Free Cauldron Spells by C. J. Busby Page B

Morgana tomorrow. Don’t you think you’d better take your old one, in case? Until we find out more?”
    Max looked stubborn. He really didn’t want to make an idiot of himself in front of Morgana le Fay. He couldn’t face another disaster like the ones in his first week. Besides, Great-Aunt Wilhelmina had had thousands of cauldrons and she’d known exactly where each one had come from. She’d never have given him such an important one.
    “No,” he said firmly. “I’m taking that one. It’s just an old cauldron from some wizard or other she met on her travels. It’ll be fine.”

Spells and Cauldrons
    T he next morning, Olivia left Max snoring and crept out clutching the bottle of frogspell, with Ferocious on her shoulder. Max, having had one scare already, had expressly forbidden any further spying till he had contacted Merlin – but Olivia couldn’t resist. Morgana le Fay would be teaching at the Spell School all morning – so she wouldn’t be in her chambers. What better time to search them and see if there wereany clues about what she was up to? Ferocious had already promised to keep Max company for his lessons, so it was up to her. She rapidly turned herself into a frog, and Ferocious, wrinkling up his nose, gave her a whiskery rat kiss before scampering back to Max with the potion bottle.
    Now, after crawling her way slowly through to Morgana’s part of the castle, Olivia was beginning to wish she’d listened to Max and just gone off to squire lessons as usual. The walls of Morgana’s chambers had an odd, spicy smell that Olivia remembered from the last time she had been there. It made her rat nose tickle and her eyes water. She tried to find the gap they’d peeped through last time, but the walls were a maze of little crooked spaces between stones and it was hard to work out where she was. She seemed to have reached a dead end and, as she tried to turn round, whacked her head painfully on a protruding bit of stone. Trolls’ toenails! Maybe this had not been such a good idea after all.
    Suddenly there was a crash. Olivia stiffened. There was a long silence, and then the sound of someone moving around furtively in the room beyond. Olivia crept forward, using the sounds to guide her, until she was peering between two stones directly into Morgana’s chamber. The morning light streamed in through the tall arched windows and dust motes whirled in the sunbeams. Dust motes that were being scattered and disturbed by a tall figure striding through the room, upturning objects and pulling back velvet draperies, quietly and methodically searching every corner. It was Caradoc.
    Olivia drew in a breath. What was he doing here? Had Morgana sent him to get something? But then why was he searching so thoroughly – surely she’d have told him where to look? Was he here in secret? He started to look carefully at a large cupboard on the other side of the room. Her rat nose twitched as she poked it out of the gap in the stones. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but if she jumped down, she could hide behind a tapestry and watch him more closely. 
    Olivia took a deep breath and jumped. As she emerged from the wall, there was a loud pop! and she landed sprawled on the floor, arms and legs flailing, completely human.
    Caradoc turned round instantly and had his hand over her mouth before she even had time to yell. She struggled, trying to tell him he was a lousy, rotten slimeball, but his grip was firm. He leant his face close to hers and whispered urgently, “Not a sound, Olivia, if you value your life!”
    She stopped struggling and looked at him, wide-eyed. How did he know her name? Or that she was really a girl? What was going on?
    Caradoc released his grip slightly and then, when she made no sound, nodded.
    “Good. Now perhaps you’d better tell me what you’re doing here.”
    Olivia looked at him angrily. “I’m not telling you anything. You’re working for that evil witch. And when Merlin gets here I