Chapter 18

Baz pokes Kit on the forehead with a chopstick. "What's the job?" he asks in a casual tone.

He frowns, rubbing the spot where he'd been poked. "Just setting up some sort of protection for some chickens."

Dee's pupils blow wide open at the word 'chickens.' "Say, can I go?" there's barely restrained excitement behind her words.

He'd definitely made the right call deciding not to take her along. "You need to finish your lesson first. If you don't, you'll have to start the whole process from scratch," he comes up with an excuse on the spot.

"Aw, man," Dee slumps. "I wanted to eat- I mean see! the chickens…"

Baz laughs, "I think it's better for the chickens you don't go see them."

Kit goes back to reading the file. "Hm…" he bites the tip of his thumb contemplatively. This address… It looked a bit familiar. It appeared to be around his building.

"What is it?" Baz asks.

"It's a little bit far away…"

"Really?" Baz leans over to peer at the file from across the desk. "Huh, you're right."

He turns to look at Baz, a pleading look is his eyes. "Would you mind driving me there? Just this one time, please?" Kit gives him a sweet smile, clasping his hands together. "If it's not too much trouble, of course…" he quickly adds.

Baz narrows his eyes at him. "Why do I feel like there's a catch even if it's you asking a favour from me?"

"Huuuh? Why would you think that?" he puts on a feigned hurt expression. "Do I really look like that kind of person to you?"

Baz just purses his lips.

"Come on… When was the last time I asked a favour from you?"

"That's exactly why I'm suspicious." He scrutinises Kit for a few seconds. "But fine. I'll take you. We're taking Fluorite's car, by the way."

"Won't she mind?"

"She won't. If she doesn't find out."

"Then she does mind."

"Like I said, she just doesn't need to find out."

"What about me?!" Dee cries, stomping her feet. "Am I supposed to just sit here alone for the rest of the day?!"

"You won't be alone," Kit tells her, "Jessica and Aster-"

"Aster is gone and Jessica's a bitch!"

He'd forgotten Aster was out on a job. "You shouldn't go around calling people a bitch," he scolds her.

"But it's true!" she protests. Kit gives her a glare. "Fine! They're not a bitch. But they are horrible company! They're so boooring! She doesn't even let me play on her computer!"

"Well, she has to work."

"But she plays on her computer!"

"She does?"

"She does!"

He turns to look at Baz for confirmation, but all he does is shrug.

"I thought it was common knowledge?" Baz tries to lie. "I thought the only one that didn't know was Fluorite?"

He opens his mouth, but then decides this is none of his business. He's not going to be a snitch, unlike Jessica.

"Okay, okay. We won't leave you alone." Kit picks up the crutches lying against the wall, and awkwardly gets up, trying not to lay pressure on his injured leg. When he finally manages to stand upright with the crutches placed under his armpits, he motions for Dee to follow him. "Come with me, Dee."

Dee obediently follows.

They walk all the way to the back of the office, past the common area on the right, reaching the bathroom (which is actually more like a locker room) located on the left, and from there taking the narrow passage leading right towards the Director's office. But instead of going into the office, there is a door, almost hidden, right before the door to the Director's workspace. This is the back exit, but it's hard to find since it is hidden between the common room and the hallway leading to the Director's office. Besides, with the door being the same colour and texture as the walls and the doorknob having fallen off a few years ago, to open the door you have to pull a string that had been serving as a replacement for it.

He opens the door, which leads out into a small garden. It's honestly more like some overgrown vegetation and a couple of trees, but it allows the stone path connecting the office to another smaller building not to be spotted from the street. Anyone who doesn't know about the "secret" back door would have no idea there was another building (more like a shed actually) here. From the outside, it just looked like a normal, if very unkempt, garden. Well, calling it a garden was a little generous. In truth, a fence with chipped paint surrounding it was the only indication it was private property.

"What's that place?" Dee tugs at the back of his shirt.

Ah, so she hadn't been told about the lab yet. Somehow, that brings him some peace of mind. "You'll see," he answers cryptically before closing the door behind them and heading towards the shed.

Before they can enter though, there's the sound of an explosion from inside, which blows the door wide open and releases a hot blast of wind. There's a vaguely red colored smoke clogging the whole room, obscuring any and all objects from view.

"What the hell, Mousie?!" Gnocchi's disembodied voice says in between coughs. "I thought you said it would work this time!"

Mousie coughs. "Because I thought it would! I was sure I had done all the conversions right!"

"Clearly not!" Gnocchi is overcome by a coughing fit, and it takes him a couple of seconds to talk again. "We almost died!"

The smoke has mostly cleared by now, and Kit can see Mousie trying to desperately put out a fire at one of the tables. Gnocchi is a few feet away, trying to rinse his eyes from whatever substance got into them. Mousie had been saved by her goggles (alchemy required them more than potions did), which is why she was the one in charge of containing the fire.

"What are you two doing?!" Kit yells at them.

Mousie and Gnocchi both jump. "Nothing!" they say at the same time.

"Clearly not!" He makes his way into the room. "What the hell is all this?!"

"Nothing important!" Mousie sprays the last of the fire extinguisher's contents on the burnt remains of whatever it is they had been working on.

"If it weren't anything important you wouldn't be trying to hide- Why is there a sweet smell in the room?"

"Hahaha, it's probably just your imagination!" Gnocchi's voice sounds about an octave higher.

Kit would throw his crutches at them if he didn't need them to remain standing right now. "Were you trying to make a love potion?!"

"Not me!" Mousie squeaks, "Gnocchi was!" she points an accusing finger at him.

"Hey!" Gnocchi cries, "You can't place all the blame on me! You were also on board with making money off this stuff-" he clamps a hand over his mouth, but it's too late. The secret is out.

"YOU WERE GOING TO SELL IT?!" he's so mad he almost spits up blood. Potions that could inhibit another person's reasoning or senses were an extremely delicate matter. Only if the Bureaus of Magical Affairs had given a person or business a permit could they distribute it. (Legally, at least.) And while a love potion wouldn't get someone more than a fine (the amount of money to be paid would depend on the type of love potion) and a minor reprimand, it was still prohibited. He had taught them how to make the potion, only the mildest form with temporary effects, but the quantity produced wouldn't be enough to be effective on a person. This must be where Mousie had come in, except she must have done a wrong calculation in the conversion process, because the potion had exploded in their faces.

Mousie takes off her goggles slowly, "Does it help if we say we weren't just going to sell it to anyone?"

"NO!" Kit shouts, "It doesn't! It's just as bad! And if you had been caught I would also be in trouble!"

"Well, good thing we didn't manage to get it correct then," Gnocchi laughs breezily.

"And you better not try again or I'm burning your hair off!" he threatens. "Both of you!"

They both nod quickly. "We promise not to try making a love potion again!" Mousie says, putting up her hand solemnly.

"Now that that's over," Gnocchi is quick to change the subject, "what brings you over to the lab, Master Kit?" He gives him his most innocent smile. "Not that it isn't nice to have you here, but you don't usually come over."

Gnocchi was right. He almost never came out to the lab; everyone apart from Mousie and Gnocchi rarely did. It was just that the only two people whose field of expertise required the lab were them, since they focused almost purely on alchemy and potions respectively. When they had just become apprenticed to him, first Mousie five years ago and Gnocchi three, he had been the one to show them the ropes around the place, but once he was confident they could be left to their own devices, he had practically stopped coming over to supervise them. His forte had never been stuff requiring exact measurement and following a process (probably why he sucked at cooking), and all the chemical and mathematical stuff made his head hurt. So after showing them the necessary framework of both subjects, he just simply left them to explore and experiment however they wanted, and he would focus on teaching them the other subjects.

"Did you need something?" Mousie peers at him.

"A small favour, actually." He turns back to the door, calling out, "Dee, you can come in now." There's no answer. "Dee?"

A few moments later, Dee appears, bits of leaves and twigs caught in their hair. "Look. I found a cool bug!" She holds what looks like a beetle between her thumb and index finger.

"Um…" he's stumped for an answer. "That's really nice?"

"Thank you," Dee beams.

"Right, so…" Kit turns to look at Mousie and Gnocchi, "I need you two to look after Dee while I'm out on a job. Maybe teach them some basic stuff? Just don't blow the place up!" he adds on as an afterthought. Knowing them, it was definitely a possibility.

"Of course not!" Mousie assures him.

"I won't make any promises…" Gnocchi mutters. Mousie quickly hits him on the back of the head. "I mean-! We won't blow up the place! Promise!"

Kit sighs. It doesn't set his mind completely at ease (the probability he will come back to something set on fire is concerningly high), but it's worse than nothing.

~~~

When he'd returned to the office, Baz was already waiting for him, car keys in hand. "You ready to go?"

"How did you manage to get the keys?" he asked as he packed his fountain pen, some brushes, parchment paper and a bottle of ink into his bag.

"That," he tapped his temple twice, "is classified information."

He decided not to push it. That way he would at least have plausible deniability.

When they get into the car, he's surprised to see Baz getting into the driver's seat. In all the time he's known him, he's never seen him drive. Even though he comes by car to work (more accurately into town, since he rarely does enter the office instead of just choosing to go sightseeing) every day, it's always with a driver, who just drops him off, only returning when he goes back home.

"I thought you said you couldn't drive?" Kit feels a little anxious getting into the passenger seat.

"Did I?" Baz turns the engine on. "Haha, I can't remember. Well, if I did, I was lying. I know how to drive, I just don't have a licence. And I prefer to have someone else drive, anyways."

"So you can't drive. Or at least you shouldn't. You're breaking the law, you know?"

"The law's subjective."

"I'm pretty sure it's not."

"Boo, don't be a bootlicker, Kit. Try to live a little." With that, he pulls out of the parking lot, and off they go.

It doesn't take too much time to realise why Baz doesn't have a driver's licence. Either because he knows it would be useless trying to pass the test, or because all DMV offices have banned him for life (the more likely choice). Turns out, Baz drives like a maniac. He barely even keeps his eyes on the road. Kit is seriously regretting every decision in his life that has led him up to here.

"What was the address again?" he asks Kit over the blare of music coming from the radio. Kit has to yell it back, and hopes Baz managed to catch it correctly. He nods, taking a sharp left turn which almost sends Kit into cardiac arrest, "That's near your place right?"

"Yeah! It is!"

"Any idea who the client might be?"

"None!"

"Oh well," Baz shrugs, "guess we'll just have to see who your secret admirer is when we get there!"

(Kit is too busy trying to hide his blush to notice Baz's smile is somewhat strained.)

~~~

Somehow, by some miracle, they manage to get to their destination alive and in one piece.

When he gets out of the car, he's feeling a little bit sick to his stomach. "Remind me to never get into a car if you're the one driving ever again," Kit glares at Baz.

Baz just stretches out his arms and laughs. "Was I that bad? I knew I was a little rusty, but not that much."

"Rusty? You barely managed to avoid crashing about four different times in the short time it took us to get here!"

"Now, now," he makes a placating gesture with his hands, "no need to be so harsh. I got you here, no?"

"I suppose," he grumbles.

"Now, which one's the house?" Baz looks around. They've arrived at a nice looking neighbourhood, with rows of houses all right next to each other, their exteriors giving off a homely vibe. A good number of them have plants decorating their windowsills in substitution of gardens, for which there is too little space for.

Kit checks the address he had written down on his phone. "I think…" he looks at the house numbers next to the doors, "it's that one over there." He points to one a few houses down from where Baz has parked. Its outer walls are a rosy shade of pink, pale from the years exposed to the rain and sunlight. The roof tiles' colour also looks washed away, and they now look more pink that the original vivid red tone they must have had. The only fresh touch are a few vines with white and pink flowers climbing up vertically across the walls.

"It looks a little bit…"

"Don't say ugly."

"I was going to say faded."

"Just don't say anything in front of the client. In fact, maybe you should just stay in the car."

"Nonsense. I'll go with you. Didn't you mention once you were afraid of chickens?"

"When I was like five–!" he splutters. It had actually lasted until he was ten, but Baz doesn't have to know that. (The truth is, he is still a bit wary around them.)

"Right. And I'm an excellent driver," he winks mockingly. "I'll go with you in case they try to attack you, hm?"

"Whatever," he sniffs, "Suit yourself." He starts walking without bothering to check if Baz is following.

He reaches the door, also a faded shade of moss green, and rings the doorbell. There's no answer. He tries again, but still, nothing.

"Maybe the doorbell's broken?" Baz speaks up behind him. He's close enough his breath lands on the back of Kit's neck, making his hair stand on end, as if it had been zapped with a small shock of static.

Kit clamps a hand over the nape of his neck. "Don't stand so close," he hisses.

Before Baz can answer, the door to the house opens.

"Kit!" There's a young woman, probably around her mid-twenties, standing in the doorway. She has long emerald green hair reaching to her waist, and it seems to be floating behind her somehow. Her eyes, the same shade of green as her hair, are curved into half-moons by the bright smile on her face. "It's so nice to see you!" she says.

"It's also very nice to see you, um…" he racks his brains for her name. He's sure he's seen her somewhere before, and her voice sounds awfully familiar, so he's probably had at least one conversation with her. But he can't for the life of him remember her name.

"Ah, you're Zinnia, right?" Baz comes to his rescue. Thank heavens for Baz and his almost encyclopaedic knowledge of everyone in this town. "You're the dryad right?"

(So that was why her hair looked like that… Kit smacks his forehead mentally. Now that he thinks about it, he feels like he remembers a certain dryad…. Maybe they saw each other at the grocery store? He feels like she would belong with a basket full of vegetables hanging from her arm.)

Her smile falters when she sees Baz. "Excuse me, but do I know you?"

"Not personally, no," Baz gives her a fake smile of his own. "But I do know Lily Pad."

At this, the woman's eye grows even more strained around the edges. "Is that so? How are they doing these days?"

"Not too shabby," Baz turns his face away, pretending to be bored.

"So," Kit tries to break the awkward atmosphere, "your chickens…?"

Zinnia's face lights up again. "Right! Please, do come in. They're out in the backyard." She leads them into her house, making her way towards the back where a glass door allows the back garden to be seen from inside.

It's a surprisingly large garden, considering the size of the house. Though perhaps the house is this small to allow more garden space. The neighbours' houses don't seem to have this much room in their backyards.

"And the chickens?" Kit asks once they are outside.

"Oh, I have them in my room right now," she tells him. "They've been sleeping there these past couple of days, actually. Two of them disappeared about a week ago, which is why I called your office to see if I could get some sort of protection spell set around their hen house, but they said you weren't in because you had been injured on a job." She glances at his crutches, "I'm sorry, by the way. I hope it wasn't too bad?"

"No, not at all," Kit lies.

"That's good to hear. You know, I miss seeing you around the shop. You haven't come by in a long time."

"I've… been busy." He has no idea what she's talking about.

"You are one of our best customers. Next time you come by I'll have some of those strawberries you like set aside. They grow best during the summer month, so make sure to drop by soon, okay?"

"Ah…" he tries not to let the fact that he has just realised who she is show too clearly on his face. "Thank you very much. Zinnia. I'll make sure to pay you a visit when I can."

So he didn't know her from the grocery store, but he had been pretty close with his guess. A few years ago, he had found a small place, tucked in between the ice cream shop and the local burger joint that sold a hundred percent organically grown fruits. …Or so they said. Honestly, they could have been fertilising those things with shit and Kit wouldn't have cared. Those strawberries were the best thing he had eaten in his twenty plus years of life. Now that the memory is coming back to him, he does remember the nice cashier lady that always rang him up. Turns out, she was a forest nymph. (That would explain why those fruits were so damn good.)

"Strawberries?" Baz speaks up. "Why didn't you mention you liked them before? I could have sent someone out to buy them for you."

"It really… It really wouldn't have been necessary," Kit tells him, "I wouldn't want to cause anyone trouble…" His comment goes ignored by both parties.

"Oh wow," Zinnia fixes Baz with a fake smile, twirling her hair, "you two sound like you're such good friends," she lays emphasis on the word.

"Oh, believe me. We are." Baz waves off her comment nonchalantly.

Kit feels like he's been caught in the middle of… something. He's not sure what but he does NOT want to be a part of it. "I'm just," he gestures at the hen house in the left corner of the backyard, "I'm going to go get started on that barrier…I'll be over there if you need me…" he shuffles away awkwardly while Baz and Zinnia continue with their weird little staring contest.

He lets himself down on the floor slowly, stretching out his right leg in front of him and setting his crutches off to the side. He needs both hands available for this job. If this were a seal or array, he would need to inspect the damages more closely to determine the cause behind the chickens' disappearance. But barriers tend to be more one-size-fits-all, so all he has to do is set it up and he can leave. Personally, he thinks a barrier is too much fuss for just some chickens, but that's what the client requested and right now it's working to his advantage, since it makes the job less complicated.

He takes out a few paper tags plus a brush and the bottle of ink, drawing four magical energy conductors.

"Baz!" he waves him over. Kit doesn't remember the last time he's come over that fast at the call of his name.

"Yes?" he asks, half his body bent forward towards Kit.

"I need you to set these around the hen house," he hands the conductors over. "Try to set them apart an equal distance from each other."

He gives him a thumbs up, winking, "You got it." He straightens up and goes around the structure, placing the tags on the walls of the chickens' coop. "All done," he declares when he reappears. "Anything else you need?"

"No," he shoos him away, "you can go lie down or something now." He closes his eyes, getting ready to start with the ritual to set up the barrier.

Baz just takes a seat on the grass next to him. "I think I'll stay close by. Just in case," he smiles, his eyes creasing into slits.

"Whatever. Just don't distract me," he peels open one eye to look at him. He brings his hands together, intertwining his pinkie and ring finger, the other three pressed against each other, the middle and index facing upwards, with the thumb positioned in a perpendicular position to the rest of his hand. He starts chanting the spell in a low voice, at the same time sending out some of his magical energy to the conductors Baz had placed around the hen house. This way, the energy would spread out evenly across the barrier, and it would be harder to breach. No one would be able to pass through it except the chickens and Zinnia, he made sure to arrange it that way.

The conductors would also serve as retainers to the magical energy, and would form the pillars to the barrier while it stabilised enough to stand on its own. They would store the magical energy they received, keeping it from spreading out and dissolving to the four winds. It would instead trap it into a loop, circling around the designated area and creating invisible pathways through which the energy flowed, and once these pathways were firmly cemented, the tags could be removed and the barrier would stay in place.

He laments the fact he chose against bringing Dee. This would have been a great opportunity for them to learn. The chickens aren't even around, so there wouldn't even have been any problem at all.

Well, it's whatever now. They will have plenty of other opportunities later.

~~~

"You're done?" Zinnia asks when they make their way into the house again, "Already? That was fast."

"Yeah, he's really good at what he does," Baz pats Kit's shoulder, "even after all the time we've known each other, I'm still amazed by how good he is."

It feels like a backhanded compliment, but Kit can't quite put his finger on why.

"Really?" Zinnia's voice sounds too high-pitched.

"Um… so…" Kit clears his throat, "I think we should be leaving now…"

"So soon? But you just arrived," Zinnia sighs. "Won't you at least stay over for a drink?"

"Actually," Baz interjects loudly, "we should really get going. We still have lots to do. We're very busy. Right, Kit?"

Kit kinda wanted to accept the offer; all the chanting to set up the barrier had left him feeling a little thirsty. But then he remembers: he left those three. Alone. Together. In the lab. "Sorry, but… Baz is right. We should really get going. But thanks for the offer!" he barely has time to finish the sentence before Baz is escorting him out the door.

It isn't until Bas is speeding down the road that he remembers he didn't explain how that barrier worked to Zinnia. Guess he will really have to drop by her shop soon.

~~~

When they get back to the office, Mousie, Gnocchi and Dee are, in a surprising turn of events, waiting outside for him.

"Master Kit!" Gnocchi almost throws himself at him. "The new lady from headquarters arrived!"

Baz runs to peer in to see who it is, leaving Kit to deal with his apprentices.

"She's crazy! Totally nuts!" Mousie gives her input.

"This lady actually is a witch!" Dee tugs at his robe sleeve.

"I'm sure she can't be that bad…"

"Oh. Fuck." Baz looks like he's seen a ghost. "She- I- I need to leave. Tell the boss I'm taking the rest of the day off" He tries to go back into the car, but the door swings open before he can get away.

"Baz?!" the 'crazy-totally-nuts-actual-witch' lady from headquarters says, "Is that you? Oh my god! Kit? You're also here?!"

Kit thinks he needs to take the rest of the day off too.