“Oh no?”
I lowered my voice. “Isn’t this the kind of gimmicky stuff real witches despise? Like…” I subtly nodded my head at the girl with the pendants who was now squealing, “Look, babe, a love potion perfume! Babe. Babe!” The boy, who didn’t seem interested in answering to “Babe,” continued to ignore her.
I widened my eyes. “See?” I mouthed.
Rhi laughed heartily and leaned close to whisper in my ear. “This floor is for the tourists. We keep the good stuff upstairs.”
At that moment, Persi undulated through the room, tossing her long dark hair over her shoulder. Everyone turned to stare at her—it was impossible not to stare at Persi. She was positively mesmerizing, oozing sensuality and confidence. She leaned in toward the girl now ogling the perfume and whispered in her ear, “If you want to capture his attention, I highly recommend it. I’m wearing it, and I’m still exhausted from last night.” She winked at the startled girl and then swept past the tarot display on her way to the cash register. “Babe” lifted his head and started scenting the air like a bloodhound. The girl pressed her lips into a line, snatched a bottle from the shelf, and plunked it down on the counter with a determined expression.
“An excellent choice,” Persi murmured. She rang the girl up as her boyfriend stood there, watching Persi with his mouth hanging open. The girl snatched up the bottle, grabbed her boyfriend by the hand, and marched him out of the store without a backward glance.
“Persi, that’s not even what you’re wearing,” Rhi said dryly.
“Yes, well, she doesn’t know that, does she?” Persi drawled, and then her eyes fell on me. “Oh, hello, Wren. Coming to do an inspection, in case you want to sell the place out from under us?”
“I—”
“Wren does not own Shadowkeep, as you very well know, Persi,” Rhi snapped. “Now stop tormenting the girl and eat your lunch.”
Persi smirked at me as she took the basket from Rhi’s hands. I tried to look like the joke didn’t bother me, but my stomach was roiling with guilt. Asteria had left Lightkeep Cottage to me in her will. It was the house my mother and her sisters had grown up in, and where Rhi and Persi had still been living when we arrived. Of course, it wasn’t my fault that Asteria had left the house to me. She’d really done it to tie my mother to Sedgwick Cove—a tactical maneuver to ensure the continuation of the Covenant. But that didn’t stop Persi from making snide remarks about it constantly.
I still wasn’t really sure where I stood with Persi. One minute, she was giving me a head-to-toe makeover; and the next, she was ignoring me completely. It made my head spin, but I also tried to remind myself that she was trying to process all of this just like I was. We would both need time to figure it out, and in the meantime, I would just grin and bear it.
Rhi had also brought along her own batch of strawberry thyme scones, and was arranging them on a glass pedestal on the countertop near the cash register.
“Is that all you’ve brought?” Persi asked between bites of chicken salad on a homemade croissant. “I thought you were making a double batch?”
“I was going to, but… well, I wanted to start teaching Wren and we, well…”
“I inherited my mom’s cooking ability,” I piped up, “so the second batch went straight into the trash.”
Persi snorted with laughter and had to cover her mouth to avoid spraying the counter with chicken salad. “Say no more,” she said, once she had safely swallowed. “Why are you starting with kitchen witchery, anyway?”
Rhi shrugged, wiping crumbs from her fingers, and placing a glass dome over the top of the scones. “Have to start somewhere,” she said.
“Kitchen witchery is so… strict,” Persi said, making a face. “You should let her start with something more intuitive.”
“Kitchen witcheryisintuitive for me,” Rhi said, sounding almost defensive.
“Of course it is,” Persi replied, smiling like a cat with feathers on her lips, “because you like to follow the rules, and I like to break them.”
“You say that like it’s something to be proud of,” Rhi shot back. “Besides, since when have you wanted to weigh in on this topic? I don’t see you offering to help with Wren’s magical education. If you think I’m doing it wrong, by all means, feel free to take the reins; but I won’t hold my breath.”
Persi simply shrugged, still smiling, and took another bite of her lunch.
“Come on, Wren, I’ll show you where the real magic happens, so to speak,” Rhi said, gesturing toward the door behind the counter. There was a sign on it which read, “Staff Only.”
I followed Rhi to the door. Just before it swung shut behind me, Persi whispered, “Come find me if you want to learn some real magic.”
She winked at me. I just stood there, staring like an idiot, until the door closed behind me.
2
At the top of the narrow staircase was a door painted red, with shiny gold hardware and a tarnished brass plaque on the door that read, “The Vesper Apothecary.” Rhi paused in front of it, and tapped the plaque with her pointer finger.
“Before we bought this building and started Shadowkeep, the Vesper witches ran their business out of Lightkeep Cottage. This is the plaque that used to hang on the side porch,” she said.
“How do customers find it now?” I asked. “You can’t just keep letting them go through the staff entrance. People will notice, won’t they?”
