“How do we catch a Leprechaun?” Celeste asked.
“You grasp it by the heel.” Scaevola smirked at her. “I thought everyone knew that.”
“We did know that!” Celeste waved her hands in the air.
“Was my answer unhelpful?” He tsked. “Perhaps you’re not asking the right questions.”
“How—“
“Ah! Ah!” The old wand waver interrupted her. “It’s my turn. What’s your name, girl?”
Girl. Suddenly, Kid didn’t seem like such a bad nickname. “Celeste Ingram.” She snapped.
“So, you are an Ingram.” He looked delighted with himself that his guess proved correct.
She gritted her teeth. “Is that your second question?”
“Is this yours?”
Lucky put his hand across Celeste’s body, stopping her angry retort. “We think,” he put in, speaking slowly, “that a Leprechaun wrecked my bar. We would like to question him. If you were in my place, how would you do that?”
One of Scaevola’s eyebrows rose. “Now, that is the right question. If I were you, I would find some way to trap him.” He turned to Celeste with an expectant look. “Have you made a formal study of your craft?”
She sighed internally. No wonder Lucky didn’t like Scaevola. He was being intentionally unhelpful.
But, she realized, the less he helps us, the more questions of his I’ll have to answer.
Well, two could play at this game.
“No.”
“No?”
“Is that another question?” She shot back.
Scaevola scowled.
She blinked innocently at him. “I can be just as unhelpful as you can. Or just as helpful.”
He clicked his teeth. Then abruptly nodded at her in approval. As if she’d passed some kind of test that she didn’t even know she was taking. “Very well. Assuming I give you something to trap your Leprechaun with, will you answer five questions for me? Fully and honestly?”
“Four.” She said just to show him that she was the one in control.
“Done!” Scaevola said so quickly that Celeste wondered if she should have limited the questions to three.
He turned and waved for them to follow. “You can answer them while I work. My lab is this way.”
# # #
“Lab” made it sound like Scaevola had test tubes and stainless steel counters. In reality, he had a kitchen. It was big and fancy, but it was still just a kitchen.
He put a copper pot on the gas Viking stove and turned the burner on. Then he poured water from the kettle into the pot and started taking down bottles from his spice cabinet.
Over his shoulder, Celeste was able to read the labels. Iron supplements, echinacea, sage, garlic and rosemary.
“Those are just health food herbs,” She said. “I could have brewed that.”
“But you didn’t.” Scaevola shot back. “My turn: Why haven’t you studied your craft?”
Here it was. “Because every time I try the simplest thing, the unlucky counter slaps me down. I tried a notice-me-not spell the other day, and it rained on me. Just me. Studying the craft isn’t worth dying over.”
Scaevola hummed at that as he threw some lavender into the pot.
“There better not be wolfsbane in whatever you’re brewing,” Lucky said.
“Please,” He scoffed as he stirred the pot. First clockwise, then counter-clockwise. “What do you take me for?”
Then he turned to Celeste. “What would you say if I told you that I fought in the Battle of Actium?”
Celeste had no idea what that was. “Okay?”
Scaevola’s brow creased as he realized that she was clueless. “The Battle of Actium? Mark Antony?”
“The musician?” Celeste asked.
“That’s Marc Anthony,” Lucky said.
“What do they teach kids in history now?” Scaevola sneered at her. “What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been alive for two and a half millennia.”
Celeste’s jaw dropped. “That’s . . . How? The luck kills everyone sooner or later.”
“There are ways to defer the bad luck,” he smiled mysteriously. “Third question: would you be interested in learning the things I could teach?”
She took a step back. “Why? What’s in it for you?”
“Wouldn’t it be enough that I am no longer the only wand waver in New Orange? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. It doesn’t count.” He turned off the burner and retrieved a thermos from a cabinet above the sink. Then he put a funnel into the mouth of the container and lined it with a coffee filter.
“It is very boring to live alone for as long as I have.” He poured the liquid through the strainer. “You seem like an entertaining sort of child.”
Celeste liked the idea of being able to do magic whenever she wanted. But it sounded too good to be true. “Can I think about it?”
“Certainly.” He capped the thermos and handed it to Lucky. “Throw the liquid on the leprechaun, it should fix him in place for an hour.”
“Just an hour?” Lucky asked.
“That’s an hour longer than you could hold him on your own.” Scaevola shot back.
“True.”
“You still have two questions,” Celeste said.
Scaevola’s smile made her skin crawl. “I’ll save them for later.”
Celeste followed Lucky back to the elevator without speaking. Once the doors closed and the fancy cage was once again descending to the street, she finally gave voice to her thoughts.
“You were right about one thing.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I like him about as much as a cow likes a steakhouse chef,” Celeste said.
“But you’re going to let him mentor you.” It wasn’t a question.
She leaned her hip against the brass bar of the cage and gave him a sideways look. “You think I should?”
“I would if I were you.”
“I’m not sure it’s worth it if I have to put up with that guy,” She tapped her foot. “He looks at me like I’m one of those treasures on his bookshelf.”
“Pretty sure you’re a little too annoying to keep on display next to the Ark of the Covenant,” Lucky poked her in the shoulder.
“He’s not exactly humble either.”
“I don’t think he has to be,” he said. “If he’s not a genius, then he’s nearly one.”
“He won’t miss an opportunity to tell me about it, either.”
“Which means something.”
“What?”
He put his hands on his hips. “Think about it, Kid. You don’t try to impress someone if you don’t care about their opinion.”
“He was peacocking?” She scoffed.
“Yep.” Lucky popped the P. “How much power do you have if you impressed Scaevola that much?”
Celeste shrugged. “A lot, I guess.”
“Enough to set you up here in the city?” Lucky asked.
“You trying to get rid of me, Boss?”
“Just looking out for you, Kid. My back room is no long-term plan.”
“I’m not sure putting up with that guy is any kind of long-term plan, either.”
The elevator reached the ground floor.
“In the short-term, we have a Leprechaun to catch,” Lucky said.
Celeste linked arms with him. “Lead on, MacDuck!”