"Yes, I'll help you," Vom whispered, the edge of his dream slipping out of reach of his outstretched hand. Bright sunlight destroyed the last images hidden behind his eyelids. They were gone completely when he opened his eyes.

All that remained was an aching feeling of loss in his chest but that too faded when his feet touched the frigid wood floor.

The farmers who lived nearby were long gone to work their fields when Vom stepped onto the road leading into town. Ever since the prince's arrival, he'd grown used to leaving later to avoid the crushing crowds rushing to get to the luxurious estate nestled into the side of a hill where Prince Ettrian had been staying.

Playing the part of the salmon swimming upstream was as appealing to him as choking down one of Hettie's concoctions.

A shudder ran through him just from thinking about the witch.

Vom found the main road strangely empty. Getting into his shop had never felt so easy. The prince had seemingly been true to his word and somehow his fan club had discovered his absence. They had ears everywhere.

Across the street, Hettie was having an even easier time getting inside than he was. The large red cedar door to her shop was hanging from its hinges. She stood in the doorway, unmoving as she stared inside. The skirt of her thin linen dress twisted around her legs in the growing wind.

"What happened?" Vom asked. He reached out a hand to touch her back. It almost felt as though he could feel her heartbeat even through the corset and jacket she wore over her dress. Warmth rushed up his fingers and traveled up his arm.

The inside of the shop was no better than the door. Almost every shelf had been toppled. Their wares spilled across the floor reaching all the way to the door. The herbal cloud in the room was overpowering.

"I'm just taking a wild guess, but I think someone broke in," Hettie finally answered. Glass and crystal crunched under her feet as she made her way through the wreckage. The wind followed her in to lift her jacket from her and drop it onto an overturned coat rack. Hettie rolled her eyes but didn't move to pick it up.

Vom was the first of them to start cleaning despite her urging to leave it be. "At least let me clean up the glass before you impale your foot on something," he insisted. Hettie tossed him a broom and he cleared a path ahead of her to the counter where her cauldron was tipped on its side. Green liquid ran down the counter to pool on the floor in a semi-gelatinous mass.

Beside the cauldron was the oaken box with its plush pillow. Every jar was gone and the black liquid from the smaller ones had seeped into the velvet cushion. Glass shards led out from the box to the wall behind the counter where the rest had been shattered after the contents were spilled.

"Looks like my thief made a reappearance," Hettie said between clenched teeth. Static electricity spread through her hair like water down a cliff. It flicked over her fingers in blue sparks until she clenched her hands into fists.

"Do you think she took the love potion?" Vom placed one of his large hands on Hettie's shoulder and felt the electricity seep into him. His beard stood on edge and tickled his nose.

Hettie took one look at his hedgehog of a beard and snorted. "Sorry," she said. Immediately the static faded from both of them. "I should have gone after her yesterday before she got the grand idea to break in. I can't believe she actually managed it in the first place."

"I'd have thought your shop would be warded against intruders," Vom mused.

"It was. She would have had to cut through one set on the way in and another on the way out. The odds of someone being able to do that without alerting me somewhere in between should have been impossible," Hettie explained.

The witch dug around the debris gingerly to collect a handful of crystals. They glowed under her fingertips while she arranged them into a loose circle on a clear space of the counter. The more she added, the brighter they glowed. One white light connected them all.

Unnerved, Vom took a step back. One hand reached to pull Hettie away as well. "Are you going to summon them here or something?"

"Not at all, I'm nowhere near that level of sorcery." Hettie waved away his concerns. "Conjuration gave me such pains in school. All this will do is show me who she is and trap a copy of her likeness in this." A final large clear quartz flashed in her hand. "Then it's only a matter of hunting her down and hoping she hasn't caused too much damage."

"You have extra antidotes, don't you?" Vom asked. The shattered vials in the oaken chest drew his attention away from her.

"I don't keep all of those ingredients on hand, not to mention the moon is waxing so any potions made from dried herbs won't be nearly as potent," Hettie ticked off her excuses on her fingers. "That's assuming I could convince whoever she gave the potion to that they'd been manipulated. Awful things can happen when people have unknowingly been exposed to Cordis Desiderium, like infatuation and obsession. The more repressed the feelings are in the beginning the worse they can spin out of control."

The clear quartz moved from Hettie's hand to hover above the circle formed on the counter. White arcs of light shot from the tip to touch each crystal in the circle. Hetie's forehead creased so deeply Vom could have used the indents to hold playing cards. A face formed, starting from the top of the woman's head and working down to her shoulders.

It blurred and shifted with the lights until everything went dark and the crystal dropped back into Hettie's outstretched palm. "Got her," she whispered. A bright pink stained her cheeks, her breath coming in heavy gasps. She allowed Vom to wrap an arm around her back and lead her to an overturned chair that he righted before she sat.

A face shown on each of the quartz's sides, giving a clear view of the woman no matter how the crystal was held. The black bangs brushed the tops of her deep blue eyes and fell to either side past her high cheekbones.

"Wait, I remember her," Vom shouted suddenly.

The crystal wobbled in Hettie's hand. She barely managed to wrap her fingers around it to keep from dropping it. "A friend of yours?" she guessed. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"No," Vom dismissed the idea quickly with a sharp wave of his hand. "She was one of the people trying to get into my shop while the prince was in there." His voice trailed off and they both glanced towards the door.

Outside, the streets were still emptier than they had been over the past week. The only people who passed only glanced at the mess in the shop before hurriedly moving on. The prince's admirers had truly disappeared as if by magic. They hadn't even made an appearance to chase down his carriage.

The carriage that hadn't gone by yet.

Hettie shot to her feet at the same time Vom took a step towards the door.

"You don't think she planned to use it on him, do you?" he asked her.

"It's the most logical conclusion I can think of," she answered. Every two of her steps matched one of his gigantic strides. "You should run ahead and explain the situation. It'll do us no good if he drinks any of it. I'll likely be caught up in the accusations of trying to poison the prince."

A shiver of unease tore Vom's breath from him. "Meet me there as quickly as you can. I'll do my best to explain but you'll no doubt sound much more coherent." He took the crystal where the thief's face still took up every flat surface.

Their fingers brushed against each other and Vom paused to hold her trembling hand. It fit comfortably in his palm while his fingers reached past her wrist. "Don't worry, everything will be alright."

Hettie nodded before pushing him forward, already starting to run herself. "Hurry," she urged him.

"I'll see you there," he promised. 

Chapter WC: 1382
Overall WC: 4210