Page 85 of Shroom for Improvement

“Maybe.”

He let out a shaky breath, and a smile tugged one corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I think I would like that.”

I tried to hide my smile behind my palm, and then behind my napkin. Nothing had been agreed upon, no plans as of yet, but Claude had finally said yes to a date with me. Or the notion of a date. Where would I take him? Or perhaps he’d want to choose.

Ooh, or the Remy Botanical Gardens. They had such a beautiful open-air bar and restaurant. Under the stars, with strings of festoon lights. In the summer when the jasmine flowered, it smelled incredible.

But maybe that was too romantic. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.

“I guess you don’t have to sell or rent the house,” I said in an attempt to reground the conversation. Otherwise, I’d go floating off into fantasyland. “If you move back to Remy, nothing’s to say you can’t keep the property exactly as it is. The sentry fae do an excellent job of managing it. I mean, you’d need to look into the running costs, but perhaps you could insist the guests pay with actual money for their food and board.”

Claudehmmedas he chewed his pasta.

“There’s a lot to think about, but we still have time. The solstice isn’t for another five weeks.”

“You’re right,” he said, and patted his mouth with his napkin. “I should definitely try out some of the other things you had in mind while I practise the weather magic.”

“I agree.”

“What were you about to say earlier, before we were interrupted by those men? Something about the ritual being embarrassing?”

My face flamed with heat. I’d forgotten about that, and truthfully, I was thankful when we were interrupted. That I didn’t have to say what I’d been thinking.

“Uh...” I needed to change direction. I had a few other ideas that were worth looking into. “What if we tried psilocybin mushrooms? Magic mushrooms,” I confirmed at Claude’s arched brow.

“You want me to get high?” His voice went all squeaky at the end.

I laughed. “Yes. Gods, that sounds kinda wrong, but psilocybins have been taken as part of ceremonial rituals for centuries. Plus, they’re widely acknowledged to unlock focus. Intensify concentration. My thoughts are as follows: one, the ritual itself might be the taking of the shrooms; or two, if it’s not that, getting high and tapping into your extreme focus reserves will make the glamour easier to manifest. You won’t need to try as hard to conjure weather magic.”

“What if neither work? What if I still can’t make the lightning appear?”

“Then we cross that off the list as well, but at least we’ll have tried.”

Claude paused, pursed his lips tight. His brow furrowed. “You keep saying we.” His voice was breathier than it had been a moment ago.

I lowered mine, too. “Because we’re in this together. We know you don’t have to be alone for the ritual to work, so we’ll try things together.” My heart was pounding so quickly I worried Claude would hear it. I casually wiped my palms on my shorts.

“You’re gonna get high with me?”

“Yes. Have you ever been high before?” I asked. His expression seemed very unsure about everything.

“I’m five hundred and ten. Of course I’ve been high before.” He paused. “Just not on mushrooms.”

“So . . . you wanna give it a go?”

“Okay, why not? Worse thing that can happen is it’s not the ritual, but at least we’ll have gotten trippy in a field and had a lovely afternoon.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

I wanted to move into his space, cradle my hand under his jaw, tilt his lips towards mine. Instead, I panicked. “I’m gonna take a real quick shower. See you in a bit.”

Then I pushed my plate away, pushed my chair back, and ran to my rooms. I shut the door behind me and let my head fall backwards against the wood—the way teenagers did in those angsty dramas.

My phone buzzed on the desktop. I’d left it in my room all day, and all throughout dinner, and when I returned to change for bed, there was a whole ream of messages from Mash.

Mash:

Yo, prof Daye, where you at?

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