“Unless the world is ending in the next-” she glanced at the timer, “-four minutes, then I’m busy.”

“If I said yes, would you believe me?” Westen leaned over to see what she was looking at and she elbowed him out of her light.

“No.”

“Then why ask?” He crept off of the bookshelf and onto the workbench proper, carefully winding his way among the various breakables.

“I wasn’t asking“, she picked the cat up with one hand and unceremoniously dropped him off the workbench. “I was telling you to leave me alone.”

“Hmm.” Wes was unruffled, but paused to groom a speck of dust from a paw before renewing his assault. “Then why invoke the end of the world? It’s only a tabloid after all.” He hopped onto a pile of old magazines and gauged the distance to the far corner of the workbench. Kate knocked him off-balance with a carefully thrown beanie baby, and he landed on the couch instead.

“Because you normally start conversations with ‘The world is ending!’ and they tend to involve empty food dishes about as often as real danger.” She tapped the side of the basin of liquid and made pleased noises when the spell started developing. “Ah, there, knew I’d get it this time.”

“You’re making fake photos of Bigfoot, I’m really not sure how you could get that wrong.”