“All right, I got the stuff.” Tony kicked the apartment door closed behind him causing both of the wizard’s cats to glare up at him like he was some kind of big, scary door-slamming army. “Can we get started now?”

“Elecampane will the spirits sustain,” Arra muttered, taking the bag. “At least according to www.teagar-dens.com. And the vodka?”

He handed over the bottle. “What’s this for?”

“Screwdrivers.” She walked past Henry and into the kitchen. “After you two leave, I’m going to need a drink.” As they crowded into the tiny space after her, she glanced up at them and shook her head. “No sense of humor, either of you.” Cracking the seal, she poured the vodka into a Pyrex pot. “The alcohol will lower his inhibitions and open him up to the possibilities inherent in the potion.” She dumped in four tablespoons of the powdered elecampane root then: “Lemon balm to dispel melancholy. Bay leaves to protect the user from witchcraft—used sparingly because of narcotic properties which may, however, also come in handy. Interesting that even the worst stews in the world always have a bay leaf tossed in. Maybe we’re supposed to hallucinate better-tasting food. Catnip used to treat hysteria and boredom.” She tossed a handful on the floor where the black and white cat and the orange and white cat began drooling all over it. “And a little valerian because, well—why not; your herbalists call it heal-all and we can use the insurance.”

Tony leaned toward the pot and then back again, nose wrinkling. “It stinks.”

“It always does.”

“It doesn’t look like wizardry either. It looks like . . .”

“Like something my mother used to do,” Henry finished. “Ignoring the vodka, of course.”

“Oh, don’t ignore the vodka.” Arra tipped the bottle back and took a drink.

“I get the feeling you’re not taking this seriously,” Tony snarled.

She nodded toward Henry. “Ask him if I’m not taking this seriously.”

“You’re taking him seriously, but the whole shadow thing . . .”

“Is something I’ve been through before and if I was taking it as seriously as you think I should be, I’d be sitting in the closet with a blanket over my head unable to function. I watched a good green land destroyed and the people right along with it. So, to put it in a way you might understand, to put it, in fact, in the vernacular of this world, if you don’t think I’m taking this seriously, you can kiss my wrinkled ass!”

The rhythmic thrum of two cats purring, the buzz from the fluorescent light over the sink, the shuff of clothes rearranging as Tony shifted his weight—but mostly silence. He felt he should apologize, had a strong suspicion Henry was waiting for him to apologize, but he wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t sorry—he was right. Arra had messed with his memory, let Lee be taken over by shadow, and, in spite of knowing that the evil wizard was spying on them, had no intention of doing anything but playing computer games. If he hadn’t gotten his memories back, if he hadn’t brought Henry with him, she’d still be sitting on her wrinkled ass.