I grinned. “I know, right? You gotta admit; they’re super cute.”
Will shook his head. “Tree rats are not cute.”
I swatted his arm. “Don’t be mean. They’re adorable.” I went to the counter and paid just as Angelica finished up and turned around.
“Our demonstration starts in two minutes. Come this way.” She and my mother led the way through a door at the side of the shop and straight into a high-clearance, concrete-floored area. The bare brick walls and exposed ceiling beams had oodles of character. I wondered how old this place was. Had it always been a glass factory? I could imagine a smithy making horseshoes and swords… proper metal ones, not glass ones.
A large white sign had pictures of a black phone, a camera, and a video camera with red circles and lines through them. No photos. How ridiculous. Grrrrr. I’d come all this way, and we’d paid, and we couldn’t have a reminder of our visit. Well, I guessed the reminder would be the trinkets the tourists bought. It still irked me. I took a deep breath and let out the angst. I was still here experiencing it, so I’d be grateful for that. Every day was precious, and I’d do well to remember it. Enjoy things for what they were and not get caught up wishing they were something else.
Two rows of bench seats set up like mini-bleachers sat along a wall to our left. A furnace sat in the middle of the room; two artisans dressed in jeans and T-shirts stood near it. I blinked. They weren’t wearing aprons or gloves. As Will and I took our seats in the front, and Sarah and Lav sat to the other side of me, I whispered to Will, “Surely protective gear would be sensible?”
“They’re witches. They’ll be fine. Even the non-witch artisans don’t wear them. I guess they have years of experience and don’t need them?”
The lady who’d sold the tickets to Angelica, stood just in front of the seats and to the left. Her English was excellent, as was her melodious Italian accent. “Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Zanini Murano glass factory. Today, Francesco Zanini will demonstrate the exquisite art of glass-blowing, which started in Venice in around the seventh to eight centuries before Christ.”
Francesco held a long metal pole. He rolled the end of it in glass beads, stuck the pole into the fire, then took it out and started his work, all the while the woman explaining what he was doing. When he blew into the pole, the real magic started. The glass expanded. Francesco twisted the pole, then blew a bit more. He worked the glass with tongs too. At the end, he’d created a small giraffe. I shook my head. Pretty amazing. He then started another piece, which ended up being part of a light fitting, and I didn’t feel any magic whatsoever. He wasn’t even using his witch powers. Impressive.
After twenty minutes, the show was over. We all filed out… except for Angelica and my mother, who stayed to chat with Francesco. The rest of us perused the shop, and I pulled out my camera to take photos of the cute glass art. I wouldn’t mind getting a couple more things for myself before we left Venice, and I also wanted to grab a present for Millicent and my gorgeous niece. There were plenty of shops that sold this stuff near where we were staying, so I could always go there later. The photos would also help me compare prices because who wanted to pay top dollar?
The most gorgeous, life-size chubby sparrow sat on a shelf. I bent forward and peered closer. It was so detailed. Surely they’d done this one with magic. How else could they render each feather so precisely? It was three hundred and forty-nine euros—worth every euro cent, but too expensive for me. I’d have to console myself with a photo. I lifted my phone and snapped a shot, then froze. I blinked. That couldn’t be right. I lifted my phone again. Through the viewfinder was the glass sculpture, but when I clicked and captured the shot, there was a real sparrow. Liv was standing nearby, checking out a cat-sized dolphin. “Hey, tell me what you see.” I handed her the phone.
“Looks like a sparrow to me.”
“A real one, or a glass one?”
She wrinkled her forehead. “A real one.” She zoomed into the shot. “Yes, definitely real.”
“That’s what I thought. It’s a picture of that.” I took my phone back and nodded at the clear, blue, and brown glass sparrow on the shelf. It was kind of like that man today. Not that I’d taken a photo of him, but it was a real bird turned to glass, which was why it probably looked so real. That poor bird. I frowned.
Liv sucked in a breath and gently picked it up. She turned it around, studying it. “You’d never know. Do you think they killed it first or spelled it alive?”
Poor birdie. “I have no idea. Hopefully they stopped its heart before they performed the spell. How horrific if it suffocated to death.”
“What are you two going on about?” Beren stood next to Liv. She explained and handed the bird to him. He checked it out, then looked at me. “Show me the photo.” I held the phone up for him to see. He pressed his lips together and looked back and forth between the real bird and the photo. “Right.” He turned and took the bird to the counter.
The blood drained from my face, and dizziness hit me. “He’s not going to say something, is he? He can’t out my secret.”
I ran after him. As he reached the register, I grabbed his arm. “B, you can’t say anything.”
He looked at me, his expression calm. “Don’t worry. I’m not that stupid, Lily. I’m going to buy it. We can study it back at the hotel.”
Cool relief doused my panic. “Oh, okay. Just making sure.”
He gave me a lopsided
