His finger traces a line over my cheek. “I said, are we clear,honey witch?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good. Now.” Rafe steps back. I don’t even realise that I’m leaning forward, my body chasing the heat of his. “Let’s not give him another moment of our energy. We need to focus on our next challenge. Youdon’thave a liquor license?”
“I didn’t know I needed one!” I put my face in my hands. “I guess that makes sense. I don’t even know how to get one. How’s that for brilliant?”
He lifts me under the arms like I weigh nothing and plops me on the counter, fitting himself between my legs.Why is he doing this? Why is my body reacting like this? I’m married, I’m still married. My husband is missing.
Rafe drops my phone into my hands.
“Google it. I’ll wait.”
It takes me three tries to get my trembling fingers to navigate to the parish council website and find the information on liquor licenses. It’s a wall of text. I start trying to read it, but tears spring in the corners of my eyes. I’m already raw from Warrick’s cheating, and utterly aware of just where Rafe’s body presses against mine, I can’t let him see that?—
“You read it.” I press my phone into Rafe’s chest. “I’m too scared.”
He lifts an eyebrow at me, but takes my phone from my hand and scrolls down the page. I try not to look at the colourful watercolour tattoo that covers his chest – a large, black violin surrounded by bright, perfectly-rendered orchids. I can’t look away from it. Did ithurt? How come the ink doesn’t shift with him when he becomes a cat? My throat closes over all the questions I don’t dare ask.
“Hmmmm.”
“What?” I tear my gaze from his nipple to look at his face. He frowns at the page.
“Near as I can gather, you need three distinct licenses. One to manufacture alcohol, which you’re supposed to apply for before you make a single drop?—”
“Oh, no.” I bury my head in my hands.
“—a personal license for selling it, and a license for the premises you’re selling it from. We have to fill in forms, so many forms, more forms than I’ve ever filled in in my life, and you’ll have an inspection of your production facility, and then you need to sit a test about the alcohol laws.”
Tears spring in the corners of my eyes. “Okay, I guess I can’t do this. I should have thought about licensing beforehand. I can’t believe I paid for this shop before I knew that this was impossible.”
“Weren’t you listening?” Rafe holds out my phone. “It’s not impossible. It’s just paperwork. Why are you giving up?”
My mind scrambles for all the reasons so I don’t have to tell him the real reason. “First of all, I’ve already brewed the mead. It takes a year to mature. They’ll know I’ve been brewing illegally. And they have to inspect and approve my facility.” I groan. “My facility is the garden shed.”
Rafe grins. “They don’t have to know that.”
“And I have to sit a test. I haven’t sat a test since college, where I failed all of them. I don’t have time to study all the rules and get the shop ready. And it probably costs more money than I have?—”
Rafe prises my hands off my face. I look into a pair of fathomless blue eyes. The steel of his gaze holds me. “You’re not giving up. I won’t let you. It’s purely selfish on my part, you understand. We have a bargain. I help you, and you un-curse me. While my painting skills have been invaluable, I can see where you need me.Iwill help you study. I’m a cat. We’re motivated by rewards. Paperwork is just paperwork. And you have money. You have all the money in your bankaccount, and someone conveniently paid your husband forty thousand quid over the last two weeks.”
“But the mead?—”
“I heard a rumour that you’re a witch. Even if you have to tip out everything you’ve already made, I bet you can replenish your supplies quickly.”
He’s right.
“They’ll fail me on the garden shed.”
“They won’t.” Rafe grins. “For I have a cunning plan. What do you say, O Mistress of Questionable Fermentation, are we doing this?”
V
Celeste: I’m not normally one to circumvent the food safety rules of our fine village council. However, we both know that your magic won’t allow any harm to come to people who drink your potions, apart from a little hangover. So yes, you can move your mead bottles into the bakery storeroom. Good luck with the rest of your application.
After lunch, Rafe gets the zoomies. I refuse to go for a run with him outside, so instead, he bounces around the room in his cat form, chasing shadows and howling at ghosts, while I pull my mother’s book onto the counter. Of the two spellbooks, this is the book I’m most familiar with, as she and I spent hours with it open, mixing potions and hex bags and performing the rituals of the seasons. I’m almost positive that there’s nothing about curse magic inside, but I check each page anyway, in case I’d forgotten something.
I hadn’t. After making notes about a couple of new botanical combinations to try (meadowsweet and pomegranate for enhancing vision, and lemon, basil and mint for prosperity), I flip open the family grimoire. My grandmother was the east witch of a powerful local coven, but the group split up long before I was born, and now most local witches practice the craft individually. Her grimoire is filled with different kinds of spells – spells to be worked with a group, spells that invoke power, that do great and terrible things.
