Pinch, dash, smidgen. Yeah, real exact measurements. Ley line magic sucked.

The woman glanced at the front door. “Be but a sec,” she said, then, with the fixative in her hand, she went into a back room. I stared at Ivy.

“She took my stuff,” I said, bewildered.

Ivy shrugged. “Maybe she thinks you’re going to run out the door with it.”

It seemed like forever, but the woman came back, her loud steps warning us. “Here you go,” she said, carefully setting a tiny black envelope down with the fixative. The bottle now had a string tag around it with an expiration date. I picked it up, feeling a different weight to it.

“This isn’t the same bottle,” I said suspiciously, and the woman smiled.

“That’s the real product,” she explained. “There aren’t enough witches up here to support a charm shop, so I mix tourist trinkets with the real stuff. Why sell real fixative to a fudgie when they’re just going to put it on a shelf and pretend they know what to do with it?”

I nodded, now realizing what had been bothering me. “It’s all fake? None of it is real?”

“Most of it’s real,” she said, her ringed fingers punching the register with a stiff firmness. “But not the rare items.” She looked at my pile. “Let me see, you’re making an earth magic disguise charm, a ley line inertia joke spell, and…” She hesitated. “What on earth are you going to use the fixative for? I don’t sell much of that.”

“I’m fixing something,” I said guardedly. Crap, what if the Weres found out? They might realize I was going to move the power of the artifact before we blew it up. If I asked her to keep quiet about it, she would likely blab it all over the place. “It’s for a joke,” I added.

Her eyes flicked to Ivy and she grinned. “Mum’s the word,” she said. “Is it for that gorgeous hunk of man with you? Saints preserve us, he’s beautiful. I’d love to trick him.”

She laughed, and I managed a weak smile. Did the entire city know Jenks? Ivy rocked back a step in irritation, and the woman finished wrapping my black candle in matching tissue paper and bundled everything into a paper sack. Still smiling, she totaled it up.

“It’ll be $85.33 with tax,” she said, clearly satisfied.

I stifled my sigh and swung my shoulder bag forward to get my wallet. This was why I had a witch’s garden—and a clan of pixies to maintain it. Not only was ley line magic stupid, but it was expensive if you didn’t render your own fetal pigs for making candles. Just this once.

Ivy pushed her two things forward, and looking the proprietor in the eye, said clearly, “Just put it on my bill. I need three ounces of Special K. Medicinal grade, please.”

My lips parted and I flushed. Special K? That was Cincy slang for Brimstone, K of course said to stand for Kalamack.