Page 79 of Summer L.A.W.
The experiment looked innocent enough with two small flasks, three sensors, and one dangerously optimistic scientist.
“Nothing can go wrong this time,” Sebastian said, rolling up his sleeves.
Magda eyed him over her notebook. “You just doomed us all. That’s science’s version of ‘hold my beer.’”
He grinned. “Have a little faith.”
“I did,” she said. “Then the glitter happened.”
They toasted with mugs of coffee. “To restraint,” he said.
“To trying to control magic and the universe,” she countered.
They prepared the brew together. Their movements synchronized without meaning to. Her intuition, his precision. The potion glowed gold-white, pulsing softly in time with their breaths.
When it reached its peak resonance, a wave of warmth exploded outward, rippling through the air like an emotional shockwave.
Suddenly, every living thing nearby felt everything: Wally hiccupped and burst into affectionate cooing noises.
The potted ivy twined toward the ceiling, spelling LOVE in cursive. Sebastian and Magda sensed each other’s attraction so vividly that it was dizzying. She stumbled, then caught herself on his chest. Instant flare.
He whispered, “If this is what resonance feels like, I’m doomed.”
The potion on the table shimmered, blushing pink, and let out a suspicious hum.
“Is it supposed to do that?” Sebastian asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
He shrugged.
The hum deepened into a low thrum that vibrated through the floor. Magda felt it in her ribs first, then in her neck, and finally in her lips. Vines quivered. The glass panes glowed a faint white-gold.
Sebastian glanced at his tablet. “Readings are spiking. Magnetic, emotional, and maybe existential.”
“Existential?”
“Could be my own panic.”
The thrum rolled outward like a sound wave they couldn’t hear but could feel. Every leaf in the greenhouse lifted as if in a breeze that wasn’t there. Wally squeaked and dove into a giant flowerpot.
Magda groaned. “Oh, Goddess. Did we just emotionally Wi-Fi the entire mansion?”
Across the estate, pandemonium bloomed. In the kitchen, Crystal stirred cookie dough with the zeal of a caffeinated sailor, belting out sea shanties that shook the cupboards.
In the library, Victoria had levitated half the shelves and was rearranging them “by vibe.” Romance novels nestled beside self-help manuals. A history book flirted with a grimoire.
Joell and Lioness bickered outside the lab door.
“Reports need bullet points,” Joell snapped.
“They need illustrations,” Lioness shot back, waving a sketchpad like a weapon.
“Since when does the League accept doodles?”
“Since art was valid data!”
From somewhere upstairs, Rayna could be heard alternately crying and threatening to hex her phone since Adam Payne hadn’t answered her text. It had been three whole minutes. Sahara tried to chart everyone’s mood swings on a holographic spreadsheet until the holograms wept too.
