“Rude.”
“I need to conduct a full compliance inspection.”
“How long?”
“Several hours.”
“No.”
“That was not a request.”
“I have customers.”
“You currently have no customers.”
Clara looked around.
The shop was empty.
Traitors.
As if summoned by her irritation, the door opened.
In walked Mrs. Peabody, eighty-two years old, five feet tall, and responsible for approximately seventy percent of Willowwick’s gossip economy.
Mrs. Peabody wore a purple hat covered in artificial cherries.
She took one look at Clara.
Then Adrian.
Then Clara again.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh.”
Clara knew that “oh.”
It was not an innocent “oh.”
It was the “oh” of a woman who had just discovered enough material to survive several tea gatherings.
“No,” Clara said.
Mrs. Peabody ignored her.
“Who’s this?”
“Government.”
Mrs. Peabody brightened.
“Handsome government.”
Adrian inclined his head politely.
“Adrian Vale.”
Mrs. Peabody’s mouth dropped open.
“Vale?”
Adrian’s expression changed.
Barely.
“Yes.”
“From the Vale family?”
Clara looked between them.
“What Vale family?”
Mrs. Peabody stared at Clara.
“The Vales.”
“That clarified nothing.”
“The magical Vales.”
“We’re all magical, Beatrice.”
“The important Vales.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Clara noticed.
Interesting.
Mrs. Peabody lowered her voice.
“His grandmother was Helena Vale.”
Clara froze.
Everyone knew Helena Vale.
Half the modern regulations governing magical commerce had been written by her.
The other half had been written because of disasters caused by people ignoring the first half.
Clara looked at Adrian.
He looked deeply unhappy about this conversation.
Mrs. Peabody leaned toward Clara.
“Very old family.”
“Please don’t.”
“Very wealthy.”
“Beatrice.”
“Very unmarried.”
Adrian coughed.
Clara covered her face.
Biscuit sat up.
“I support this direction.”
“No one asked you,” Clara said.
Mrs. Peabody smiled at Adrian.
“Would you like tea?”
“I’m working.”
“So is Clara. She drinks constantly.”
“That sounded worse than you meant it,” Clara said.
Mrs. Peabody ignored her.
Adrian glanced at his paperwork.
“I’ll begin with inventory.”
Clara groaned.
Mrs. Peabody patted her hand.
“Don’t worry, dear.”
“About what?”
Mrs. Peabody winked.
“Some inspections have happy endings.”
Clara stared after her as the old woman wandered toward the tea shelf.
“Biscuit.”
“Yes?”
“If I disappear, she did it.”
“Noted.”
The inspection began badly.
Then it became worse.
Adrian discovered four unlabeled potion bottles.
Clara claimed the labels had fallen off.
One bottle shouted, “Coward!” whenever anyone touched it.
Adrian classified it as “unknown volatile enchantment.”
Clara classified it as “probably confidence tonic.”
He found expired levitation permits for the floating bookmarks.
Clara argued that the bookmarks technically chose to float.
He asked whether consent changed licensing law.
She told him it should.
He found an enchanted mixing bowl that generated unauthorized weather.
Clara insisted that “a tiny localized drizzle over batter” was culinary ambiance.
Then he opened the cupboard beneath the sink.
Clara lunged.
“Don’t.”
Too late.
A small cloud escaped.
It hovered between them.
Adrian frowned.
“What is that?”
“Nothing.”
The cloud sneezed lightning.
Adrian stared.
Clara smiled weakly.
“Decorative humidity?”
He wrote for a very long time.
By ten-thirty, Clara had eaten two emergency biscuits and considered faking her own death.
Adrian remained infuriatingly calm.
He was currently inspecting the back workroom, where Clara prepared custom charms.
She followed him with crossed arms.
“You enjoy this.”
“No.”
“You absolutely do.”
“I enjoy order.”
“That’s a very elegant way to say you enjoy ruining people’s mornings.”
“I’m ensuring public safety.”
“My customers are safe.”
A shelf behind them burped.
Adrian looked over.
Clara pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
He wrote something.
She groaned.
“What happens if I fail?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
That worried her.
“Adrian.”
His eyes lifted.
It was the first time she’d used his first name without sarcasm.
Something in his face softened.
Very slightly.
“You receive seven days to correct critical violations.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Your license is suspended.”
Clara’s chest tightened.
“For how long?”
“Until compliance is restored.”
“That could destroy the shop.”
“Yes.”
The simple answer hurt more than if he’d tried to soften it.
Bellweather Brews had belonged to Clara’s mother.
And before that, her grandmother.
The Bellweather women had brewed tea, charms, and occasionally questionable legal interpretations in Willowwick for nearly seventy years.
Clara had grown up behind that counter.
She had learned to read sitting beneath it.
Her mother had taught her her first healing charm in the back room.
After her mother died, the shop became more than inheritance.
It became proof that Clara could keep something alive.
Even badly.
She turned away.
Adrian watched her.
“The violations are correctable.”
Clara laughed once.
“You’ve found twenty-three.”
“Twenty-one.”
“You looked disappointed saying that.”
“Several overlap.”
“Wonderful.”
“You have seven days.”
“I heard you.”
“I can provide the remediation requirements.”
“How generous.”
His jaw shifted.
Clara immediately regretted the sharpness.
Not because he didn’t deserve some of it.
But because, annoyingly, he wasn’t actually being cruel.
He was doing his job.
She hated when reality complicated a perfectly good enemy.
Before either of them could speak, the front bell screamed.
Not chimed.
Screamed.
Clara ran into the shop.
Adrian followed.
The room was filled with pink smoke.
Mrs. Peabody stood beside the counter clutching a teacup.
Biscuit sat on top of the register.
Both looked delighted.
“What happened?” Clara shouted.
Mrs. Peabody pointed.
A small glass bottle lay open on the counter.
Clara’s blood went cold.
“No.”
Adrian entered the smoke.
“What is it?”
Clara grabbed the bottle.
The label read:
DOMESTIC HARMONY ELIXIR.
DO NOT OPEN NEAR ACTIVE CONTRACT MAGIC.
She looked at Adrian’s silver audit badge.
Then at the enchanted renewal form still tucked beneath his arm.
Then at the pink smoke curling around both of them.
“Oh, no.”
Adrian looked at the bottle.
“What does it do?”
“Technically?”
“Always.”
“It strengthens household bonds.”
“What household bonds?”
“Marriages.”
Silence.
Mrs. Peabody whispered, “Oh, this is excellent.”
Clara pointed at her.
“Go home.”
“I just got here.”
“Beatrice.”
Mrs. Peabody grabbed her tea and fled happily.
Clara turned back.
“Don’t panic.”
“I am not panicking.”
“Great. Because this is probably nothing.”
A golden thread appeared between their wrists.
Adrian stared at it.
Clara stared at it.
Biscuit whispered, “I have never been happier.”
“No.”
The thread flashed.
Magic exploded through the shop.
Every light went out.
Every jar rattled.
The brass bell rang continuously.
The floor beneath Clara’s boots glowed with a circle of golden symbols.
Adrian’s audit form tore itself from the folder.
It floated between them.
New words burned across the bottom.