Chapter 22
Morning sunlight poured through the mansion’s east windows, bright enough to reveal just how badly Major Payne had lost a fight with his uniform.
His shirt buttons were misaligned, and his jacket was open, giving the impression he’d dressed either in the dark or in a hurry, brought on by enthusiastic distractions.
Rayna leaned against the doorframe of the open front mansion doors, amused and smug. “Adam, sweetheart,” she murmured, “I adore you, but you look like your uniform had a mental breakdown.”
He looked down. “Ah. Right.”
Rayna drifted over, reached up, and kissed him deeply while fixing his buttons. “This is what happens,” she said quietly, “when you stay up half the night, reminding me how much you missed me.”
Payne smirked. “I regret nothing.”
She hooked two fingers into his collar, pulled him down, and kissed him goodbye again while buttoning his jacket. Slow, deep, and smug enough to derail a morning report. By the time she released him, his uniform was perfect. He, however, was not.
“I have to go,” he said, slightly breathless. “Emergency briefing.”
“You’ll do great,” she purred, pushing him toward the door. “Try not to blush if someone mentions Long Island.”
He did blush. Hard. Then he fled.
Rayna sauntered into the hall wearing the expression of a woman who’d won something important. And she had. Payne promised not to push her for an answer regarding their engagement. They could carry on enjoying each other with no pressure whatsoever.
Victoria stood near the front staircase, suitcase packed, phone in hand. She looked effortlessly glamorous, like she’d stepped straight out of a Montreal fashion ad.
“I hate to run,” she said as she hugged Crystal, “but Reginald gets anxious when I’m gone too long. He can fend for himself, but my apartment can’t. He once played the ‘Battle of Waterloo’ in my living room. It was chaos.”
Sahara snorted. “Who won?”
Victoria shrugged. “Napoleon. Raccoons are complicated.”
Rayna arched a brow. “Text us when you get in. And if Reginald has redecorated again, I want pictures.”
“Always.” Victoria kissed Rayna on the cheek, hugged Lioness, offered Wally a biscuit bribe to be good, then sauntered out the door, wheeling her suitcase like a chic Canadian spy returning to her helicopter.
Mason caught Crystal by the wrist as she turned toward the kitchen.
“Hang on.” He tugged her in, slow but firm, and kissed her with enough heat to fog the nearby stained-glass window. Crystal melted into him, her fingers curling around the hair at his collar.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers. “I have to get the pool house ready for Raoul’s return,” he murmured. “He likes things perfect, and I’m trying to prove I’m not the hurricane everyone thinks I am.”
Crystal smirked. “You’re absolutely a hurricane.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, brushing her jaw with his thumb. “But I’m trying not to blow the roof off.”
“What? Like you blew my roof off last night?” She kissed him again, quick and warm, this time, then shooed him toward the back door. “Go. And text me if you set something on fire.”
“I’m already on fire.”
By the time the witches gathered at the long oval table, the house had largely emptied of love interests and extended company. Joell arrived last, still muttering to herself about plot revisions, while Wally toddled in carrying a stolen cinnamon roll larger than his head.
Rayna dropped into her chair with a satisfied sigh. “All right. Now that everyone’s done necking in the hallways, we’ve got a scientist to fix.”
Magda flushed. “We don’t even know if he’s coming.”
“Yes, we do.” Rayna nodded toward the window.
A lone sedan pulled into the driveway, slowed, then stopped completely as if its driver was giving himself a pep talk.
Chad climbed out first, waving weakly. Then Sebastian emerged.
He looked better than Chad described him yesterday. Sleep-wrinkled, yes. But upright. His hair was still damp from a shower taken recently. He squared his shoulders, inhaled, and made it halfway up the walkway before his eyes went suspiciously shiny.
Joell set down her mug. “Oh yeah,” she said. “He’s still an emotional tuning fork.”
Magda stood. Wally dropped his pastry in shock.
Rayna clapped her hands. “Places, people. Love Potion whatever number awaits.”
The witches rose with purpose. The day’s mission had officially begun.
The greenhouse smelled like mint, eucalyptus, and the air before it snows.
Sebastian stood beside Magda at the central workbench, shoulders tense, hands clasped like he was trying very hard not to cry at the beauty of the potted basil. He managed to smile when she handed him a mortar and pestle.
“Ready?” she asked gently.
“Yes,” he said, his voice a pitch too high. “I’m emotionally stable. Perfectly stable. Completely fine. Everything’s fine.” He blinked rapidly.
Rayna muttered, “He’s about ten seconds from sobbing into the basil.”
Chad stood behind him, arms crossed, monitoring his colleague like a bomb technician overseeing a volatile backpack. “Magda, just keep him focused.”
Lioness leaned over the cauldron. “So, what are we making? A magical sedative? Emotional Tums?”
“Think of it as a chill pill,” Sahara replied, already grinding cold-iron essence into a shimmering powder. “Cooling. Stabilizing. Non-fatal despite Rayna’s earlier worry.”
Rayna shrugged. “We’ll see. And by the way, I’m not swallowing it.”
Sebastian stirred in the mint and eucalyptus. “That’s good, actually. We should have a control.”
Somehow, everyone managed to avoid joking about Rayna’s lack of control.
Together, he and Magda guided the mixture until it shimmered a pale, peaceful blue, glowing gently, like bottled calm.
Lioness peered into the cauldron. “Looks like emotional mouthwash.”
Sahara sniffed it. “Smells like mountain air.”
Rayna handed out tiny tasting cups. “Everybody, take a sip. A tiny one. Except me. I’m immune to nonsense.”
No one argued. One by one, they sampled it. For three glorious seconds, nothing happened.
Then Sahara’s breath fogged in front of her face. “Um,” she said calmly, “is anyone else snowing internally?”
A thin curl of frost spiraled out of the cauldron, drifting across the workbench like a bored ghost. Magda’s eyes widened.
“Sebastian,” she whispered. “What did you feel?”
He blinked. “Cold. Very cold. But… peaceful? Peaceful cold? Is that a thing?”
“It is at Yule,” Lioness said.
Wally froze mid-chew, with pastry crumbs stuck to his whiskers. He tapped the cauldron with one tiny paw. The entire greenhouse answered with a shudder.
Then frost exploded outward like it had been waiting for an invitation. A wave of shimmering blue cold surged across the floor, racing up the metal support beams, frosting leaves, jars, and every witch's ankle in its path.
Rayna’s fist hit the table. “Oh, for Goddess' sake.”
Lioness shrieked as ice crystallized up her boots. “What the— This is not a chill pill! This is a cryogenic foot bath!”
Chad grabbed Sebastian by the collar and yanked him backward just before a frozen vine lashed around his ankles. “Magda! Say you can stop this!”
“I can stop this!” Magda yelled, then immediately contradicted herself with, “Maybe! I think! Possibly not!”
The cold hit the ceiling, spread like a glittering storm cloud, and then snow began falling inside the greenhouse. Perfect, delicate flakes.
Sahara tilted her face up. “Okay. This part is lovely.”
Rayna smacked her arm. “Focus! The potion is staging a hostile takeover!”
The cauldron rattled violently, its pale blue glow intensifying until the whole area looked lit from within. A sharp crack echoed as an entire rack of flowerpots froze solid and split down the middle.
“Everybody out!” Joell barked, already trying, and failing, to pry her boots off the ice, sealing her to the floor. “Or someone heat this place up!”
“I can,” Crystal’s voice said faintly from the doorway before she immediately slipped on a frozen fern and went skidding across the room.
Sebastian stumbled forward, arms lifted as if he could reason with the weather. “It’s reacting to emotional imbalance! The molecular charges are misaligned—”
“Fix them!” Rayna shouted.
“I AM TRYING,” he shouted back, his voice puffed out in a cloud of condensation.
Magda slammed both hands onto the cauldron. “Enough!”
For half a heartbeat, the storm paused.
Then the cauldron burped out one last pulse of icy magic, strong enough to sweep every witch, professor, and wallaby across the room like a chaotic, sparkly avalanche.
Brianna stood just outside the open greenhouse door, shivering. “Goddess, we beseech you, fill this room with the warmth of sunlight! If for the good of all, so mote it be!”
The room filled with bright light. Everyone blinked and shielded their eyes.
The snow and ice melted into water. The witches regained their footing and quickly exited the greenhouse.
Joell shook the droplets from her hands. “Leave it to the newest witch to remind us of the basics.”
“What are the basics?” Sebastian asked. His voice was steady, and he no longer looked like he was about to burst into tears.
“Just remembering we’re not alone when our own powers let us down. We can turn to the Goddess in an emergency. The trick is reverently asking for what you want but knowing she might not answer in the way you expect.” Magda said.
“In other words, ‘Be careful what you wish for’?” Sebastian asked.
“Yes. Exactly that.”
Magda didn’t follow the others back inside right away.
The courtyard slowly emptied. Rayna herded people toward coffee and dry socks.
Sahara muttered about residual tingles, and Brianna promised to write a new scene into her next chapter.
Chad lingered just long enough to give Magda a quick, awkward side-hug that smelled like aftershave and worry, then jogged up the steps after the others.
Silence settled over the lawn, broken only by the distant rush of ocean waves and the soft, wet squish of thawing grass as she paced.
Wally climbed onto Magda’s shoe, hugged her leg, and stared at her with concern. “Mrrrp?”