Jane

“Hax pax max deus adimax,” said Lenox, and smiled. “What on earth are you trying to say?” “That’s where the word ‘hocus-pocus’ comes from. It’s a nonsense phrase that traveling magicians used to say to impress people as they did their tricks. Sounded enough like Latin, I suppose. I know it because my brother used to say it to me when I was four or five and we were arguing. It always scared the devil out of me. As he knew.” “Edmund did that?”
― Charles Finch, The Laws of Murder