Page 77 of Bright Dark Curses

“Then there you go. Nothing suspicious. Youth these days—completely useless.”

Choosing not to rise to the bait, I stayed silent and stomped my way into the bathroom. Key followed, looking torn between laughing and being horrified.

The bathroom counter was filled to the brim with makeup, tools, and creams. Empty toiletry bags were stacked inside the bath towels basket, and a peek into the drawers showed different unlabeled bottles.

“Now we’re talking,” I murmured, picking a bottle and bringing it against the overhead light. The liquid inside was thick and light brown. It didn’t scream potion, but if I were a dark witch, I would try to disguise my spells.

“You think this is it?” Key asked, picking another of the small bottles.

“Maybe.”

“Better test it out on yourself to make sure,” Bagley suggested in her sweet grandmotherly voice.

Key put the glass down with great alacrity.

“Don’t scare Key,” I said. “She can put you in a hole deeper than anything I can dig up. Unless you want to make friends with dinosaur bones?”

“They might be more interesting than you.”

Rehabilitation, Hope, not punishment. Inhaling deeply, I produced a bright smile. “Let’s check for magic first.”

Key nodded, edging farther toward the exit of the bathroom.

“If you want to be a bounty hunter,” I told her, not unkindly, “you better get used to dealing with people like Bagley.”

“Ms. Bagley.”

“Plenty of evil spawns out there,” I added.

Key bit her lip, then approached again.

“Now, where were we?” I mused.

“Nowhere near finding if this is a potion.”

Fighting the urge to yeet Bagley out the window, I took off one glove and awakened my magic. Checking if there was magic inside the bottle was the fastest way to know what we were dealing with.

Detect.

My power threaded through my veins, down my arm, pooling in my fingerprints and testing the glass and the contents beyond. There was no reaction, so I moved onto the next bottle.

Detect.

A faint trace of magic bounced back from the glass, and I put it on the counter. “This one has some magic.”

Key oohed in a very ego-bolstering way, and I tested the next three bottles. Two were normal, but the third resonated with magic as well. When I put the normal bottles back, I saw a small pouch shoved into the back of the drawer. One good sniff told me it contained a mix of herbs.

This was promising.

“How can we tell if it’s dark magic?” Key asked.

“Ms. Bagley?”

“You got a blood test kit?”

No, but that was an excellent suggestion. So good, I was tempted to extend her out-of-locker time to a whole four days. “I can find one.”

“Maybe tonight?” Key asked, hopeful. “We can come back and test.”

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