Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Cassie pedaled back home, bags hanging off both arms and crammed into the bike basket. Every one of them so full of ingredients she couldn't quite remember what she had—until she started unloading them on the kitchen table. And even then she didn't take much of an inventory. She couldn't, because seeing all the spices and herbs and vegetables and grains immediately set her brain on fire.

Like they had at the market. Like they had before she'd gone to the market.

Only it was so much stronger now. She barely had to think before she began yanking out pans and pots and setting all the burners going. High heat for some, less for others—and yet more, she knew, could go in her Gram's old microwave. Because as it turned out, things like cauldrons and campfires weren't necessary.

The right temperature and the right ingredients and the right sitting time were what mattered. Alongside a few other things, like stirring direction, and the temperament you had when making whatever it was. If you were too angry for a calming potion, it might spoil. Too calm for a rage inducer and you could get milk.

And if you balked in the middle of the process because your rational brain said it was wrong, well. She learned the hard way what that meant. She tried not to add vinegar to a very sweet-seeming recipe for restoring energy—something she sorely needed, considering she hadn't had much sleep for the past goodness knows how long—and the pot it was in didn't just pop. It groaned, and creaked. Then rumbled, ominously.

Before finally letting out such an almighty bang the whole house seemed to shudder. Plates rattled in the cupboards; something somewhere smashed. Cassandra, she was sure she heard her grandmother say in disapproval. Then all she could hear was a deep ringing, and all she could smell was burning, and everything was suddenly hidden by a huge plume of smoke.

And once she had wafted it away, there it was.

A great black mark on the wall behind the burner the potion had been on, and nothing else. Like she'd broken some covenant, and so winked the whole thing out of existence. And it was scary. Terrifying, in fact, to think of the forces she was meddling with.

But in a way that seemed different from most things in her experience. Usually when she messed something up, it felt as if all her own instincts were at fault. She was fundamentally a fuckup, somehow. She had made a mess. However, there was simply no way to believe that here. It wasn't the core of her that had gotten this wrong.

It was her rational, practical part.

The part that sounded like her parents.

You have to trust yourself, your true, clumsy, silly self, her brain whispered. And though her heart thumped too hard to hear it, she suspected it was right. All she had to do was listen, all she had to do was believe. She could be more, she knew she could.

Then she set about making money, with that in mind.

She used salt when sense told her to use sugar, warmed up things that she was sure would curdle, stopped stirring even as the stuff she had boiled started to catch. And when that was done, she sat, and she waited. Half of her sure it was going to work. Half of her sure it wasn't. All of her scared as she stood, and went back to the pot.

But there it was.

The liquid had boiled away, leaving ten weird coins at the bottom of the pan. Copper, she knew, without checking. And she knew a lot of other things too. Like the fact that this money was worth precisely one hundred dollars, to someone who looked like a man, but wasn't, living two towns over. And that this man would buy a kind of potent cleaner from her, too, if she could actually manage to make it.

Which she absolutely knew she could.

She was this person now.

She was a witch. And this witch could do anything.

Including make a better potion for Seth. Oh, she definitely knew how to make a better potion for Seth. The sense of it just shimmered through her, so brilliant now she didn't hesitate. She scribbled in her new notebook, until she had three full pages of notes. Then she stuck her pencil behind her ear, and started chopping, stirring, fermenting. She boiled, bubbled and baked. Crushed things up, and remade them. Got her hands dirty, made them clean again with other potions.

And got so lost in it, she didn't even hear someone come in.

She actually screamed the moment she turned and saw Seth standing there.

It was okay though—because he screamed too. He even put both hands over his mouth.

Though judging by the way his eyes were roaming all over everything, she suspected it wasn't just the sound she'd made that did it.

It was also the absolute state the kitchen was in.

Because now that she saw it through someone else's eyes, she could process that it looked like a bomb site. You had to actually wade through discarded containers and peelings and spills to get to anything. There were scorch marks on almost every surface and wall. A permanent fug hung in the air, like the room had developed its own weather system; she might have slightly turned one of the chairs into a giant toadstool without knowing exactly how she'd done it.

Oh, and the microwave was now almost certainly partly alive. Its timer no longer showed numbers, but words. Some of which might have been "feed" and "me." And then when you did feed it, the door would suddenly fly open, and disgorge an almighty belch.

So, you know. It felt like she should possibly try to explain, somehow.

"Okay, I get that the mess in here is a lot," she started. But before she could continue, she took in his expression. She grasped what he was staring at. And realized it wasn't just the kitchen he was startled and then flabbergasted by.

It was her . It was how she looked.

Because apparently she was a bomb site, too.

The blast that had winked the pot out of existence had blown half her hair straight upward. And it was exactly half, too, in a way that seemed impossible—but obviously wasn't in this brave new witchy world. No, in this world she carved a better part into her hair than any hairdresser had ever managed, just by exploding something.

Which was kind of cool, in a way.

But the soot, on the other hand? Well, that was definitely less so.

She picked up a pan that was still miraculously clean and looked at herself in its bottom, and saw that she had somehow managed to put a giant handprint across her face. It made her look like she had been mugged by a monstrous child.

And that wasn't even the weirdest thing. No, the weirdest thing was definitely the fact that all her clothes were somehow inside out. Even though she'd not so much as touched a button on her high-waisted jeans or a sleeve of her sloppy sweater. It had just happened, all on its own, in the middle of all this chaos.

So it was no wonder that Seth only managed a few words when he could finally speak.

" Cassie ," he gasped. "You… you're so… you're just…" Then before she could rush in and stop whatever was coming after those ellipses, he reached out a hand. He let it drift through the air, to about an inch away from her cheek.

And she saw what he was talking about.

Her glow moved with his fingers. It trailed after them in sparkly tendrils. And he followed those tendrils, with eyes like dinner plates and his lips all parted and his chest heaving. As if what he saw was so shocking that it put him through an aerobic workout inside.

It took him forever to gather himself. "I guess that book really helped, huh?" he said finally, and oh the urge to reply it did, but so did you was extremely strong. She had to bite it back. To think of her purpose here: to show him that he didn't have to give her anything. That he could go if he wanted to, and that would be okay, and he wouldn't lose anything.

"It did. In fact, it helped me make this for you," she said, and held it out for him.

But he just looked puzzled.

"Some magic Vaseline?"

"It's not magic Vaseline. Or maybe it kind of is, because I guess it helps werewolf injuries. You just smear it on, and it'll activate superfast and very strongly. And you only need a tiny little bit too, so that one jar should last you forever."

"And by forever, you mean—"

"Six months, maybe."

He took the jar, turned it over in his hands. "Wow. That is a long time," he said, in a voice that sounded just a little something. Relieved, maybe? She couldn't be sure. But it was close enough that she could go with her plan.

"Yeah. So, you know. You don't have to help me, if you don't want."

Only now he was looking at her weirdly.

Half frowning, half amused.

"Why on earth would I not want to?"

"I don't know. Maybe we have a fight and we hate each other."

The frown deepened. "So you think that's going to happen. You can feel that it might."

"What? No. God, no. I just wanted to show you that you don't have to worry if we do. That you have something now that will keep you okay, always. That I would want to keep you okay, even if things went bad," she said, then couldn't help hesitating. Because there was more to say, but she wasn't sure if it was a good idea to say it. Until she looked up at him, and saw that his expression was just so suddenly full of earnest emotion. So touched and surprised. Really, he deserved to hear. "In fact, you know, I kind of wanted to say that before. When we made the deal. But I don't know, I felt embarrassed. And like it was too big a thing to promise someone who might… hurt me again. Or at least to promise it out loud."

"But you promised it in your heart."

"Yeah, I guess. Yes. That's what I did."

"Do you want to know what I felt in mine?"

"I think I know. I think that's why you gave me the book," she said, with just a hint too much pain. Then she braced for whatever his reaction was going to be. Agreement, maybe. A few words that suggested he did actually want rid of her. And just as she was starting to never want to be rid of him, too.

But all she actually got was this startled look. A softening of his gaze.

And then a sigh, and he started speaking. Oh god, he started saying a lot of things.

"Cassie, I almost didn't give it to you," he began, which was enough on its own to tell her where this was going. Yet still, he had more for her. He had so much. "But not because I was worried you'd never make me another potion. You have to know that I knew you would anyway. That I know you well enough to already guess everything you just told me. No, no, it was the idea of losing you that made me want to never hand it over. It was the idea of not having a chance to get my friend back. And the only way I managed to ignore that terror was because you being the person you should be means more to me than my own misery. I'd give up anything, anything at all, even something I want that much, if it returns to you what I took."

She went to speak, once he was done.

But she couldn't get anything to come out.

Chance to get my friend back stole all her words from her.

Then the word took removed any breath she had left to say them, anyway.

And both of those things seemed to take a million years to come back. She had to really fight against a thousand conflicting feelings to find her voice, and even when she finally managed, it just sounded so small. So threaded through with tears she didn't want to shed.

"You didn't want to make a deal, then," she said, as one of them spilled down her cheek. He didn't seem to care, however. He watched her swipe it away with eyes so full of wounded warmth it almost made them worth it.

"Not even remotely," he said, in a voice as hoarse as hers.

"All you wanted was to be friends and to help me."

"That is exactly, one million percent the case, yes."

He nodded firmly. He didn't have to, though.

For the first time in years, she believed him. She knew she did, because the urge to hold back was gone. "Then I guess I should probably tell you that I want that too. That I think I've wanted it for a while but just couldn't say it. Like when we talked about me forgiving you so you wouldn't go to hell, and I didn't know how to tell you I already had. And that time you suggested you come in the house and I almost said sure come in, just because that sounded nice. And other things, things you said that made me cry and feel happy, and I forced it all down. But now I don't want to force it down," she babbled, as his expression got warmer, and warmer, and more struck by what she was saying, until finally, god, finally, the way his gaze reached for her.

She was amazed he managed to push out words, to say:

"What do you want to do then?"

Instead of just doing what he clearly wanted.

So she did it for him. She stepped forward, and slid her arms around his waist.

And she hugged her friend, hard.