Page 82 of Vengefully Matched

Otho waved his hands, clapping them together twice. “It’s stable.”

Priscilla snapped, and the potion wove through the air, violet with a grayish shimmer, weaving in a flourishing column of liquid. She took the wooden braid in her hand, murmured something, and held it out. Shadows poured from it until it disintegrated into nothing and the smokelike strands wove their way into the suspended potion, tinting it darker. More magical, more foreboding, and infinitely more powerful.

“Exquisite,” pronounced Otho, nodding.

“It is,” she agreed, reaching toward it. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

The liquid pulsed, and Priscilla shut her eyes, concentrated, and snapped again. It congealed near the top of the Loculus in, unsurprisingly, the place Lex had fiddled with it to disintegrate.

No one knew the exact origin of the Loculus, though it had been recorded as in use since the 1600s. Whenever it had been dismissed, disintegrated, or even taken into pieces, it always came back together. It was seemingly indestructible, said to be forged in the same Fountain of Youth that the elixir was.

So it was true that Agatha did have an ulterior motive. She hoped to discover who was truly familiar with the elixir, and if they had anything to do with the overly eager Loculus, which according to Council records, had been acting strangely for a few years now.

Priscilla’s potion made it easy to see the strands of magic, and Agatha rubbed her fingers together to peel away the first few, discarding them in the cauldron. She paused where they grew more complex, overlapped with clear spaces that must hold other magic. Here she would go one by one, pulling each thread out gently with magic, rather than the motion of removing that thatched first layer of magic that was all lit up by the spell.

It was careful work, but she enjoyed it; spell diffusing had always been a strong suit. The tangled web of spell work reminded her of an intricate root system, and her plant craft called to it, as though it were a hundred-year-old tree or a mycelial network buried deep beneath the ground. When she got to a difficult bit, she recited facts to ground herself. Scientists estimated that at least 30 percent of the soil beneath them all was mycelial, and that was reassuring. She liked to think of the world, however seemingly disconnected, as actually intertwined by secret, hidden fungi, like invisible strings tying humanity together. She got through a particularly difficult knot of magic and let out a sigh of relief.

There. She stepped back, rubbing the sweat from her brow. Priscilla snapped, and an elegant, black lace–edged handkerchief appeared in front of her.

“Thank you,” said Agatha. “That was more difficult than I expected, but it’s done.”

Priscilla pulled a vial from the pocket of her dark green blazer and held it up. “If you would both step back, just in case, I’m going to tint the original programming that was patched here, and respell it to capture my command. Then we can command it to return to ICoW headquarters to be activated by official judiciary proceedings after they have reached a verdict.”

She paused at the sound of a knock on the door, and Agatha turned.

“I brought you all some water,” said Kevin, smiling. A peace offering. He set three bottles, glistening with cool condensation, on the table.

Her assistant was starting to forgive her for getting caught in the crosshairs; the object of her affection was currently doing a great deal for her competence kink; and she was on a roll with achieving the items on today’s to-do list. Agatha felt like she could carve this moment into destiny as one of her greats.

“Thank you, Kevin. We should be done here soon, and then I’ll go over the minutes with you and we can log the records.”

“Sounds good!” Kevin bobbed his head and ducked out.

Priscilla took a quick drink, set down the bottle, and bent over the Loculus with the vial. She poured it carefully, and this time the liquid was orange, spreading across an intricate pattern of woven magic, more delicate than the patch Agatha had removed.

There was a gaping, ripped hole the size of a fist, the edges of it ragged where the magic had frayed.

Agatha watched as Priscilla snapped a few times, pressed her ear close to it, listening, and examined it from several angles until she seemed satisfied, then snapped a few times.

The edges wove together, mending the sides of the hole with ragged bits and strands of gold magic that reminded Agatha of the little flecks of gold in Priscilla’s eyes.

“Benedict Hart would be so proud,” murmured Otho, and Agatha was so proud to be watching it, so she supposed he would have been, indeed.

When the magic had knit together completely, Priscilla leaned over again, snapped, and whispered to the Loculus. She snapped once more, and the dye drained from the strands, returning to the cauldron and then dissipating into the air.

“There,” she said, sounding pleased. “A solid programming if I do say so. It should do exactly what I say now.”

She snapped her fingers, and Agatha wanted to turn to congratulate her, but when she stepped forward, her hands ran into the firm glass side of the Loculus. It was, instead of where it should be, around Agatha now.

It had inexplicably imprisoned her, and without the normal lag time to form and reform. She was going to raise her hand and bang against it—she wanted to say something, to ask for help, to get them to summon Lex again, but a splitting pain in her head gave her pause.

Otho turned to Priscilla, horror and apprehension on his face, pointing, but before Agatha could hear what he had to say, the world went black.

CHAPTER 27 Priscilla

The International Council of Witchery triumvirate stood before her, grim and terrifying. Priscilla knew that it was serious, because it meant the portal restrictions had been granted an emergency override, for use in only the direst situations.