Double-Sided Witch (Covencraft Book 3) by Margarita Gakis Read Free Book Online Page B

drippings and hold the other ingredients. She took the mint oil and added a few drops to the saucer, then some salt, then a few of the cloves and then finally she crushed a cardamom pod and scooped the seeds out with her fingernail, flicking her fingertips three times to land them in the saucer. There were words for the spell, but she didn’t need to glance at the book Paris was holding. With her near perfect recall for printed matter, she’d only had to read the words once to have them well memorized.
    Paris felt her magic coil about her, like an eager puppy waiting for its master to throw a ball. Despite what she’d said about it not working, when Jade finished the words and sent her magic out to the ingredients, Paris fully expected the spell to take hold. She’d done everything well; all her ingredients were of good quality and her magic was focused and even.
    However, it was as though her magic glanced off the ingredients and shot off on an angle. There was a sort of resonance, as she’d indicated, but nothing like the spell should have given off.
    Jade turned hopeful and expectant eyes on him. “Well?”
    “I don’t know,” Paris admitted. “I thought it would work.”
    “Ugh,” she moped. “This is such a bust.”
    Paris looked down at the spell book again, reading over the ingredients and the words. He picked up each of her ingredients, checking the manufacturing dates and giving them all a little sniff to see if there was anything amiss. Jade had completed everything correctly, and it was a beginner level spell. She wasn’t reaching beyond her knowledge. Given her proficiency with everything else, this should have been a simple task for her.
    Setting all the ingredients back down, he took one more deep inhale, trying to get the overall scent of the spell. As he did, he caught the scent of something else. Vanilla. He looked down at her table and found none.
    “Do you have any other candles or that wick-less wax? The scented kind?”
    “No, should I? I thought those were bad and they messed up spell work. I only buy the kind you suggested - the plain, natural ones. I think this one’s even organic.” Jade pointed at the candle in front of her.
    “What about your perfume?”
    She shook her head. “I’m not wearing any today. I can get the kind I use though, if you want to see it.”
    “Does it have vanilla in it?”
    Jade pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. Wait, let me google it.” She pulled her smart phone out and tapped quickly. “No. Currant, apple, jasmine, moss, oh, wait it says vanilla is an undertone.”
    Paris shook his head. “I thought I smelled vanilla around the magic. Your perfume would likely have to be primarily vanilla for me to smell that, unless you spray it all around,” he said wryly.
    “Not at the price I pay for it.”
    He sniffed the air again, but this time couldn’t find the faint scent of vanilla.
    Paris checked over the book again. As the head librarian, if Callie got a number of complaints about spells in a book not working, or being ‘bad’ or configured incorrectly, she would often make small notes inside the cover, warning the next person who checked the book out. Paris didn’t see any of Callie’s careful, and no doubt archival safe, markings.
    “Let me see if I can cast it.”
    Jade blew the candle out and handed it to him, unlit, with a soft cotton cloth for him to use to wipe it down to ‘rinse’ off any residual magic. She took the candelabra into the kitchen and he could hear her washing it, also ridding it of any lingering charm. By the time she came back with it, clean and dry, he had set the book open in front of him and had his ingredients ready. He took a calming breath and then worked the spell.
    Right as he was saying the last words, he felt it. There was something pushing against his magic, testing it, checking it. But it didn’t feel malevolent. It felt inquisitive and cautious. He reached out his own magic to test it back and felt it