Chapter 6
SIX
JUNIE
For the next hour, Junie watched Leo Castellan dissect her life’s work.
He examined her ingredient storage. Questioned her sourcing—local suppliers, timing of deliveries, any changes in the past six months.
He photographed her cauldron configurations and the layout of her distillation system.
He took notes in that neat, precise handwriting, filling page after page of his leather notebook.
He didn’t touch anything without asking first. She hated that she couldn’t fault him for it.
“These recipes.” He paused by the shelf where she kept her grandmother’s leather-bound book alongside her own notes. “Some of them are quite old.”
“Family formulations. Passed down through generations.” Junie positioned herself between him and the book. She couldn’t have explained why, but the thought of his analytical attention on her grandmother’s handwriting felt too intimate. Too exposing. “They’re not the problem.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’ve been brewing from these recipes since I was twelve years old.” She lifted her chin. “I could make Grandmother’s Dreamless Sleep in my actual sleep. The issue isn’t the formulations. It’s the energy running through this space.”
Leo’s attention shifted to the basement door. “The ley line access.”
“It’s what makes this location valuable for potion work. Direct tap into raw magical energy.” Junie crossed her arms. “Usually it’s an asset. The surge has turned it into a liability.”
“May I see it?”
“The basement?” She hesitated. The ley line access point was her most guarded professional secret. The thing that sets Moonrise Mixology apart from every other potion shop on the coast. “That’s… sensitive.”
“I’m not interested in stealing your trade secrets.” His voice was dry. “I’m trying to understand why the surge is affecting your business more severely than others.”
Junie studied his face. Still guarded. But there was genuine curiosity in the set of his shoulders rather than judgment.
“Five minutes,” she said finally. “And what you see doesn’t go in your report.”
“Agreed.”
She led him to the basement door. The wood was hot under her palm—hotter than it should have been. The ley line was definitely agitated today. Responding to her presence, or his.
The stairs creaked as they descended. Climate-controlled storage lined the walls—aging racks for potions requiring time, temperature-sensitive ingredients in spelled containers. And at the far end, visible through a ward-shimmer, the ley line access point glowed a soft, pulsing blue.
“Impressive.” Leo’s voice was quiet. Reverent, almost, which was the last thing she’d expected from him.
“It’s been in my family for generations.
Grandmother chose this building specifically for the intersection.
” Junie watched the light flare and dim—faster than usual, brighter than it should be.
“Before the surge, it was stable. Predictable. Now it’s like trying to brew with lightning instead of fire. ”
Leo stepped closer to the access point, stopping just short of the ward. The blue light reflected off his features, softening the hard lines of his face.
“It responds to emotional magic.” He wasn’t asking.
“How did you—”
“The pulse rate changed when we entered. It’s reacting to us.” He turned to look at her, and in the strange blue light, his expression was almost unreadable. “Mate bonds are highly emotional. If the surge is intensifying bonding magic, and your ley line responds to emotional energy…”
“Then I’m getting hit with amplified magical instability every time I brew.” Junie felt the pieces click into place. She’d known it was the surge, but she hadn’t fully understood the mechanism. “The ley line is magnifying whatever emotional residue is in the air.”
“It’s a working theory.” He stepped back from the ward. “I’d want to consult with experts before drawing conclusions.”
“You explained in thirty seconds what I’ve been struggling to understand for three months.”
“You were too close to see the pattern.” His voice softened again, that fractional gentling that kept catching her off guard. “It’s easier from the outside.”
They stood in the blue-lit darkness, the ley line pulsing between them. Junie was suddenly very aware of how close they were. How unexpectedly comfortable his presence felt despite the basement chill.
She caught him watching her with the same intensity as the previous night.
The ley line flared brightly, responding to the charged air between them.
Leo stepped back. The shutters slammed down.
“I should go.” His voice was rough. Wrong. “I have other interviews scheduled.”
“Right.” Junie’s voice wasn’t much better. “Of course. Other businesses to interrogate.”
“Investigate.”
“Same thing.”
They climbed the stairs in silence. The distance between them felt charged, electric—every brush of his sleeve against her arm sending sparks skittering across her skin.
What is happening to me?
Glimmer, who’d remained upstairs, hissed the moment Leo reappeared. The snake’s hostility was back in full force, scales flashing warning patterns.
“Your familiar really doesn’t like me.” Leo paused at the archway to the retail floor.
“She’s protective.” Junie didn’t have a better explanation. Glimmer had never reacted this way to anyone—not even the debt collector who’d come sniffing around in her first year of business. “She’ll get over it.”
Glimmer’s colors clearly communicated that she would absolutely not be getting over it.
Leo nodded once, all business again. “I’ll be in touch if I have follow-up questions. And Ms. Reed—” He paused at the door. “About the suit. Forget it. Consider it a casualty of the investigation.”
Before she could respond, he was gone.
Junie stood in the middle of her shop, staring at the door he’d walked through, trying to process the past two hours.
He’d been cold. Clinical. He’d cataloged her failures with the detachment of a researcher studying a particularly disappointing specimen.
But he’d also explained her problem. Seen the pattern she’d been too close to recognize. Looked at her grandmother’s books with reverence instead of dismissal.
And that look in his eyes. The hunger he kept trying to hide. The way his voice had roughened when they were alone in the basement.
“I’m losing my mind,” she told Glimmer. “The surge has finally fried my brain. That’s the only explanation.”
Glimmer’s response was a complicated mix of agreement and irritation that Junie couldn’t quite translate.
Her attention fell on the spoon she’d been using to stir the ill-fated arthritis tincture. It sat on her workbench, next to the still-contained sentient potion, looking completely innocent.
Junie picked it up. Weighed it in her hand.
Then, with a satisfying motion, she hurled it at the door Leo Castellan had just walked through.
The spoon clattered against the wood and fell to the floor with a metallic ring.
“That’s for the judgy lion face,” she muttered.
Glimmer’s scales shifted to amused green.
The sentient potion burbled in what sounded like laughter.
Junie dropped into one of the velvet consultation chairs and buried her face in her hands. Her skin still tingled where his sleeve had brushed her arm. Her heartbeat still hadn’t fully slowed.
Whatever was happening was more than the surge. More than professional friction. More than attraction to a man who was everything she should find annoying.
She didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
But she had a sinking feeling that the universe didn’t much care what she wanted.
The ley line hummed beneath her feet, bright and insistent, as if agreeing.