“I lost nothing I regret losing,” Witch said softly. “I am what I want to be.”

He watched her walk out of the room. There was a message under her words, something she wanted him to understand but didn’t want to tell him outright.

Turning back to the worktable, he set her rosebushes to one side. Maybe figuring out one puzzle would help him figure out the other.

“Am I interrupting? I could come back later.”

An hour of frustration hadn’t made him cheerful, but he forced himself to smile at Marian, who hesitated in the workroom’s doorway. “Yes, you’re interrupting, and I’m grateful.”

Marian walked over to the worktable. “Oh, dear. Is it that bad?” She looked at the dark, twisted, misshapen lump that rose out of the bowl and winced. “I guess it is that bad.” She hesitated. “Jaenelle did that?”

“No, Jaenelle created those.” Saetan pointed at the rosebushes.

Marian’s mouth fell open. She hurried around the table to get a better look. “Oh, these are lovely. If you rubbed some rose oil on the rim of the bowl for scent, you wouldn’t know for sure these aren’t real until you tried to touch them.” She studied the rosebushes. “I wonder how long the spells last.”

“Why?”

“Well, if the spells lasted a while, people could decorate a room with one of these illusions and have a potted rosebush in a room that wouldn’t support a real plant—or even have roses in a climate that wouldn’t be suitable for real ones.”

He smiled with real warmth and fatherly affection. Jaenelle, the living myth, could create such an illusion, but Marian, the practical hearth witch, could think of a way to use it.

Marian walked around the table to stand beside him. “So what is that?”

They looked at the misshapen lump in the bowl.

Saetan sighed. “My attempt to reproduce the illusion.” Then he studied Marian, an idea springing up. “Is there something you need to do right now?”

“No,” she said cautiously.

“Would you be willing to help with an experiment? We’ll need Morghann, too.”

“All right. I’ll call her.”

He set aside his failed spell, called in another bowl, then made sure the two witches would have everything they needed. By the time Morghann hurried into the workroom, he was ready.

“But we don’t know how Jaenelle created that illusion spell,” Morghann said after he’d explained what he wanted them to do.

“I know how she did it,” Saetan said. “I’ll talk you through the steps, but I want the two of you to do the actual spell.”

They didn’t understand, but Morghann and Marian followed his instructions, Morghann using her Green Jewel and Marian alternating between her Birthright Rose and her Purple Dusk Jewels.