Page 36 of Amber: Deja Brew

“Sorry, Zoe. That would be me.”

“Good to see you again.” She grins and flicks her wrist, this time aiming at Karma instead of me.

“Oh, that feels nice.” The mermaid sighs happily as an invisible gust of air makes her hair fan out behind her. It starts to dry, as do the droplets on her arms and tail.

“Almost there,” Zoe says, and then Karma shifts.

Next thing I know, she’s got legs, and she’s lying on the floor in jeans, t-shirt and flip-flops.

“Thanks, Zoe,” she says, sitting up with her eyes glued to the ceiling water show.

“Any time.” The witch flicks her wrist again, and all the water droplets freeze.

Hanging above our heads like they are, they look poised to attack. I kind of hope they rain down on me, but Karma suddenly looks panicked.

“I should go,” she cries, getting to her feet and racing toward the door.

“Karma, wait,” I shout, but the mermaid doesn’t look back. She shoves past Zoe, runs out onto the street, and disappears from view.

“And that’s the thanks I get,” Zoe grumbles, flicking her wrist.

I hold my breath, waiting for the water to crash back down, but to my disappointment, it does not. Instead, it floats over the bar and lands somewhere with a loud plop. Presumably the sink where it belongs.

With Karma gone, and everything in the cafe under control, I finally shift back. I’m a little bruised from the mermaid fall—and doubly so from tackling Julian and Chase outside Minerva’s bakery—but at least my boobs don’t hurt.

“Making sure the girls are back to normal?” Zoe asks, and I realize I’m squeezing them in the middle of the cafe like a crazy person.

I quickly cross my arms over my damp top. “Something like that.”

“Drying spell?” Zoe asks.

“Thanks.” I grin and get to my feet. Zoe hits me with a strong gust of hot air. It feels like I’m surrounded by a thousand hair dryers, all of them blasting me with low heat. Not enough to burn, but definitely enough to make me feel toasty.

“Anyone else?” Zoe asks when she’s done. The guys nod, and I watch as the water dries off Julian and Chase’s bare chests, and Wes’s shirt slowly stops sticking to his hard torso. “All done. Anything else you need, Boss Man?”

“Can you order us a plumber? See if anyone’s available in the next hour, even if you have to bring them in from Scarborough?”

“Is something else broken?” Zoe asks in surprise.

“No, just the sink.”

“That’s all fixed. Try it.”

“How?” Wes frowns at it and cautiously turns the tap. All of us grimace, but instead of spraying water, a perfect stream trickles down into the sink.

“It wasn’t broken, just spelled. All it took was a simple counter spell.”

“Spelled?” Julian frowned. “You mean someone did this on purpose?”

“Shouldn’t you already... never mind.” Zoe shrugs. “I don’t know if it was on purpose, but it looks like the water was spelled to target loud sounds. When you turned on the tap, it was triggered and did... well... this.”

“But who would—” I start to ask, but Julian interrupts me.

“Mini!” Julian snaps, narrowing his eyes to glare out the window at the bakery. Which, I realize, now sports a brand new, shiny door complements of Zoe.

More than anything, I want to blame this on the witch. A part of me can’t help worrying that Julian will suddenly let Minerva off the hook for all the awful things she’s done. So another item on the triple M list—Minerva Montgomery Misdemeanors—will make it that much harder for him to forgive and forget. What really sucks is that this time, I don’t think it’s her.

“I never thought I’d be the one defending that witch.” I shake my head. “But she couldn’t have done it.”