“Living with pods is the curse of our time. Maybe they will be eradicated, vanish by themselves, or never leave at all. We have to deal with life as it unfolds.”
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. “Right.”
She narrowed her brown eyes. “Is that a hint of petulance I detect? You have that way about you.”
Yeah, because I loved nothing more than being lectured by snobby alchemists.
Don’t react. Mila was a key ally with her lab and exploding potions and ward making. I’d never want to lose her support just because of my mouth. Tolerate her loftiness—that was my mantra when she was in this mode. She wasn’t always and could be a really nice woman.
Don’t react.
“Are you coming?” she asked. “Or would you like to make some new eight-legged friends?”
So, Dean was a gossip? I’d be having words later. “I’m coming.”
She unlocked a door in the dusty kitchen that opened up onto some stairs. She went down, and I followed. The door slammed shut behind me, blazing with a brilliant red light—the ward.
At the bottom of the stairs was another warded door, but it wasn’t a case of passing through it.
Mila clapped a familiar rhythm, but one I could never fully remember to repeat. I think that was the point. Once she was done, a door appeared to my right. That was the true way into the lab, not the fake door in front of me.
We went through, stepping down into the circular chamber.
The lab was more like you’d expect a stereotypical witch’s lair to be. Creepy stone walls straight out of a medieval dungeon, a black cauldron in the middle of the space but with no fire burning. There was a modern twist, though, that was completely jarring: a chrome workbench and chrome cupboards with glass windows. All of the vials and equipment were neatly arranged, as were her magical texts.
The décor was the way it was because, in Mila’s words, labs shouldn’t be fussy and pretty. They needed to function.
True facts, them.
Mila fished us some red overalls, gloves, and goggles out of a cupboard for protection, then got to work.
She pulled out a Bunsen burner. It wasn’t like the ones I’d had at school for science lessons. No, this was bigger with strange markings on the gleaming copper surface. Also, it didn’t need gas to run.
She popped the burner on the workbench and gave it three taps. A blue flame came to life. From another cupboard, she retrieved a glass dish of green powder and sprinkled it into the flame. The fire turned a pretty aquamarine shade.
“Let us see what this is made of,” she said as I stood beside her.
With a weird vise contraption that had an extendable arm, she fixed one of the vials of white goo into its grip and moved it over the flame.
The white gunk started to bubble, tendrils of magic licking around the outside of the glass.
“Interesting.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Ah!” She proclaimed. “Jake? Get down.”
I didn’t need telling twice and crouched under the workbench with her.
Before I could ask what was going on, there was an explosion above my head. The workbench rattled, glass pinging off the walls and cupboards.
“Ohmygod!” I yelped.
“It’s safe now,” she said, getting to her feet.
As I went to stand, I noticed a white shard next to my foot. It wasn’t glass from the vial.
“It is wand crystal,” Mila confirmed from above.
“What? How?”
“Someone has liquidized the crystal. I cannot begin to tell you how dangerous that is. Only a fool would do it, or someone filled with malice.”
Tessa? “So, that’s why that bloke exploded?”
“Yes, he must have been injected with it. That still does not explain why he was able to pass through the wards.”
“So, this man was injected with liquid wand crystal, somehow passed the wards, and then went bang. What the hell was the point in that?”
“That, Jake, you will have to ask the orchestrator of this attack.”
Attack. “It failed, only killed the victim.” Was it a scare tactic, then? Or was it intended that we’d be harmed by the explosion? “If that wand gunk had touched us, what would’ve happened?”
“Terrible burns that would have left terrible scars. If you’d been hit in the eyes, blindness. I will need to test the other vial now.”
This time, she went for some pink dust, making rose fire. It was a gentler flame, didn’t make the liquid boil. Instead, it slowly transformed into a watered-down pink liquid after minutes of burning.
When she turned off the flame, the liquid turned black.
That made her laugh—which was unnerving, like a wicked queen from a fairy tale would laugh at the pitiful prince as he tried to defeat her so he could go wake up the sleeping princess in the tower.
“Keeping your secrets, are you?” she said to the vial.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it isn’t, Jake. This may take me several hours to crack. In the meantime, I would suggest not hanging around here if you have other business to attend to.”
I didn’t fancy staying here. “Right. I’ll head out.”
“You may stay if you wish, but it will not make any difference.”
“That’s fine, I’ll go. Call us when you have some answers, yeah?”
“But of course.”
“Sorry to upset your plans.”
Mila headed over to the cupboard for more dust—orange this time. “I much prefer a challenge such as this rather than cooking. My guests will have to wait.”
“Are they waiting for you back at your place?”
“Never mind them, Jake.”
Uh-huh. “Well, thanks.”
“Yes, yes. Goodbye.”
That was it. She was done. No more need for me. At least I had part one of an answer—someone was fucking with us.
My phone rang. An unknown number. I’d saved Parker’s, so I would know if it was him, unless he was using a new one.
“Hallo?”
“Jake? It’s Sonny.”
What the hell? “Sonny? How did you get this number?”
“I called the agency.”
Oh, yeah. The phones were on diversion to our mobiles. “Well, what do you want?”
“I’m in Flevopark. I-I-I’ve found something you need to see.” His voice went up an octave and
