This is your Spellbound Romantasy: Witch Love Chronicles podcast.



Welcome back, magical romantics! This is Jaden, and you're listening to Spellbound Romantasy: Witch Love Chronicles. Tonight's tale is one that's particularly close to my heart, featuring a dash of chaos, a sprinkle of destiny, and a whole lot of accidental enchantment. So grab your favorite potion-drinking mug, cozy up, and let me tell you about The Accidental Enchantment of Archmage Andrews.

Hazel Blackwood was precisely the kind of witch who shouldn't be allowed near a cauldron unsupervised. Not because she was bad at potions – quite the opposite. Her problem was an incurable tendency to "improve" perfectly good recipes. As the Academy's most promising kitchen witch, she had a natural talent for infusing magic into the most mundane dishes. But when it came to actual potions? Let's just say her improvements often led to interesting... surprises.

Her familiar, a particularly smug black cat named Pepper, watched from his perch atop the kitchen counter as Hazel stirred her latest creation – a love potion she'd been commissioned to brew for the upcoming Spring Equinox Festival.

"You know," Pepper drawled, his tail swishing lazily, "the traditional recipe calls for rose petals, not wild thornberry blossoms."

"Traditional is boring," Hazel replied, dropping the shimmering purple petals into her bubbling cauldron. "Besides, thornberry represents passionate love, while roses are so... predictable."

Pepper's whiskers twitched. "And the fact that thornberry happens to be Archmage Andrews' favorite magical ingredient has nothing to do with your decision?"

Hazel's cheeks flushed pink. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Everyone knew about Hazel's crush on Marcus Andrews, the youngest Archmage in the Academy's history. At thirty-two, he was only five years her senior and absolutely brilliant – if somewhat stuffy about following proper magical protocols. The exact opposite of Hazel's experimental nature.

What happened next was, as Pepper would later claim, entirely predictable. The potion bubbled over, sending sparkles of magic dancing through the air just as Marcus Andrews himself walked into the kitchen, looking for his afternoon tea.

Time seemed to slow as one particularly enthusiastic drop of potion arced through the air and landed directly on his lips.

His steel-gray eyes widened, then glazed over with a distinctly purple sheen. "Hazel," he breathed, "have your eyes always been the exact color of perfectly brewed midnight tea?"

Hazel's heart stopped. "Oh no. No, no, no..."

But Pepper was purring with delight. "Oh yes, yes, yes!"

What followed was a week of utter chaos. Marcus Andrews, usually the very picture of magical decorum, began writing poetry about Hazel's "cauldron-stirring technique." He enchanted the academy's suits of armor to serenade her between classes. At one point, he even transformed the entire Great Hall's ceiling into a constellation spelling out "Hazel + Marcus" in twinkling stars.

Hazel was mortified. "We have to break the spell," she insisted to Pepper, who seemed suspiciously unhelpful.

"Do we though?" the cat asked, watching as Marcus conjured heart-shaped butterflies to follow Hazel around. "Because I'm fairly certain your experimental thornberry addition should have worn off after twenty-four hours. And it's been seven days."

That's when Hazel noticed something peculiar. The purple sheen in Marcus's eyes had indeed faded after the first day. And yet...

The truth finally emerged during the Spring Equinox Festival itself, when Hazel confronted Marcus with the antidote she'd spent days preparing.

"I don't need it," he admitted, looking somewhat sheepish. "The potion wore off last week. I just... didn't want to stop...