“I have some specialty orders for Sunday and a few prescriptions to bottle,” Pilar continues. “So once you’ve set that to simmer, you can come help me.”

I nod, and we all set to work.

Pilar’s prep room is stuffed with every herb, spice, oil, and mineral you could think of. Huge dark wood shelves line the back of the room, each one covered in jars and baskets and cracked Tupperwares filled with supplies for potionworking. There’s a whole wall taken up by shelves of the beautiful curved glassware Pilar sells her potions in. When the light hits the glass, it throws kaleidoscopes of colors all over the piles of herbs waiting on the table that fills the center of the room.

I pull an extra-large cauldron from under the prep table, fill it with water, and set it up on one of the copper stoves lining the walls. While the water heats, I grab ingredients from around the room. Angelica roots. Fennel bulbs. Apple cider vinegar. A few magically charged crystals. Echinacea leaves.

Once the water in the cauldron begins to simmer, I pour in a cup of apple cider vinegar and focus on the liquid, activating my magic sight. The currents of magic in the vinegar and the water swirl around each other, each a slightly different shade of glowing amber. I will the magic to wind together, speeding up the process of the two liquids combining.

As I look at the potion, it occurs to me that if I end up doing the musical, I won’t be able to work here as much this semester. My connection to the magic in the potion abruptly breaks as my concentration wavers.

“What’s wrong, Shay?” Pilar asks, not looking up from the partridge feathers she’s sorting at the center table.

I pull myself out of my thoughts and place the crystals I grabbed earlier in a circle around the cauldron. “Just stressed out with school and stuff.”

“The drama teacher who runs the scholarship Shay wants is forcing her to audition for the musical,” Lex calls into the pass-through window between the prep room and the main store.

“He’s not forcing me!” I protest. Lex is making it seem way more terrible than it is.

“He held the scholarship over your head to get you to audition,” Lex says. She purses her lips and aggressively grinds fennel seeds with the pestle in her hand. “That’s forcing.”

Lex and her big mouth. I shake my head and focus on the magic in my crystals, pulling the magical currents into a latticework that amplifies their energy. Once the magical energy field glows a bright silver, I draw the lattice up and fold the extra magic deftly into the potion.

Pilar gives my work an approving nod as she breezes past me. “What are you going to do?”