But she stuck to the matter at hand.
“Great, because that isn’t it. And so absolutely nothing else can be an issue.”
“Wait, no, I didn’t say that. I didn’t agree to that. That’s not how it works.”
“Okay, but I’m gonna pretend it does, and expect your calm reaction to me saying that I may have an idea for a potion that could make me fly. And that I need your help with it, because I’m afraid I will go up and then not be able to come back down,” she said. Quickly, so he didn’t have a chance to look at her with incredulity.
Like he absolutely did anyway.
“You sound like a billionaire who’s about to be exploded in a spaceship he poorly designed,” he said, in this exasperated way she really wanted to argue with. But before she could, he seemed to consider. And then he laughed and shook his head. “Except you have no money, I definitely want to be involved, and I have total faith in your ability to pull off something so deranged-sounding.”
Much to her absolute delight and surprise.
She almost bounced on her toes, before reining it in.
Better to seem reasonable about this, and not like a toddler on a sugar high.
“Wow,” she said. “That is a lot more support for this scheme than I expected.”
“Well, you know. That’s what friends do. They help their friends.”
“Even though helping your friend in this case might kill us both?”
“We’re not gonna be killed. Mainly because we can’t be, but still.”
He shrugged one shoulder and turned back to the pots and the sink.
And she almost returned to her job too—arranging her growing collection of potion jars in the pantry. Then she realized what he’d said, and stepped back out again. “Did you just say we can’t be? About being killed?”
“Well, you know. I meantechnicallywe can. Someone could chop off my head, or make a spell or a potion that turns me inside out, or maybe cut out my heart with a silver knife. So really it’s more like… we are super hard to kill,” he said, and so matter-of-factly, too. Even though there were several problems with his statement.
“Yeah, but that’s just werewolves. You could kill me with any knife.”
“Only if you didn’t have a potion protecting you, for some reason.”
“So you’re saying there’s a potion I could create that makes me unkillable?
“Cassie, the potion you’ve just used to clean the kitchen could probably do it,” he said, then gestured at the spray bottle full of the stuff on the kitchen counter. The one she’d labeled Make Nice, because that was what it had felt like to her when she’d come up with it. She’d even heard it in her head, like a commercial jingle for a solution that gets your oven sparkling. Use it twice to make things nice.
So what he was going on about she didn’t know.
“Be serious,” she snorted. “I just made a kind of soap.”
“You cannot possibly really think that.”
“Well, why wouldn’t I? Look at my gleaming counters.”
She spread her hands to illustrate. But he just rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, they are most likely gleaming because this place was covered in germs and it destroyed them to protect you. Or maybe one of the ingredients was laundry detergent, I don’t know. Either way, a protection spell is definitely what this is,” he said.
And this time, her brain responded with way less of a “no.” It started ringing that witch bell like whoa. But still, she couldn’t quite let him have it. “Okay, I am going to need to know where that ‘definitely’ is coming from,” she said with as much skepticism as she could still muster. And again, all she got was that maddening casualness.
“Before I slapped some of this extra-strength stuff on, I felt myself start to turn, a little bit. I got the jitters, I was sweating. And then suddenly the water coming out of the faucet was scalding hot. Like it wanted to hurt me to stop me. Check it out,” he said, as he held his hand up. But it didn’t look that burned to her. And even if it had, what did that prove?
“That might not mean anything. Maybe the water heater is set too high.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there? Let’s see if the cleaning potion will try to subdue or neutralize any other threats. Grab that spray, put it on yourself, and I’ll try to jab you with this broom.”
