Page 74 of Potion Sickness

“He takes that one every day,” Skye says. “As long as I’ve known him. That one’s been in his life longer than I have.”

“So, they’re all different sellers?” I say.

“For the most part,” she says, setting the last bottle down. “And none of them, technically, did anything wrong. Every one of them dosed him for a clean system.”

“The catalog seller most certainly did,” Englebert says. “Marigold, you will draft a complaint tonight.”

“What?”

“You’ll draft a report to the Council, of course. Unlicensed commercial distribution of a heart philter, over the internet, is absurd.” His tail moves once. “We didn’t escape Salem for the magical arts to become a subscription model.”

* * *

There’s one more thing left to address.

“Skye,” I say. “The article. The Daytime Dish.”

“What about it?”

“Do you know who did it?”

“Everybody’s asked me that. Everybody. Everyone thinks it was me. That I was worried about Vivian and that I leaked the story so that they’d stay away from each other, or something. I don’t know.”

“And it wasn’t you?”

“No. Why would I do that? I don’t have any problem with Vivian. I know there’s nothing there. She’s married — to a woman — and she’s like, fifty-something.” She looks at the little bottle on the table. “It was Pru I was worried about. He follows her around and she’s like the only person in the world who isn’t impressed with him and it feels like he likes that.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s the only person who isn’t impressed with him,” I say.

“I could name quite a few,” Englebert says. “Quite a few in this room, in fact.”

“The photos, though,” I say. “They were great photos. Whoever leaked the story was media savvy, to say the least. You’re the most media savvy person around.”

“I take pictures for Instagram,” Skye says. “That’s not the same as knowing how to talk to a magazine.”

“It’s closer than anyone else in Duskboro gets.”

“It wasn’t me who sent it. I swear,” she insists again. “I’ll take a truth serum, if you want me to. I swear it wasn’t me.”

“Are truth serums a thing?” I ask.

“They are, and they’re quite unpleasant,” Annabel says.

“I hardly think that’d be necessary,” Englebert says, lifting his chin. “She’s proven herself honest so far. No sane person would volunteer for a truth serum if they aren’t, in fact, telling the truth.”

* * *

We leave soon after. Annabel takes the bottles, prepared to head back to her shop to start working on a remedy. I can tell she’s already started brewing in her head.

Skye stops us at the door.

“What will happen to me?” she asks. “Am I going to get in trouble?”

“Not with any of us,” I say. “Maybe with Damien.”

Annabel shifts her bag on her shoulder. “When he wakes up, you need to tell him what you did. He needs to hear it from you. Not from me, or from Mari, or from his mother, or from the town.”

“What if he doesn’t want to hear it?”