Page 16 of Potion Sickness

Negotiations collapse entirely at that point. Englebert descends from the windowsill and stalks out of the kitchen, announcing over his shoulder that he has notes to prepare and a company to hold together and that he will remember, individually, everyone who laughed. Bandit is still making the wheezing sound. Addie writes the whole thing down.

“For the record,” she says, tongue between her teeth as she writes.

Annabel leans over to see the page. “What’s the record say?”

“‘Sunbeam: Maude’s’,” she reads. “It’s official now.”

* * *

“I brought help,” I call out to Hannah as we make our way toward the stage.

“You brought a second-grader.”

“And myself,” I say. “I brought labor. We’re labor.”

Addie has already peeled off toward Emma and Lily, who are stationed at the foot of the castle wall. Lily has a paintbrush, a can of paint, and, perhaps against anyone’s better judgement, a noticeable lack of direct supervision.

The castle wall stands about ten feet tall and twelve wide. It leans — not dramatically, but enough to be a problem. Hannah has it tied off with a ratchet strap while she works. There are pencil marks and abandoned screw holes all down the back edge.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“It won’t take weight on the left foot. I’ve re-braced it three times. Every time I plumb it, it settles back half an inch overnight. Nothing’s warped. I don’t know what’s happening. The math works, but the wall won’t.”

“Isn’t this your whole… thing? Your magic is building houses.”

“This isn’t a house. It’s a picture of a house. There’s nothing in it for me to talk to.”

Hannah’s gift is hearths and doorways and buildings and their bones, but she’ll deny to your face that she uses it on the job.

“I painted a new stone,” Lily announces.

We all look. Down in the corner, at Lily-height, among the grey-painted stone, there’s a fresh blob the color of a tennis ball.

“Lily. Why is the stone green?”

“It’s a magic stone,” Lily says. “Every castle has one magic stone. That’s how you get in. Everybody knows.”

“I thought lime green was for babies,” I say. Lily went through a phase earlier this summer where everything needed to be lime green. Lily’s phases last, on average, two weeks.

“It is,” she says. “Duh. But the magic stone needs to be bright, so you can find it.”

“Plus it’s the only color paint she could find,” Emma says.

Hannah closes her eyes and does the breathing exercise Moonbeam taught the whole crew.

“Fine. It’s weathered granite with lichen on it. Kids⁠—”

“Wait,” Addie says, appraising the wall.

“Ms. Archer, your magic is like… doors, right? Emma said doors and fireplaces and that sort of thing.”

“Something like that.”

“So, why doesn’t the castle have a door?”

“It’s a castle wall,” Hannah says.

“A castle wall with no way through it,” Addie says.