Page 91 of Summer L.A.W.

Joell blinked slowly. “Wow. My brain’s… quiet.”

Brianna nodded dreamily. “Chad, dearest, did you know you haven’t screwed up once in over a week? I think you’re a capable liaison.”

Chad blinked. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Sahara lifted her hand. “Huh. My fingers are tingling.”

Crowe leaned against Joell, raised his hand, and patted his mouth. “Why are my wips numb?”

Wally sat on the floor, blinking in slow motion. “Mrrrrp?”

The witches floated in a bubble of peaceful stillness, their expressions soft, serene, and borderline sedated.

Magda frowned. “That’s too calm.”

Sebastian nodded pleasantly. “Yes. Too calm. But it feels wonderful.”

Rayna crossed her arms. “I’m starting to feel uncomfortable with how comfortable everyone is.”

Then something in the potion snapped. A humming ripple of magic shuddered through the greenhouse. Everyone straightened at the same time, plastering on smiles like people paid to grin-fuck unhappy customers at Christmas.

Brianna sighed sweetly. “Chad, you have the most symmetrical ears.”

“Thank you,” he replied earnestly. “Your eyelashes are curly and cute.”

Sahara turned to Lioness. “Your aura is… buttery.”

Lioness sighed and crossed her hands over her heart. “That’s so sweet. Yours smells like cinnamon if cinnamon had an aura.”

“Oh, cinnamon absolutely has an aura,” Magda added.

Joell patted Crowe’s cheek. “You’re doing such a good job existing as a human.”

Crowe smiled dopily. “You’re doing a good job of being pretty.”

Rayna stared around the room in horror. “Oh no. No, no, no. If anyone breaks into ‘Kumbaya,’ I swear to the Goddess I am burning this greenhouse down.”

Magda pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sebastian, what did we do?”

He blinked serenely. “Our potion might have inverted polarity.”

“Meaning?”

Sebastian cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “What you’re seeing is basically an inverted polarity of molecular charge. The ingredients were supposed to balance each other, calming the mixture as the reaction settled. But somewhere along the way, the charges flipped. Instead of dissipating energy, the potion started pulling it inward, like a reversed magnet. It doesn’t cancel out; it amplifies. Which is why everyone went from relaxed to destructively serene.” He paused, glancing at the witches’ syrupy smiles. “Scientifically speaking, that shouldn’t be possible. But here we are.”

Rayna nodded. “Got it. We may have yanked electro-positivity inside out.”

Wally rubbed Magda’s ankle lovingly, then tried to cuddle the pottery.

Rayna pointed at the witches, all now complimenting each other in slow-motion sincerity. “Fix it, Sebastian. Now.”

Sebastian nodded, still smiling a little too serenely. “Right. We need a counter-counterspell.”

“Let’s go outside,” Magda suggested. “Too much warm magic in here. The Goddess can help ground us.”

The witches drifted toward the courtyard like polite zombies.

Rayna followed, grumbling. “This is why we don’t dose ourselves with anything Magda brews on a weekday.”