The apothecary. She needs potion ingredients.

I knew without a doubt that she was right. I took inventory every other day, and I knew nothing was missing from the apothecary. That meant the shield around the shop was holding, so the only way in was through the door.

“Wait a minute, how did the invisible woman get through my barrier? She followed me right to the door.”

It opens for you when you pass through. That’s probably why she followed so closely.

I frowned, resting my chin on my fisted hand as I paced the kitchen some more. The intruder needed a potion, probably to bring the barrier around my house down all at once. That would make it easier to get to whatever was in that room in the basement.

The last time the intruder had come, she’d used some kind of magical battering ram to punch a hole in the wall, but it alerted me. She was probably trying to be sneakier about it.

I grabbed the defensive spells book and flipped to the index, scanning the alphabetical list until I came to “Barriers.”

In the long list of subheadings, I found “Dispelling Barriers.” It was the section where I’d found the spells to try on the basement door. On the following page, I found another section that listed different types of barriers. There were force fields, protective bubbles, and…

“Sturdy barriers,” I murmured. I turned to the referenced page and got to the section about breaking down barriers. There was a spell to punch holes, which the black-haired woman must have used, along with spells for crumbling or dissolving the barrier. I had tried the dissolving spell without success, so I ignored it. I had dismissed the crumbling spell too, because of the footnote next to it that read “Requires Potion.”

There were no ingredients listed, so I got out my phone and pulled up WitchNet. I found the potion within moments. It was complicated, with about nine ingredients, including Ram’s Horn, Rhino Horn, and Hippopotamus Snout.

As I studied the ingredients, I remembered Theresa explaining that potion ingredients reflected the purpose of the potion. All of the ingredients were from animals who could slam into things and weaken them, making them easier to crumble.

An idea began to form in my mind. I wondered if I could use the potion to weaken the barrier on the basement door, then use the expanding shield spell to break it. It was an appealing thought, but my first priority was to get back to the shop and get the ingredients. If my black-haired opponent was after them, it would be better to get them away from the shop.

As far as making the potion, the only person I could turn to was Faith. She knew much more about potions than I did, even if she preferred spell work. I’d just have to make sure no one followed me to her house.

“Jade, I want you to stay here while I go to the shop to get ingredients for this potion.”

I’m not sure you should go to the shop alone, Sage.

“I’ll take the car. That way, at least I’m not out in the open.”

She agreed, but I could tell she was reluctant. To my relief, all was well at the shop. It took several minutes to find all the ingredients. Of the nine listed on the recipe, five of them must have been rare because I only had one bottle of each.

I hadn’t taken Jade to the shop, but I insisted she come with me to Faith’s so that I could keep an eye on her.

“Sage!” Faith cried when she opened the door. “Oh, thank goodness, I was getting worried. Come in!”

She ushered us inside, giving Jade a quick pat on the back. After settling us onto the couch, Faith hurried to the kitchen to make us some tea. She poked her head out of the kitchen doorway a few minutes later.

“Have you eaten yet?”

I realized that in my worry about Jade and the search for the ingredients, I had forgotten about dinner.

“Um…no, I guess not. Jade had some-”

I won’t say no to food.

I rolled my eyes, giving Faith a long-suffering look. “She had half a block of cheese and a whole sleeve of crackers.”

Not a whole sleeve.

Faith waved away the explanation. “I’ll get something for both of you, don’t worry.”

She came out several minutes later, motioning to us to join her in the dining room. We sat at the huge old table, Faith and I facing each other with Jade in the seat at the head. Faith dished up bowls of a delicious smelling chicken noodle soup. I noticed that she’d made more of her homemade bread, and my mouth began to water.

“Eat first, then we’ll talk.”

I had no problem obeying. The soup was out of this world.

“Thanks, Faith. I needed that.”

She grinned. “This soup was another of Willa’s specialties. It really does have healing properties, and it’s made using herbs and vegetables she taught me to grow.”

Her smile faded a little as her gaze drifted off into space. My heart broke a little as I watched her. She and her sisters had been so close. I couldn’t imagine being in her position, her husband and sisters gone, all the people she loved slaughtered by some sadistic witch, forced to live out here like some kind of fugitive.

“So what brought you here, Sage?”

I straightened, snapping out of my dark thoughts.

“There have been a lot of weird things at Grandma’s house. That’s why I didn’t come for so long. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

Faith’s face creased with concern. “You poor thing. What’s been going on?”

I told her about the note on the door, the face at the window, the invisible person following me, and the multiple break-ins. Faith’s expression grew fearful, and a little confused.

“What does this person want?” she mused. “As far as I know, Celeste didn’t have any kind of ultra-powerful weapon or potion or anything like that.”

I frowned. “I know, it’s really weird. Jade and I have a theory that maybe when this witch followed me to the shop, she was trying to steal potion ingredients for a spell to weaken the house’s defenses.”

I related the story of finding the potion recipe and my idea for combining it with the shield spell to get rid of the barrier on the door. She raised an eyebrow and gave an approving smile.

“That could work. Did you get the ingredients from the shop, then?”

I grinned as I opened my bag to show her the bottles inside.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get brewing!”

Jade and I followed her to the kitchen, where she hauled a large black cauldron out of a cupboard. After hoisting it onto the stove, she hurried into the neighboring den and came back with a piece of paper and a pen.

“If you’ve got that recipe on your phone, I’ll need you to copy it to paper. I just can’t abide machines.”

Chuckling to myself, I copied it out and handed it to her. She put on a jeweled pair of reading glasses and squinted down at the writing.

“Good Lord, these are rare ingredients.”

“I know, I’m out of stock for five of those now.”

She tsk-tsked to herself as she scanned the instructions.