Chapter 8 #3
“That, Miss Harper, is classified.” The forbidding manner in which he said this was ruined by the quirk of his lips when he finished.
“Could you at least tell me why leaves are so critical to spellwork? I’ve wondered for years.”
“That’s no secret, though I suppose you get precious few opportunities for the answer in Ellicott Mills,” he said. “They’re the equivalent of kindling. No kindling, no fire.”
“Well, yes, I’d figured as much, but—leaves? Not the same flair as eye of newt.”
“You could use a newt, actually, but there’s something off-putting about a small animal expiring in your hands,” he muttered, crushing the pips rather harder than necessary.
“It’s a sacrifice.” She frowned. “I’d never thought of it like that before.”
“Magic requires living fuel. If they’re magically preserved immediately after they’re picked, leaves work at least as well as a small animal, not to mention they’re eminently more portable and less grisly to use.”
She slowly added her juice, eyeing up the measurement lines on the jar. “I think that’s all we need.”
He glanced at the manual before leaning over until he was eye-level with the beaker. “A bit too much, actually. Brewing demands an exactness most exercises in cooking don’t.”
He fetched a shot glass from one of the cabinets and tipped in a tiny amount, the equivalent of a few pips’ worth of juice. Then he added what he’d just finished crushing. “Care to try the hell fruit?”
“Hah! No.”
“That binding spell works only on magic-users, you know. I’m wounded by this distressing lack of trust.”
Though his grin made clear he was joking, she gave serious consideration to what he’d said. She didn’t trust him completely, it was true. But up to a certain point—yes.
She took the glass from his hand and drank, the liquid sweet on her tongue.
He glanced away, then down at the table, as if he didn’t know where to look. Something about her gesture had unsettled him, or perhaps it was just simple surprise.
She swallowed and winced. The fruit had a bitter aftertaste.
Without comment, he cast a spell on the juice in the beaker, unwrapped the dried willow bark and set a handful on each side of the table. Then he asked, “You read the section about Anglo-Saxon units of measurement?”
She nodded. “Poppyseed, barleycorn, ynce, shaftment. Most brewing measurements are in barleycorns, each of which is—what—roughly a third of an inch?”
“Right.” He tapped the ruler marks running along the edge of the wooden table. “The small marks are poppyseeds, the larger are barleycorns. Cut the bark into squares of precisely one b.c. by one b.c.”
“What happens if you add one piece that, God forbid, is a few poppyseeds over the limit?”
“Probably nothing noticeable. A handful like that could seriously undermine the brew’s effectiveness, though.
The willow bark will have its normal, pain-easing effect, but the extra kick you would’ve had thanks to magic—gone.
” He measured and chopped for a moment in silence.
“Magic sets a high bar. Everything has to be just so or it won’t work. ”
Barleycorn by barleycorn, they accumulated the proper weight on the scale—as measured in “grains”—and added them to the jar.
Blackwell muttered spellwords over the mix, scowling in concentration, and poured the entire contents of a vodka bottle as a chaser.
Another spell followed. He held the jar up to the light, staring critically at the result.
She couldn’t take the suspense. “Is it all right?”
“If I were a more experienced brewer, I could tell by sight.” He looked rather grim, as if it cost something to admit that. “Fortunately, there’s a spell for determining efficacy.”
He sacrificed another leaf to the cause. The tincture glowed a deep green before fading to its original color.
“Good,” he said. “So glad we didn’t screw up one of the easiest brews in the book. This must sit overnight before it can be decanted and delivered, so—”
“On to the cold medicine?” She bounced on the balls of her feet in anticipation.
“Brewing cannot possibly live up to that level of enthusiasm.”
She laughed, completely happy for the first time in a long while. “Just remember that I’m comparing it with grocery-store clerking.”
Miss Harper couldn’t leave soon enough for him—he was beside himself with anxious anticipation. Had she taken his bait?
The instant he heard the front door thunk closed behind her, he reached above the brewing room’s doorframe, feeling carefully for the spot where he’d cast a chameleon spell. His fingers fuzzed out of view just before closing on the camera he’d placed there.
It was the size of a lunchbox—the smallest model yet—but still required a magical assist to balance on the doorframe. He lifted it down, extracted the film cartridge and all but ran to the receiving room, where he had an ingenious projector that developed film as it played.
The last image his camera captured shone onto the closed curtains—a black-and-white Miss Harper smiling as he crossed into the room, the leaf behind his back in mid-dispersal from his muttered spell to turn the camera off.
He hit reverse and watched his assistant zip backward around the room, appearing as if she were clearing the worktable and putting the equipment into cabinets, before the camera arrived at the start of the film and automatically switched into play mode.
She put her newly bought spices on the table and tucked the paper bag behind the trash can. He smirked as she pressed her ear against the wall—that seemed a good sign. Then the moment of truth: She saw the spellbook. She reached out a hand.
And, pulling it back with a sigh, she spent the rest of the time on brewing preparations.
“Miss Harper, I am very disappointed in you,” he muttered as the camera came to the end of the reel and shut off.