Chapter 14
The mansion library looked like a cross between a Victorian salon and a coven’s pajama party. The long oval table overflowed with mugs of tea, cocoa, and the occasional spiked cider, because creative genius required proper hydration. Or, in Rayna’s case, adequate intoxication.
“Okay,” Joell said, flicking a pen like a wand. “Critique Night is officially in session. Who’s brave enough to go first?”
Brianna raised her hand, already smirking. “Strap in, ladies. We’re starting with time travel and a little bodice-ripping.”
“Oh, good,” Rayna muttered, stretching her legs under the table. “I could use some vicarious satisfaction. Adam is off on a mission.”
Brianna read her scene, voice low and dramatic. By the time her Highlander whispered, “Ye’re mine across every century, lass,” the mansion’s sconces actually flickered. Crystal fanned herself.
“Well,” Joell said, deadpan. “That’ll fog a mirror.”
“Not just the mirror,” Crystal added. “The windows are steaming.”
Rayna tipped her mug in salute. “Ten out of ten for historical accuracy, minus one for making me want to find a kilted man immediately.”
“Noted,” Brianna said, grinning. “Rayna, you’re up.”
Rayna’s excerpt featured swordplay, blood, and a half-naked major who seemed allergic to shirts. Halfway through, even Wally, Magda’s wallaby familiar, was curled under the table, thumping his tail in appreciation.
When Joell read hers, the tone shifted to sharp, clever, and darkly dangerous. Her heroine flirted with death, and death flirted right back. Crystal followed, offering a piece so soaked in sea mist and sensuality that everyone needed a towel and possibly a Coast Guard intervention.
Then it was Magda’s turn.
She cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses. “Mine’s… a work in progress.”
Joell leaned forward. “They always are. Go on.”
Magda read. Her hero and heroine shared a quiet conversation in a moonlit garden, their hands brushing as he offered her a rose. Sweet. Gentle. Subtle. When she finished, no sconces flickered. The only movement came from Wally, yawning under the table.
Rayna blinked. “Your scene needs a little more thrust. Of any kind.”
Joell nodded. “Try writing it after two glasses of wine.”
“I’ll need eight,” Magda said dryly.
Crystal offered a teasing grin. “You’re not wrong, love. Maybe it’s time you found some real-life research material.”
“Someone who’s not one of ours,” Brianna added.
Magda raised her mug. “Cheers to that. Now if someone could brew me a boyfriend, I’ll handle the revisions.”
They laughed, the sound echoing off the library’s curved ceiling. The camaraderie filled the room with warmth, teasing, and the unspoken truth that every witch at the table, even the confident ones, still wanted her own version of happily ever after.
When the laughter faded, Magda smiled. “All right, that’s enough humiliation for one evening. I’m going to check on my plants before they start gossiping about me too.”
The greenhouse welcomed her like an exhale. Warm air kissed her skin, scented with lavender, damp earth, and the faint glow of moonlight through glass.
Rows of lush greenery shimmered faintly with residual magic. Some plants healed, soothed, and occasionally tried to bite a pest. Wally hopped beside her, pouch bulging with herb clippings like a proud farmer.
“You think they’re right, Wally?” she asked, brushing a leaf. “Maybe my love scenes are missing something because I am.”
Wally tilted his head, then offered a chewed-on marigold.
“Thanks, mate,” she said with a half-laugh. “Romantic advice from a marsupial. That’s my life.”
He chuffed softly and hopped to his favorite spot under a fern.
Magda sat at her workbench, fingers tracing the edge of a chipped teacup.
She loved this place. She loved the hush of soil, the pulse of living things, the way the mansion itself seemed to hum approval around her.
She was the League’s healer, the one who coaxed things to grow, brewed potions to mend hearts and bones alike.
But lately, every bloom she coaxed open only reminded her how tightly her own heart stayed closed.
Maybe that could change.
She reached for her mug of tea, now cold. The greenhouse hummed softly, vines rustling in their sleep. She was about to blow out the candle when the air shimmered faintly above the shelf of drying herbs.
The shimmer brightened into a circle of pale light. Bas’s face appeared inside it, serene and amused as ever.
“Magda, darling. You look like you’re about to hex a houseplant.”
Magda sighed. “Not a hex. Just a pep talk. The begonias are better listeners than most people.”
Bas’s mouth curved. “Then I’ll try to keep up.”
The sound of her voice tugged something warm in Magda’s chest. She hadn’t realized how much she missed that calm, grounded authority. The High Priestess always seemed to know when one of her witches was quietly spiraling.
Bas tilted her head, eyes twinkling. “Tell me, why the late-night gloom? I can feel it through the ley lines.”
Magda hesitated. Then, because there was no point lying to someone who could read auras from an ocean away, she said, “We were critiquing tonight. Their stories sizzled, mine… didn’t.”
“Ah. The eternal curse of the gentle soul in a room full of fireworks.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“Or is it your inner critic? Every writer thinks their first draft is shit. Even Ernest Hemingway said something to that effect.”
“No, he said every writer’s first draft is shit.”
“So why are you expecting yours to be perfect?” Bas leaned forward, and the image crackled faintly. “You know, passion isn’t only about fire. Sometimes it’s about growth. You need roots deep enough to weather storms.”
“I have plenty of roots,” Magda muttered. “What I’m missing is a storm.”
Bas chuckled, low and knowing. “Then perhaps it’s time you brewed one.”
Magda blinked. “Brewed a storm?”
“Or whatever it is your heart needs. You make elixirs for everyone else’s wounds, darling. When was the last time you concocted something just for yourself?”
The question hung there, heavy as humidity.
Something for myself? When would I even—
Her brain started whirring before she could stop it. Ingredients flickered through her mind like fireflies: rose petals for affection, cinnamon for warmth, and a drop of High John the Conqueror for courage—for the woman who never asks for what she wants.
Bas watched her go quiet, and her smile softened. “There it is. That spark I love. I don’t need to know what you’re plotting. Just promise it won’t turn anyone into a toad.”
“No promises,” Magda said, lips twitching.
Bas’s laugh filled the greenhouse like a wind chime. “Good girl. Now go put that beautiful mind of yours to work. And Magda…” Her voice gentled. “Whatever you make, make it with intent. The universe always knows what’s in your heart.”
The light dimmed, leaving Magda alone with the moonlight and her thoughts.
She let out a long breath. “Well, that was subtle,” she muttered. “Start a storm. Brew something for myself. Sure, why not a love potion while I’m at it?”
Her sarcasm echoed softly among the vines. But even as she said it, the idea rooted itself and began to bloom.
It wouldn’t be over the top, of course. Just a little magical experiment. A confidence booster in a bottle.
Magda smiled to herself, already reaching for her notebook.
Wally gave a questioning chirp.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, flipping open to a blank page. “It’s for research.”
The moonlight glinted off her glasses as she bent to write again, unaware that somewhere deep in the mansion’s rafters the sconces flickered as if amused.
The greenhouse shimmered with moonlight, each leaf catching the glow.
Magda crouched at her bench, pencil flying across her leather-bound notebook.
She tapped the page with the eraser. “Chamomile for calm, rosehips for romance, and just a whisper of Venus powder.” She laid down the notebook and added the ingredients to a small beaker of thrice-blessed water.
From the far end of the bench came the rustling sound of her wallaby familiar, Wally, hopping smugly from tray to tray like an over caffeinated botanist.
“Don’t touch that,” she warned without looking up.
He ignored her, naturally. A quick snatch, a crunch, and half a rosehip vanished into his pouch.
“Fine,” she sighed. “But if you start batting your eyelashes at the ferns, I’m cutting you off.”
She poured the shimmering mixture into a crystal flask, a few droplets hitting the floor. “I’m starting small. A simple enhancement of affection.” The potion fizzed faintly, a blush-colored cloud blooming from the mouth of the flask. Magda smiled, enchanted by her own cleverness.
Then the plants started cuddling.
It began with a fern shyly leaning toward its neighbor. Then the moonflower vines curled together, heart-shaped leaves pressing close. Within seconds, the entire greenhouse was a tangle of amorous foliage.
“Oh, that’s… interesting.”
The vines painted misty hearts across the glass panes, pollen drifting in lazy golden spirals. The air smelled like roses and trouble.
Wally sneezed a glitter bomb of fairy dust. The bottle he’d been perched beside toppled, spilling glittering essence over the workbench, the plants, and Magda herself.
“Great,” she muttered, flicking a sparkly leaf off her sleeve. “Now it’s a Disney forest.”
She wrote in her notebook with a satisfied flourish: Love Potion #1 – Promising Start.
The word promising was still drying when the heart-shaped pollen floated through the air vent, heading straight into the mansion.