Page 14 of Locked
"That is not an answer to my question," I countered with a sniff. "Besides, she's not a faery," I scoffed. "She's a very powerful witch."
"Afaerywitch, maybe…" Basil muttered under his breath.
"Stop it, she's not."
"She stole you from your parents. It all makes sense, Zelle! Faeries steal children. They have powerful magic, and they cansenseit on other people."
"Basil. Stop." I shook my head. "This is ridiculous. She's not faefolk. And witches can sense it too, or did you forget that I can sense magic users as well? I can certainly smell you from a mile away."
He sighed, leaving my hyperbole alone for the time being. "Okay…" he mused, and went back to licking his paws.
I went back to my research, making notes and glancing over at my herb arsenal. I was fairly certain I had everything I needed.
Well, except for one thing…
Perisage for the incense. It was a magical hybrid herb that came from crossing sage with periwinkle. I had periwinkle, but no sage.
I wondered how I could convince Mother to bring me some sage without rousing suspicion. If I could, I would very well be on the way to a possible fix.
It was a cooking herb. Maybe I could tell her I wanted to prepare a pork roast or something.
I wrinkled my nose at the thought. She'd see right through that. It'd have to be something else. Something completely benign and innocent. A sudden affinity forporkwas definitely not innocent.
I regretted that particular mental analogy the second I thought of it.
Besides… I'd found, in my years of hiding things from Mother, that it often worked better to pepper in half-truths rather than full on lies.
It might work in my favor (and be quicker in the long run) to flat out ask her for perisage. I'd just need to find more uses for it, something that I could feasibly need it for, or at the very least,fakeneeding it for.
But that would have to wait until later. I had a chat session planned with Kinden that began in a few minutes.
"So it's a maybe?" Kinden asked, multiple excitement emojis following his message. "We might be able to try a video chat?"
I couldn't help but smile. Good news apparently travelled fast between my guys.
"So, you talked to Rifyr…" I replied.
"Maybe…"
"Well, that's my answer as well. Maybe. I don't know if the magic will work out. I still need to either find or propagate some perisage before I can even test it."
"Perisage? People use that for headaches sometimes."
"Oh, really? Maybe I could start complaining to Mother about headaches and ask for some for a headache tincture? Do you think Mother would buy that?"
"I think you would know better than I would, but it's worth a shot," he replied. "Of course, we still don't know if this spell will even work…"
"True, but I think I know how to test it."
"Isn't that dangerous?" he asked. "If the test doesn't work…"
"I'm going to make a video of Basil or take some pictures of my plants or something. If Mother says something about it, I have the physical proof that I wasn't up to anything wonky. If she doesn't, then I'll know I can go ahead and do video chat with you guys."
"I still wish there was a better way. Like me and Rifyr swinging in through the roof and breaking you out."
I smiled. Forever the romantic, Kinden loved to say things like that.
"That would make the building blow up," I reminded him.
