the same elixir that she sold to Edgar, and I wondered if she had a fear of basajaun eating all of her hard work as well.
“Jacinta, isn’t it?” Agnes walked around the desk and took a seat before clasping her fingers together and resting them on the desk. Her gaze found Austin’s shoulders again, roaming from one to the other and dipping toward his pecs in between. “I helped you with a forgetful elixir, I believe.”
“Yes.” I sat down in one of the chairs. Austin stood behind me, allowing Niamh to take the chair next to me. Mr. Tom stood behind her and the others waited in the hall. “Hello.”
“Yes, hello. I hear you have the greatest crystals of all.” Her gaze finally broke from Austin’s shoulders. “Tell me about them.”
“Is this…” I crinkled my nose within the predatory stare. “Is this part of the fee, or…”
“Agnes, we haven’t time for that,” Austin said. Her eyes zipped to his shoulders again. It was like she didn’t know he had a head. “We need help with a potion.”
“Hmm. I can’t do many potions. I don’t have the power; you know that.”
“We’re hoping you can possibly break down what this particular potion might be so that Jessie can create a counter-spell,” Edgar said, leaning in the door. “Hello, by the way.”
“Hi, Edgar. Lovely to see you, as always.” Even though she continued to trace Austin’s shoulders with her eyes, I could somehow tell she shifted her focus to me. “Edgar is my best customer, especially lately. Isn’t that right, Edgar?”
“Ivy House is your best customer, actually,” Edgar said. Mr. Tom sniffed as though annoyed. I wondered how much Edgar was actually spending, and if Mr. Tom had to pay for him, too.
“So then.” Agnes smiled, and I didn’t know how Austin wasn’t weirded out by the attention he was getting. In fairness to her, though, he did have a great set of shoulders. “What sort of potion are we thinking about?”
I described what’d I’d seen and then Austin described the lack of traceability.
“Hmmm,” Agnes said, and looked at an old-school corded telephone at the corner of her desk. The styling might’ve come from the forties but quite a bit fancier, with cheaper-looking metal, a new product meant to look retro. “That is much too advanced for me. I bet my cousin’s friend would know. Hold on.”
She lifted the receiver from the cradle before slipping a pink nail into the hole and pulling the dial around, a system that took ages. The number finally in, she pushed a little button behind the leg that was definitely a modern addition. Ringing erupted from a speaker somewhere in the base of the phone.
“Yeah,” a man answered in a gruff tone.
“Harlan, honey, it’s Agnes.”
“Hey,” he responded. “How are you?”
“Good, love. I’m sitting here with the new alpha of my town and the mistress of Ivy House…”
“No sh— Are you serious? The mistress of Ivy House? What’s she like? Have you seen her do any magic?”
“No, babe, though I’ll mention that you’re on speakerphone. Listen, I was wondering if you could help us out.” She relayed what we had gone over.
“The house can sense people, huh? Wow. That’s a trip.” He blew out a breath. “Hiding someone’s smell and tracks through an elixir is nothing. You know that.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but I can’t weave in invisibility. The gargoyle in the sky said the deer just disappeared.”
“You’ve got gargoyles, too? That town is starting to heat up. I might need to visit…”
“The new alpha is sitting right here,” she said, and her tone suggested he better zip the lip in case he pissed Austin off somehow.
“Got it,” the guy said. “How much do you trust the eyesight of that gargoyle? Because that is incredibly advanced potion making with a sh—sorry—buttload of power.”
“So you can weave all that together?” I asked, leaning forward.
The line went quiet for a moment. “Oh God, is that her?” he whispered. “Did the mistress of Ivy House just speak to me?”
“Hi, I’m Jacinta,” I said. “Jessie, if you want.”
The guy’s whispered voice increased in pitch. “Did she just ask me to call her a nickname?”
“How old is this lad?” Niamh asked exasperatedly.
“Mentally? Not very,” Agnes said with a smile.
The guy cleared his throat. “Yeah, so a powerful enough mage can…weave all of that together. He or she can create a potion of invisibility, though it doesn’t negate sound, usually. You won’t be able to smell them, or see their tracks, or see them, but