by Sam Cheever
“You need to separate aura or life force from the physical shell. A body might wither over time, but an aura thickens. Aura represents life and the richness of existence. We think of older people as having less youth and more age. But the reality is that their auras have collected more life than the auras of young people have. A baby’s aura is thin and weak. A ninety-year-old’s aura is dense and strong. If I was looking to add more life, or youth, I’d look at taking from an older person rather than a young one.”
When we all continued to stare at her, speechless, she threw up her hands. “It’s a simple math problem. It would take a dozen young people to create the same amount of life energy as one old person.”
“Brilliant,” Madeline murmured. “You’re right, Princess. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Lea became agitated. Her gaze shot to Madeline’s. “If we’re looking for life force…”
“We can easily test for that,” Madeline said, nodding.
“A simple Graves and Blench stain…”
“Yes,” Madeline agreed. “And we can diversify the sample looking for sulfuric properties.”
Lea stood. “I assume you have a lab?”
Madeline flicked her fingers toward the container on the ground. It flew up to encompass the sample again, the lid snapping on a beat later. She grabbed the container, motioning to Lea to follow. “Rustin, you may come with Mistress Witch Lea. The rest of you stay here.”
I watched them disappear through a door that had popped open in the paneling and turned to Sebille. “What just happened?”
My assistant rolled her eyes.
See what I mean?
“Thanks to me, they’re much closer to finding out who’s got the artifact.”
“Humble much?” I muttered, earning myself a glare from the freckled aura expert with pointy ears.
“Don’t be a jealous derf,” Sebille said snottily. “I can’t help it I’m good at thinking outside the box.”
I snorted. That was a gargantuan understatement. Sebille’s picture was probably in Shirley’s Witch-a-Pedia next to the phrase, “outside the box”.
The sound of wings beat the air, coming down the hall. I braced myself as Madeline’s arrogant familiar, Rasputin glided through the door and landed lightly on the back of the chair Madeline had vacated. He peered down his beak at me, his beady silver gaze filled with derision.
“Where have you been, Ras?” I asked, deliberately using Madeline’s pet name for him just to annoy.
He was much too easy. His feathers immediately ruffled, and he danced from foot to foot as he rolled them flat again. “I was tending to business, Keeper. Besides I didn’t want to witness your humiliation,” he intoned snottily. “Are you comfy here in the playroom while the adults are busy saving the world in the other room?”
Sebille lifted her hand, sparkly green energy drifting from her fingertips. “I have an idea, raven. How about I press you into my scrapbook and preserve you as a dry husk of a distant, unpleasant memory?”
He sniffed. “I’d like to see you try, bug.”
Sebille shot to her feet, energy-consuming her slender form. She was a tadpole hair away from going full Sprite on the bird. And despite the difference in size that definitely favored the bird, my money was on my assistant.
Nobody did malicious like a Sprite.
“Sebille!”
“Hey,” a high-pitched, friendly voice said from the door.
Sebille’s gaze jerked toward Maude as the smiling teen came through the door, cuddling Mr. Slimy against her belly. “How’s it going in here? Can I get you something to eat? We have cookies. I made them myself.”
Sebille let her magic bleed away, but she threw the snotty bird a warning glance as I stood. “Cookies sound great. Sebille and I will help. She makes a mean cup of tea.”
I was pretty sure the smile on Maude’s face was a tiny bit smug as we fell in behind her and headed for the kitchen.
She’d played that one like a pro.
The kitchen was archaic and modern at the same time. Massive stainless-steel appliances anchored the extensive cabinetry in the room, and crisp white curtains fluttered at the windows. The space was massive, big enough to have served a hundred people on a daily basis if the castle had ever been used like a fortress, as I suspected it once had.
The floor consisted of rough, dark stone, cut in massive rectangles. The walls were painted white. There were more of the strange rugs covered in rune symbols that I’d noticed in other parts of the house. They softened the stone in the usual spots, such as in front of the sink and underneath a long, granite table with eight chairs.
The cabinets were crafted of dark wood, with pebbled glass inserts in the doors, and there was a massive concrete farm sink beneath a large window overlooking the grassy back yard.
Just the fact that Madeline Quilleran had a back yard in the middle of the Enchanted Forest proved how powerful she was. Especially since the whole thing moved around on a regular basis, to keep her location secret.
I dropped into a chair at the oversized table, scanning a look down its length, past a candelabra that had probably been made during the thirteenth century, and to the wide bay window that wrapped around the opposite end. “How have you been, Maude. Are you happy here?”
“It’s okay. There’s lots to do and Aunt Maddie’s tons of fun.” The teen placed Mr. Slimy on the floor and went over to the massive sink to wash her hands.
Sebille snorted softly. “Tons of fun, huh?”
Maud tugged the lid off a frog-shaped cookie jar and pulled several oversized cookies from its wide depths. “I know she seems dire to you guys. But she’s totally different with me.”
“How are your experiments with Rustin’s…problem coming?” I asked.
She shrugged. “We’ve isolated something in the frog that’s interesting. I’m not sure what it means yet, but I’m encouraged.”
I hadn’t been expecting that. “Something in Slimy? What do you mean?”
Maude pointed to a cannister on the counter. “Tea stuff is in there.”
Sebille opened the cannister and started pulling out tiny lidded pots, opening them and sniffing each with a grin. Apparently, the Sprite approved of the leaves the Quillerans had available. She liked to mix her own special blends from the loose tea. I could honestly say I’d never tasted a mix from Sebille that I didn’t love.
Maude carried the plate of cookies over and put it in front of me, laying a pile of napkins next to it. “Slimy…” she grinned as if she thought the name was funny. She probably thought I’d named him that as a joke. I hadn’t, of course. I named him Slimy because I thought frogs were slimy and nasty. Though, as I’d gotten used to having the little guy around, that had changed some. “He’s benefiting from Rustin’s presence in ways we hadn’t expected.”
I felt my eyes go round. “Benefitted?” I was flummoxed. “I hadn’t expected him to be affected at all.” Even as I said the words, I realized how stupid they were. Of course, he’d have been changed after being subjected to a dark magic spell that basically inserted a powerful witch into him. “Benefitted how?”
She pulled a napkin over and placed a cookie onto it, picking at the edges as she thought about my question. “Well, we expected him to become more intelligent from the connection. What we didn’t expect was the change in his longevity.”
Sebille placed tea in front of Maude and me. “He’s going to have a longer life span?” She asked.
Maude nodded. “We’re guessing he might live a normal human lifespan. Maybe even longer. He could live a few hundred years like a witch. We’re just not sure yet.”
I gulped, trying to swallow the sudden knot in my throat. I’d figured I’d have to babysit the squishy green thing for a few months, maybe a couple of years. But centuries? “Yikes,” I murmured. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Granted, I didn’t wish death on the little guy. And when I thought about losing him, I did get an unexpected tightness in my chest. But cen
turies?
Maude nodded as Sebille dropped into a chair next to her with another cup of tea. “Amazing, huh?”
“More amazing than Sebille’s eye-rolling muscles,” I murmured, setting off said muscles in response.
Maude chewed for a moment, watching the frog hop around the kitchen.
“If he’s smart…er…” I said. “Is there any chance I can potty train him? I’m tired of getting peed on.”
Maude snickered. “I suppose so. But only if he wants to do it. You can’t force him to pee on command. It has to be his idea.”
Of course it did. Something told me I was doomed to centuries of getting peed on by the frog.
“Besides,” Sebille added helpfully, “You’d have to teach him to sing the Muffin Man song.” She snickered.
I thought about this for a moment. “Can he sing?” I asked Maude.
I expected her to giggle, but she didn’t. She shook her head, swallowing a bite of cookie. “I don’t think so. But it is pretty cool that he’s talking now.”
11
Infested!
Hold the galloping seahorses. “Wait, what?” I stuttered out. “Talking? No. He’s not…”
Maude fixed me with a look. “Don’t tell me you haven’t spoken to him?”
My lips flapped a few times, but no words dared fall through them. I glanced at Sebille and she shrugged, her focus on the huge chocolate chip cookie she was nibbling.
I saw no option other than to admit it. “No. I haven’t talked to the frog. What did he say?”
Maude turned to the fat green form sitting on the chair next to her.
When had that happened? The last time I’d noticed him he’d been hopping around on the floor.
“Lots of stuff. Mostly that he hates his new house and that he wishes you’d quit letting the artifacts run rampant at Croakies.” She flushed slightly, seeming to realize how that sounded. “I think he was just letting off a little steam.”
She lifted her cup and sipped, hiding behind the pretty china as I glared over at the frog. “That fish tank cost me fifty dollars,” I told the frog. “I thought you’d like it. You can see the whole place, the cool breezes coming through the door can’t get to you, and I don’t have to worry about somebody stepping on you by accident.”
The frog looked back at me, throat swelling and deflating, gaze blank.
Maude turned to look at him. She snickered. “I know, right?”
I glowered at the little green traitor. “What’s he saying about me?”
Maude cleared her throat, giving me a pitying look. “You can’t hear him?”
“No.” Heat filled my face. My own frog didn’t want to talk to me. But he’d talk to a virtual stranger. I fought a sudden urge to remind him that Maude’s family was responsible for dragging him from his peaceful pond and saddling him with a snarky ghost witch. “What kind of house would he like then?”
Maude looked at Mr. Slimy. He looked at me. Sebille snorted cookie out of her nose and hurried to clean it up with one of the paper napkins.
I turned my glower on her. “Don’t tell me you can understand him too?”
“Of course. I can’t believe you haven’t heard him haranguing to be fed and stuff.”
My eyes went wide. “That was him? I thought it was Rustin.”
Maude and Sebille shared a look. “He does sound a little bit like Rustin,” Maude said. Sebille nodded in agreement. “Must be a side effect of the bonding magic.”
“Why won’t he talk to me?” I asked, my feelings hurt.
“Because you don’t want to hear him,” Sebille said in her usual, cold, succinct way. “When you want to hear what he has to say, you will.”
But I’d heard him before and I hadn’t wanted to. Though, I’d thought it was Rustin. I stared at the frog and bit back the apology I wanted to give him. I’d tried to help him. I’d kept him safe, fed him, unplugged him from the sink when he’d fallen into the drain trying to catch a fly. I’d done everything I could to help. And all I got for my efforts was frog flak.
Dang ungrateful frog.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. We all turned to see Lea bouncing into the room, smiling. She was followed by a stern-faced Rustin.
“We think we’ve had a breakthrough,” Lea told me. She dropped into a seat at the table and grabbed a cookie. “That lab is pure ice.”
In my current grumpy state, I almost asked her if it was cubed or crushed, but I pressed my lips together. It wasn’t her fault my frog was an ingrate. “You know who magicked the youth cream?” I asked.
“Not who, exactly,” Lea said, moaning as she tasted the cookie and giving Maude a thumbs up. “But what.”
“Goblins,” Rustin said with a grimace. “Nasty creatures.”
I forgot to be mad at Slimy for a moment, excitement filling me. “Like the ones running the cosmetics company Queen Sindra mentioned?”
Lea nodded, patting Sebille’s hand as if congratulating her for her mother’s foresight.
Sebille rolled her eyes.
I glanced toward the door as Madeline stepped into the kitchen. Her long, black skirt swished against her ankles but her soft shoes were silent on the stone. Rasputin rode her shoulder, his unfriendly silver gaze locked on Sebille.
Something told me he wouldn’t soon forget their little altercation. I knew the Sprite wouldn’t either. She didn’t take it well when someone called her a bug. Especially when that someone ate bugs on a regular basis.
I caught Madeline’s gaze. “I hear you found our culprit?”
She shook her head. “No. There’s definitely goblin magic in the sample.” She frowned down at the plastic container. “But there’s something else there, a residue of something ancient.”
“Ancient like what?”
Her head snapped up. “I’ve seen this signature before. It has elements of youth magic Hebe once used.”
“The goddess of youth?” Sebille asked. She shook her head. “Why would Hebe make a cream that kills older women?”
“She wouldn’t,” Madeline said, her gaze falling to mine. “But someone who’d stolen Hebe’s essence might do it.”
“Is that possible?” I asked.
“What do you think powered the fountain of youth?” Rasputin asked, snottily.
I felt my eyes go wide. “Could this be tied to the fountain?”
Madeline shrugged. “Impossible to say. But I’m guessing not. This feels like…” She frowned.
“Like what?” I finally asked when she fell into her thoughts.
“Like a trial run. I have nothing at all to back up that feeling,” she hurried to add. “But my experience as a PTB tells me this isn’t as straight-forward as we’d assumed.”
“Speaking of that,” I said. “I haven’t gotten an order for this artifact, whatever it is. Do you think the system has failed again?”
She frowned. “I don’t want to think that.”
Neither did I. We’d all hoped the missing order for the coin artifact had been a one-off. A fluke. But there was apparently a poisonous, anti-aging artifact somewhere in Enchanted, and I hadn’t been sent an order to deal with it. Something was very wrong.
Madeline lifted the container. “Mind if I keep this for a bit? There are a couple more tests I’d like to run on it.”
How could I say no when she was being so civil? Everybody in the room knew she could just take the sample. I wouldn’t be able to stop her. “Sure. You’ll let me know if you figure something out?”
“Of course.” She glanced toward the fat frog sitting at the table, her brows lowering. I thought she was going to yell at me for letting my frog sit at her table. Instead, she nodded, her yellow gaze sliding to me. “Your frog is hungry.”
With that bombshell, she turned away and headed, presumably, back to her lab.
“He talked to her too?” Even to me, I sounded pathetic.
When Sebille patted me on the shoulder, I knew I’d fallen to the depths of wretchedness.
But I ha
d a good excuse for my pitiable state. My frog liked everybody but me.
We returned to Croakies rather than go to see the goblins right away. I needed to do some research before I blundered into their lair. Make sure I knew what I was up against. Plus, I had to lick my wounds over Slimy. It wasn’t every day one got dissed by one’s frog.
It might take me a minute to learn how I felt about it.
I disengaged the locks and pushed the door open as Rustin and Sebille bickered behind me. It seemed the ghost witch hadn’t appreciated having to sit in the back seat on the trip back from the forest. He’d called shotgun just a little too slow. Sebille was an old pro at the whole shotgun thing. He’d have to up his game to beat her.
“I don’t know why you’re giving me grief,” Sebille told him unkindly. “You’re not even a whole person. You could have floated outside the car if you’d wanted to. Your tether to the frog is extra-long now.”
“I am too a whole person, Sprite. I’m just a little…” He seemed to be struggling for the right word.
I grinned. “Wispy?”
Sebille’s snort followed me as I pushed the door open. I jolted to a stop on the threshold, getting a backside full of Sprite and ghost witch from my unexpected stop.
“Ugh!” Sebille said, taking a breath to let me have it. The words never came. I felt her breath gush out as she took in the sight that had stopped me in my tracks.
“Holy dragonfly pimples,” I muttered, my stomach twisting. “Sebille?”
“I swear I put it away.”
Rustin snickered. “Bibbity Bobbity Boo!”
Bubbles floated through the air. Hordes of them. All iridescent and shiny and smelling of lavender soap. As I stood there looking around in horror, a particularly friendly bubble rose up from the soggy carpet and assailed my nose, happily popping to leave behind a cool, wet spot on my skin.
“Why?” I asked nobody in particular.
“It’s what it does,” Sebille answered unnecessarily.
I turned to fling a glare in her direction. “You left it out, didn’t you? Just admit it.”
