There’s something about the way that he mentions the potion making that makes my heart pulse. The pocket cauldron came out soon after we graduated from high school, and I remember that I always complained to him about having to drag a big cauldron with me to competitions.
Then he created this.
There can’t be a connection. No, I refuse to believe it.
“Do you have one?” he asks.
“Of these?” I try to give it back to him, but his hands are now in his pockets and he’s leaning against the wall. “No. I never needed one, at least not after high school. No more potion making for me, remember?”
He frowns. “That’s a shame. You always liked potions. I wasn’t lying when I said what I did back at your house. Idoneed your help. I could useyou”—he blinks, shakes his head—“I mean, your help, on my project.”
It doesn’t take a brainiac to know what Devlin was going to say. Obviously the implication that he would use me had a sexual connotation. Duh. This is Devlin we’re talking about.
Thanks to his little slip of the tongue, a million very naughty images are flicking unsolicited in my head. My cheeks burn. So that he doesn’t notice, I look down.
“You press a button to get this to open, right?”
“That’s right,” he says quickly. “It’s on the side.”
He points and I wave his hand off. “I can find it. I have eyes.”
“You do? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Very funny.”
I press the button, and the cauldron immediately jumps to life, opening in a series of clicks and whirls, growing quickly, so quickly that I barely have time to put the thing on the floor before it explodes into a full-sized potion-making machine.
I laugh in spite of myself, because before me sits a huge cast-iron bowl just ripe for spell creation.
“That is very coo—argh!”
I jump back because out from behind the wall appears a set of disembodied hands. Hands clad in white gloves and nothing else. Not that they could have anything else on, as they are, um,hands.
Devlin slides in front of me, a frantic look on his face. He pats the air and says calmly, “Blair, I know what this looks like.”
“Yeah, it looks like you murdered someone, stole their hands and enslaved them to do your bidding.”
“That’s not what this is. Hands, meet Blair Thornrose. Blair, this isHands.Hands lives with me, and yes, he does help with my inventions.”
The hands creep along the floor slowly, moving like Lefty, the Hamburger Helper mascot. Only Lefty had a face. These hands do not, which I’m thankful for. I don’t think that I could take onemore surprise today—first Nana, then the magic swap, and now Hands.Hands. Like, I just can’tevenwith this day anymore.
The hands, both of them, bow over like they’re greeting me. As much as I can’t stand Devlin, I don’t actually have a bone against the hands, orHands, I suppose, so I say, “How do you do? Oh, sorry. You can’t answer, unless there’s a speaker in one of your fingers.”
Hands shakes.
“No, no speaker, I guess. Sorry, of course not.” Wow. This is just getting worse and worse. Time for me to shut up. “Well, nice to meet you, Hands.”
He moves a few of his fingers, and Devlin says, “He said that it’s nice to meet you as well.”
My jaw drops. “You can understand it?”
Devlin nods to me. “Yes, and unlike another famous appendage, Hands is ahim, so that you know his pronouns.”
“Okay, got it.”
Devlin rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well, I suppose that I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
“Yeah.” The sooner I put this day behind me, the better. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and find that this was all a dream.
