Fates.
I frantically searched through the cabinet, pawing aside delicate bottles, reading every single label to be sure, but my initial observation was correct.
Someone stole my love potion.
With a huff, I slammed the cabinet shut and sat on the corner of my bed. I dropped my head into my hands and fought back tears.
I wasn’t supposed to have a love potion in the first place—I just wanted to see if I could pull it off. I never intended to use it, hence why I kept it locked up. I was just proud of myself for being able to accomplish such an impressive potion brew.
And now it was gone.
Nausea roiled in my stomach. Love potions were outlawed for a reason. In the wrong hands, they could cause catastrophic consequences. Messing with a folk’s free will was never acceptable. At a high enough dose, they could warp a folk’s mind, never to return to normal.
I wallowed in misery for what felt like hours. Who could have possibly broken into my shop? I kept enchanted locks around for a reason—they were virtually infallible. Nothing else had been disturbed…
A sprite landed on my knee, fluttering into my field of vision. I swatted at it. “Get off me, you heathen. You could have stopped the thieves, and you chose not to,” I accused.
Another sprite took its place. And another. I could hardly see them, but a handful of them perched on my knees, tilting their faces up at me pleadingly.
The knot of dread in my stomach tightened. “You… No.” I stood, swiping the sprites off me and pacing across the shop. “No. No no no no no. No!”
The sprites.
The missing love potion.
The townsfolk acting so strangely…
It was all connected.
It was all my fault.
I halted my pacing and whirled to face the nearest sprite I could see, settling on one resting on the corner of my worktable. “What did you do?” I shouted at it. “How could you?!”
The glow around the sprite shrank to almost nothing. I wasn’t deterred. “You stole my love potion, didn’t you? You dropped it into the chili! Why?” I whirled to face the opposite direction. “You fucking sprites just can’t leave me alone, can you? I was glad you were back, but now I wish you never found me at all!” My anger exploded out of me in hateful waves, but I couldn’t contain it. I was ready to burst.
And then the tears started. At first, they silently streaked down my cheeks as I bolted around the room, swatting at any blurs of motion I could see and firmly closing jars and lids. And then the silent tears turned into quiet blubbering sobs.
Eventually, the sobs became deep, gut-wrenching, folding my body in half until all I could do was sink to the floor and cradle my face in my hands as I let my sadness and frustration tear through me.
I ignored the barely-there brushes against my back, along my hair, next to me on the floor.
I cried until I had nothing left. I was a shell of a witch, empty and dry.
Even my magic felt drained, though I hadn’t used any of it.
I scraped myself off the floor with all the energy I had left and flopped onto my bed.
I didn’t even notice the warm mass curled up in the bed next to me.
CHAPTER 13
Kizzi
As the first streams of rising sunlight peeked through the cracks in my windows, I groaned and yanked my pillow over my head.
I was not ready to face the day yet. My throat was sore, my eyes were puffy, and my head pounded with the beginnings of a day-ruining headache. I begged sleep to pull me back under, even if just for a moment. Anything to delay my day for a little longer.
Just as darkness began to close over me, I felt something brush the back of my calf. A whisper of a touch, barely anything at all. A pulse of magic zinged into my skin.
