Wanda Maximoff personally selected the scented candles she liked, intending to use them in her nighttime ritual before sleep.
As a properly trained Witch, she had also been taught how to make ritual candles herself and how to use them in rituals. Yet she still preferred the candles Salomon made by hand, because she believed she could never balance the herbal ingredients with such precision, achieving the perfect equilibrium between effectiveness and scent. "You only need an electronic scale and some basic chemistry equipment," Salomon said. "We've moved beyond the age of tossing chicken feet into a crucible at random. Precision is the essence of the scientific age."
"But I can't blend scents that smell this good."
"This is merely a byproduct of the perfumes I make. You can pick out whatever perfume you like from my laboratory," Salomon said. Wanda Maximoff noticed that at least a third of the scented candles carried the fragrance of violet and bergamot. Thinking of the two witches, she did not find that strange at all. "These candles will be lit beside your bed. There are thirteen in total. They will help you fall asleep quickly and realize that you are dreaming. You'll be able to communicate with me lucidly, much like during a séance. Do you remember the séance I told you about, involving Conan Doyle's wife, Jean Leckie?"
"Prying up tables with her toes?" Wanda Maximoff laughed.
When he taught in the dim cells of Strucker Castle, Salomon, as an outsider, often told the Maximoff siblings amusing stories to dispel the tedium brought on by prolonged, intensive lessons—especially the jokes made by fraudulent wizards and fake mediums. From the occult craze of the Renaissance to the séances of the last century, he seemed to know every curious anecdote. To the Maximoff siblings,