Seventeen-year-old Rue Winters wants nothing more than to get out of Eldermere. After all, there's a witch living on the outskirts of the town, and Alethea Storm knows everybody's secrets. It's not like they have to wait all that long either.
But wh...
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In the house in the woods on the outskirts of Eldermere, a black cat and a crow were chasing each other around the room. The young witch making a final attempt to perfect what was supposed to be a simple potion was trying to ignore them, but Hecate and Merle Storm were difficult to ignore. Especially since Hecate refused to stay the same size, shifting constantly between being as tiny as a mouse to hide under a chair and then roughly the size of a wolf to keep Merle from snatching her up.
Asher Farrow was getting slightly sick of the familiars' antics.
He squinted again at the recipe, resolving to beg his foster mother to take him to an actual human optician after he returned from Moonwood. The potions brewed by her friend in Roseview had been no use even at the beginning, when he had been about six, and now he was almost certain they were actually making his vision worse. But he could still just about make out the next instruction. One he couldn't possibly mess up either.
It was the ingredient that was causing the problem. Or rather, the lack of it – the last time he had tried to work on this potion he'd used the last of his so-called tiger moss, and he hadn't been able to collect any more yet.
A potion-brewer is always prepared, he thought to himself, glancing between the cauldron and the door to his mother's stockroom. He already knew he wouldn't find anything useful in there.
Alethea Storm was no potion-brewer.
It seemed like Asher might not be much of one either.
Fumbling for the vanishing-knots he'd tied in preparation for a disaster (an unconventional method, he'd been told, but it was the only thing that ever worked), he started untying them as quickly as he could. With Merle and Hecate still tearing around the room like a duo of particularly restless toddlers, the sooner he could be rid of the unfinished potion the better. It was far too much of a risk to be working on it with them acting up like this, really, but he had been told to keep an eye on them until he was collected for...
Oh stars.
Stopping that thought in its tracks, he undid the sixth knot and eyed the front door warily. The people of Eldermere trusted Alethea, certainly, and enough of them had visited her for a spell before, but a knock today would be far worse than the usual kind.
Today, they'd be looking for him.
Asher had never been to Moonwood before, and this trip was not looking like it was going to be a fun one. Not if he couldn't do a vanishing charm without a full witches' ladder, not if he couldn't brew a simple potion without forgetting to gather every ingredient, not if he was doubting his magical abilities more and more with each passing moment.
He was being ridiculous. He had to be a witch. The use of a witches' ladder required magic. He knew that much.
