Read Samhain (Matilda Kavanagh Book 2) for Free Online

if she was this nervous, she may not really want the potion she’d come for. Maybe if she were calmer, she’d be able to think clearly.
    “Here we go!” I called, trying to sound cheerful as I carried the tray into the living room.
    Jane was sitting exactly the same way: straight back, eyes forward. It was a little creepy. I set the tray on the coffee table in front of her, keeping my eyes on her the whole time. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, and she smiled at me, pretending to be at ease.
    “Thank you,” she said, reaching for the cup. She held it but didn’t drink.
    I took one of the stale cookies and sat in my customary chair to the side of the couch, tucking my feet up under me. Biting into the cookie, I watched Jane, waiting for her to take a sip of the tea. “So, love potions are a hundred.” I dusted crumbs off my shirt.
    Jane glanced at the tray on the table and then back at me. “How do they work?” Her voice was low, as if afraid someone would hear her.
    “Well, we’ll prick your finger with that stick there.” I nodded to the tiny blue plastic thing next to the vial. “You’ll add a couple drops of your blood to the potion, and then you’ll give it to the person you want to spell. They’ll drink it, and the spell will work its magic.”
    “So it’s blood magic,” Jane whispered, her eyes boring into the glass vial filled with soft pink potion.
    “No, not really,” I said with a grimace. “Blood magic really means violence and pain and sacrifice. We’re not sacrificing anything here.”
    “But you need my blood to make it work.” Jane scooted to the edge of the couch and set her cup on the table. She balled her hands into fists on her knees as she stared at me with those impossibly large eyes.
    “Well, sure.” I swallowed the last bite of the cookie, wishing it was one of Ronnie’s fresh ones. “If you give someone a potion without adding a bit of your essence, they’ll just fall for whoever they first look at. I mean, you wouldn’t want to go to the trouble of giving someone a love potion just to have them accidently glance past you and see your hundred-year-old great aunt and fall head over heels for her, right? So you add your essence to the potion, and you guarantee that they fall for you, whether or not you’re there to see them drink the potion.”
    “Do you do blood magic?” Jane asked.
    The question took me by surprise, and I couldn’t keep the shock off my face. Jane was watching me, a thin sheen of sweat forming on her forehead. The tip of her pink tongue darted out to moisten her lips, and her nostrils flared slightly.
    “No,” I said, my voice firm. “I do not. If that is what you came looking for, then I’m sorry, you’ve wasted the trip.” I placed my feet on the floor and stood. “I think it’s time you got back home. It’s very late.”
    Jane opened her mouth, but closed it before she said anything. She stood, her eyes on my face as she gripped the strap of her bag close to her chest again. The collar of her jacket opened, exposing the cross at her throat again. I forced myself to breathe normally. I held out a hand, directing her toward the door. Her eyes flicked to my hand and back up. The muscle in her jaw worked as she ground her teeth. She was fighting some internal struggle, and I worried she would lose the battle and do whatever stupid thing she was thinking of.
    “You said it was a hundred?” she asked, her voice catching in the middle.
    “That’s right,” I said with a nod, letting my hand drop.
    Jane lowered her eyes and opened her bag, digging inside it. I leaned over the tray to pick up the finger stick. Pinching it, I broke the seal.
    If I hadn’t taken my eyes off the doe-eyed girl, I would have seen that what she pulled out of her bag wasn’t a wad of money. If I had been paying attention, I could have hexed her or zapped her with a bolt of power before she hit me with the pepper spray, blinding me before she tossed a