Chapter 7 #3
Lore gave an exaggerated wink over the top of her sunglasses. “Exactly. So, you had a question about—ah, crap!”
Arthur saw immediately why she’d interrupted herself with a curse word.
McMartin was headed their direction, though he didn’t seem to have noticed them yet.
Sal, who had an awful lot of experience evading capture and encounters with people he preferred to avoid, grabbed Arthur and Lore by the wrists—the cotton candy stick held between his teeth—and dragged them behind the big machine that spun the sugar into floss.
The woman running the stand didn’t even look up from her phone. Bless the youths (which was almost all mortal humans to Arthur) for being too self-absorbed to care about the occasional nearby shenanigan.
“We need to know how to find out if a potion is deadly,” Arthur whispered to Lore.
“Hmm.” Lore tilted her head in thought. “I have equipment back at the morgue. I could test whatever you find, I guess.”
“Isn’t that…a bit involved?” Arthur frowned. “We can’t exactly lug all the potions we see across the festival to your lab without notice.”
“That’s true. It’s tricky since I don’t actually know all the elements involved.”
“You said the potion included oleander—isn’t that the poison?” Sal asked to stunned looks from both Arthur and Lore. “What? I do listen…sometimes. Besides, oleander was a common poison back in my day.” Exactly what day that was, Sal didn’t say.
“Well, you’re right. Oleander is the poisonous reagent, but there’s also a magical element,” Lore explained. “I don’t have the right equipment to do a full analysis on what spell was used exactly, but my guess is that it reacted to the oleander, making it more potent than it might normally be.”
“So there’s no way to check if a potion is deadly without your help?” Arthur asked.
Lore shrugged. “I mean, you could try drinking it.”
Arthur blinked at her.
“What? It’s not like you guys can die, right?”
Arthur exchanged a glance with Sal.
“She has a point.” Sal grimaced. “The worst that will happen is we experience some adverse symptoms—vomiting, diarrhea, perhaps hallucination if we’re lucky.”
“If we’re lucky?” Arthur’s eyebrows were in very real danger of disappearing into his hairline. Sal was enough of a handful without illness involved. “We’ll figure out another way.”
“You could always see if it kills something else.”
“Like what?” Arthur didn’t care for where this was headed.
“Lore! I can’t believe you’d—oleander is toxic to cats, but—well, I never!” Sal exclaimed through a mouthful of cotton candy, eyes beginning to well with tears. “You know Rumble’s still missing.”
“Oh god, Sal. I was just kidding, but that’s obviously not funny.” She shook her head. “Maybe we should just stay in touch. If you find any potions that seem suspicious, let me know.”
Arthur wasn’t sure how they were going to differentiate between normal and suspicious potions when all of them seemed suspect to him, but that was a matter to ponder later.
For now, they needed to get out of there without the sheriff noticing.
Hopefully McMartin didn’t have a sweet tooth and would avoid the cotton candy booth.
Once Lore had checked that the coast was clear, she motioned for them to head out. “I better get back to Stephanie’s stall.”
“Oh, how is Stephanie? Is she holding up all right?” Arthur asked.
“She wanted to keep working the festival, but she’s still really shaken, so I’m running it for her today. If you need me, that’s where I’ll be.” She gave them a jaunty salute, and then she was gone into the crowd.
Arthur and Sal made their way back to the Celestine Coven tent, doing their best to keep a low profile—a difficult task in their current outfits. With luck, they’d avoid anyone who knew them and they could skulk around unnoticed.
“There you are!” came Hailey’s bright voice as they approached. They were caught, red-handed. Or pink-and-blue-handed, in Sal’s case. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Before Arthur could concoct a story about how they simply had to get cotton candy or there would’ve been dire consequences, Hailey bounced on her heels and let out a squee of excitement.
“You’re going to flip! Guess what?” Hailey did not let them guess, which was probably for the best, given Sal’s track record.
“Ambrosia Celestine came to talk to me—I just about died! She’s such an amazing witch.
Her weather magic is legendary. I’ve been in the coven for three whole years, but I’ve never actually met her in person.
Like…I’ve seen her onstage, obviously, but not face-to-face.
This is so huge for me. They’re definitely going to make me a platinum member.
I can feel it. Gah! This is so incredible! ”
Sal gasped, turning to Arthur. “Oh my god! Can you believe it?” He looked at Hailey, expression faltering for a moment. “Wait…who is…Amber Celery?”
“Ambrosia Celestine!” Hailey exclaimed. “She’s the witch who started it all. And—this is the really exciting part—she wants to meet with you.”