Sam scoffed at that. “‘Hold off’？” she echoed. “That’s like asking me to hold off on breathing. I know you don’t get that since you’re not a witch—”
“I am a witch,” Vivienne said, stepping back, and Sam’s face creased in confusion.
“Wait, seriously? But you teach the normal classes.”
“Right, because—”
“And, like, obviously this dude is magic,” Sam went on, pointing to Rhys, “you can tell, but you are? Seriously?”
Rhys saw Vivienne swallow hard, and for at least the thousandth time, Rhys wished that mind-reading were one of his abilities. Of course, the way things were going right now, he’d probably be able to hear every stray thought of a person within a hundred-mile radius and lose his bloody mind, but it might be worth the risk to know what was going on behind Vivienne’s bright hazel eyes.
Her shoulders went back a little, chin lifting, and she said, “Anyway, still a witch, still think you need to be careful with your magic while things are out of sorts.”
Sam was still looking at Vivienne like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. “I mean, I knew you were related to the people who run Something Wicked, but seriously, I thought you were just—”
“So you’ve said.” Rhys cut her off as Vivienne’s eyes began to narrow. He’d been on the receiving end of that look, and wanted to save Sam from herself.
“Ms. Jones here is right,” Rhys went on. “Hold off on the magic until things have settled down a bit.”
“But why are they all fucked up in the first place?” the girl asked, and Vivienne’s face got that slightly murdery expression again that had Rhys stepping in front of her.
“They just are,” he said. “But we’re fixing them.”
He wished that were actually true. So far, they’d been at this for nearly twenty-four hours, and all they had to show for it was eye strain and possibly stray bits of ectoplasm in his hair.
Sam scowled at that, but all the same she muttered, “Fine,” before slipping past them and back out into the café.
Sighing, Rhys nearly flopped against a tall metal shelf, almost upsetting a stack of paper cups, and Vivienne moved across to lean next to him. For a moment, they were silent, both of their minds whirring.
“Hard,” Vivienne murmured to herself, and Rhys blinked at her.
“Beg pardon?”
Startled, Vivienne glanced over at him. “Oh, um. I was just thinking. That’s . . . that’s where her potion went wrong. The spell was supposed to make him . . . you know, and it did, but it was . . . an all-over effect instead of . . . region-specific.”
“Vivienne Jones, are you blushing?”
She pushed off of the shelf with a roll of her eyes, but he saw the way her hands fidgeted with the ends of her gloves again. “Definitely could’ve been worse,” she said.
“Do you see now what I was saying?” Rhys asked, stepping closer to her, close enough that he could see the little constellation of freckles on her right cheek, close enough to touch her if he wanted to.
Which he did.
But he wouldn’t.
“We can’t keep putting out these little fires, Vivienne. We have to fix this.”
“I know,” she said, her head snapping up.
And then she lowered her voice, ducking her head. “Halloween is huge in this town. The biggest moneymaker, too. Some of the businesses in Graves Glen are set for the year after Halloween. And if we haven’t fixed this by then, it might not be safe. We can’t risk that.”