Page 59 of Summer L.A.W.

Sebastian’s analytical mask slipped for a second, long enough for curiosity to win. “May I come back tomorrow to observe under daylight?”

She pretended to think. “Fine. But bring coffee. The real kind, not whatever logical decaf you drink.”

He nodded once, professional again. “I’ll bring both. What about bringing my assistant?”

“Absolutely not. I don’t need more skeptics.”

As he turned to leave, Magda caught herself smiling, then scowled at the realization. She shooed the vines back into place.

“Don’t get ideas,” she told them. “He’s just here for data.”

The vines rustled, as if even they didn’t believe her.

16

The greenhouse smelled like rosewater and Caesar salad. Magda stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the bizarre new setup that had invaded her sanctuary. Her beloved cauldron bubbled on one side of the worktable while, on the other, a sleek gray laptop blinked awake beside a humming centrifuge. It looked like Hogwarts had merged with a pharmaceutical lab, and nobody had filed any zoning paperwork.

Sebastian Voss adjusted his glasses, already setting up a spreadsheet. “If we’re testing cross-reactivity, we’ll need at least eight sample sets. I’ve labeled the beakers A through H for clarity.”

Magda plucked the first label off and replaced it with another one that read Hope. “There. Now it’s clearer.”

He blinked. “You renamed them?”

“Just the boring ones. You can keep your alphabet if it makes you feel safe. I’ll use real names.”

“Real?”

She pointed down the line of glass. “Hope, Passion, Serendipity, Disaster, Oops, Maybe, Lust, and Don’t Sniff That One.” She smirked, despite trying not to.

Sebastian exhaled like a man calculating the half-life of patience. “This is supposed to be controlled science.”

“Then control me, Professor,” she said sweetly. “Or you can try to…”

He nearly swallowed his tongue. “Wait. You’re just kidding around, right?”

“Um… Yes?”

Wally hopped onto the table and grabbed Sebastian’s laser pointer before either of them noticed. A red dot danced across the far wall. The wallaby chirped and pounced, then aimed the beam directly at a row of hanging ferns.

“Wally, no!” Magda lunged. “Not the⁠—”

Too late. The fern fronds exploded in a shower of spores, coating Sebastian’s lab coat in sparkly green dust.

He froze, blinking through the glitter storm. “Is this safe?”

“Depends. Do you have any allergies to whimsy?”

He groaned and brushed off his sleeves.

“I take it that’s a yes.”

She caught the hint of a grin tugging at his mouth. Not much, but enough to make her stomach perform a small interpretive dance.

They fell into an uneasy rhythm. She stirred; he measured. She whispered invocations; he adjusted temperature settings. Whenever she leaned too close, he cleared his throat and backed up. Whenever he got that distant, data-drunk look, she clattered something noisy to make him notice she still existed.

After an hour, the cauldron’s contents shimmered pale pink, releasing a faint, floral mist. Magda leaned in, inhaling. “There it is… the first spark of affection.”

Sebastian bent over the sample, his tone clinical. “Or chemical luminescence.”