“Are you sure? Your ear is bleeding. Do you need to go see Velline?”
“No, no. I can hear you—I’m fine.” She slowly looked around, and her eyes widened into saucers. “They’re back.”
“Who’s back? Nobody else is in here, Kizzi. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head too hard?” Worry flooded my thoughts. I leaned over to get a better look at where she hit the shelf.
“No, I’m okay. I promise.”
I didn’t want to release her, but she pulled my hands from her head and used them as a support to stand herself up. I let her.
She winced and gritted her teeth, but she was steady on her feet, and I took that as a good sign. I stood as well, hovering close in case she fell again.
“What happened? Do you remember why you were on the floor?” I asked gently.
She didn’t answer, instead her gaze danced around the shop. Her mouth held a small, serene smile, and her eyes glistened.
It was a punch to the gut, how beautiful she was. She nearly brought me to my knees.
I committed her expression to memory—I wasn’t sure what was causing the strange, wondrous reaction, but she was worthy of a painting.
I let her enjoy her moment. She slowly drifted over to a worktable and stretched her hand out, reaching for something. Her smile grew. “You came back,” she said quietly. I couldn’t quite see what she was reaching for—my eyes were having a hard time focusing. Something small shimmered, distorting the light.
Then it dawned on me. It was a sprite. I glanced around the shop, furrowing my brows, trying to focus my struggling vision, but the effort was futile. The sprites were everywhere—in every corner of the shop. I couldn’t quite see them straight on, but I could catch flurries of their movement out of the corner of my eye, and I could see them in my peripheral vision.
The sensation was disorienting. The way I couldn’tquiteseethem, even though I knew they were there.
Kizzi let the sprites dance over her fingers, climb onto her arms, settle into her hair. She seemed at peace with them. Happy, even. I had never noticed the small creatures in the shop before, but it was clear that she was familiar with them.
I stayed quiet, content to just observe the moment.
She laughed quietly and then her gaze flicked to the corner of the room, where her giant cauldron sat. The smile dropped off her face.
“Oh, fuck.”
CHAPTER 12
Kizzi
My stomach churned with dread. My minor aches were forgotten, the strange joy of having the sprites return evaporated in an instant.
What I had been doing before I blacked out slowly came back to me. I had been hunched over the cauldron, shouting, and I had started to cry. And then the boom—I was tossed across the room. And then I woke up staring into Tandor’s concerned face.
It was the cauldron.
The cauldron sat in the corner, but something was different—it was cracked down the middle.
My treasured cauldron was broken. Ruined. A cracked cauldron was a witch’s worst nightmare. I gulped, feeling the blood drain from my face. My ears drooped. The coven was going to bepissedthat I ruined our biggest cauldron just weeks before Hallow’s Eve.
A small wisp of smoke curled up and drifted away, dispersing into nothing.
Slowly, carefully, I approached the corner. The air surrounding the cauldron vibrated with so much magic that it was almost painful. My teeth chattered and my hair fluttered on a phantom breeze.
I reached the cauldron. Leaned forward. And hesitantly looked inside.
It was empty. Completely empty. Not even a crumb of residue, or a drop of liquid remained. “What in the realms?” I asked aloud.
“What is it?” Tandor asked. I jumped, his voice startling me.
“It’s… nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
