I gathered the remaining items, stuffing them haphazardly back into my purse.

"Ready?" Robbie stood and offeredme a hand.

"Ready as I'll ever be." I took his hand, and together with Jessie we walked to the door of the potion's classroom.

"Here goes nothing," I said as Robbie pushed the door open. The room was empty, the air still tinged with the scent of simmering herbs and the faintest hint of sulfur from some experiment gone awry.

"Quickly now," Robbie said, and we stepped inside, our eyes scanning the room for any sign of the potion recipe we so desperately needed.

I nodded toward Ms. Ingow's abandoned desk. We crept over, Robbie keeping watch at the door while Jessie and I rifled through the desk. "Here are the glass pieces," I said. I rifled through the folder underneath it. "Found something." My fingers closed around a sheet of paper filled with a list of ingredients. "But it's just...ingredients."

"Let me see." Jessie leaned over my shoulder, squinting at the paper in my hand. "Dragon's breath, phoenix tears, moonflower petals... This is all she wrote down?"

"Apparently." Frustration nipped at me. "No potion name, no instructions, nothing."

"Great." Jessie's sarcasm was as thick as the dust on some of these shelves. "How are we supposed to find anything without a name?"

"Take a picture of the list." Robbie said, peeking over my other shoulder. "We'll have to cross-reference it with every potion book we can find."

"Ugh," Jessie groaned as I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of the ingredients list. "You'd think after all this time, someone would've digitized the godmother archives."

"Right?" I tucked my phone safely back into my pocket. "A search engine would make this so much easier."

"Guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way." Robbie stepped back from the door. "Library, here we come."

I stuffed the paper back into its place, and we left the room, ready to dig through dusty tomes for answers that should've been just a click away.

CHAPTER NINE

We were in the library,surrounded by books that smelled of dust and magic. Robbie, Jessie, and I spread out across a large table, potion books stacked like miniature skyscrapers around us. But even with all this information laid out before us, we were having trouble finding exactly what we were looking for. It was like this potion was our needle in a haystack.

"Okay, so dragon's breath is listed in 'Potions for the Powerful,' but no mention of mirror shards." Robbie flipped through pages with furrowed brows.

"Mirror shards aren't usually in potions. They're more for scrying or… Oh." Jessie paused, her eyeswidening. "What if?—"

"Ahhh!" I gave a tiny scream and flopped down on top of my book.

"That bad?" Robbie asked, his face appearing in front of me with a wide grin.

"This is impossible." I sat up, stretching. The audible popping of my spine echoed around us, and they both gave me a look. "What? I’m not as young as I used to be, and these wooden chairs are just awful."

Jessie shifted on her seat. "My butt keeps going between being asleep and hurting."

"It’s my legs that are achy." Robbie added. "I’m not used to sitting this long in this uncomfortable of a position any longer."

"Man, we sound old," I said, followed by laughter.