Chapter 8
HARPER
The Willow Wisp is already alive despite the early hour, its windows glowing with a warm amber light that spills onto the cobblestones like molten honey.
The moment I step inside, the air hits me, thick with the smell of spiced ale, toasted bread, and something faintly floral that must be the fae-brewed drink Trevor mentioned.
The pub feels different from the bustling streets outside: dimmer, more intimate, lit by floating orbs of pale golden light that drift lazily near the ceiling beams. Enchanted ivy curls along the rafters, shifting in a breeze that doesn’t exist, and small glass jars filled with glowing herbs line every shelf.
I take a seat at a wooden table tucked against the far wall, hoping its shadowed corner will shield me from the lingering tremors rattling beneath my ribs.
The wand rests in my cloak pocket, heavy in a way that feels more psychological than physical.
My hands are still unsteady. The vision, fire, smoke, the children’s cries, those impossible golden eyes, keeps replaying in fractured flashes every time my heart beats too hard.
Within moments, the boys step inside behind me.
Liam and Theo move with the familiarity of people who have been here before; Trevor follows them, though his posture is a touch more careful, his head oriented toward every soft sound in the room.
Liam orders four mugs of fae ale with a voice that tries for casual but lands halfway between strained and forcedly light.
Theo, sensing the shift in Liam’s tone, simply adds, “And whatever food is ready this early,” before taking a seat.
Trevor, however, does not join them immediately. He slides into the bench beside me with a quiet, deliberate movement, as though giving me space but refusing to ignore the cloud of shock still clinging to me.
For a long moment, he says nothing. He studies me with those pale eyes that never fully settle yet see everything. The silence between us feels suspended, heavy, but not unkind. Then he leans forward just slightly, his voice pitched low enough that it belongs only to me.
“What happened in there?”
His question is gentle, but not soft. It carries the weight of someone who noticed every tremor in my hands the moment I fled the shop, every uneven breath during the walk to the pub, every subtle shift in my posture now as I try to hold myself upright.
There is no prying in his tone, but there is unmistakable concern, threaded with something sharper: curiosity, suspicion, maybe even fear.
I open my mouth.
I don’t get a chance to answer.
Liam cuts across the moment with the force of a blade thrown cleanly across a table.
“Nothing.”
He says it without looking at me or Trevor.
His voice is tight, clipped, the false casualness replaced by a protective tension that thrums in the air between us.
He sits beside Theo with a solid thud, his eyes fixed on the newly arrived mugs as though they hold the only truth he’s willing to acknowledge.
The fae waitress, a tall woman with lilac-tinted hair and pointed ears adorned with silver rings, sets the drinks in front of us with a small nod, her movements graceful, fluid. The ale glimmers faintly, iridescent in the dim light, sending curls of steam upward like delicate ribbons.
Theo accepts his mug carefully, turning his head toward the sound of the waitress’s footsteps, offering her a polite “thank you” that earns a gentle smile.
Liam pulls his drink closer but doesn’t take a sip yet.
He keeps glancing my way, not overtly, but enough that his protective anxiety radiates like a second heat in the room.
Trevor’s gaze flickers toward Liam, then back to me.
“It didn’t look like nothing,” he says quietly.
His words are not a challenge, only an observation, but Liam’s jaw tightens all the same. The look he finally sends Trevor is not hostile, but it carries a warning edged with steel.
Trevor lifts his hands in a small, peaceful gesture, not backing down but not provoking further either. “I’m not trying to pry,” he adds. “But Harper nearly collapsed. The shop nearly collapsed. Wand reactions of that magnitude are...rare.”
Liam scoffs under his breath, lifting the ale to his lips but not drinking. “Rare or not, what happened in there stays between us.”
The tone brooks no argument.
A heavy pause settles over the table, as thick as the magic still lingering on my skin.
Trevor turns back to me, expression softening. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says. “Not now. Not at all, if you choose. But… if something happened that could put you in danger, I’d rather know before something else decides to explode.”
There is no humor in his voice.
No wryness.
No attempt to earn my trust through charm.
Just sincerity, and the faintest thread of fear.
Not for himself.
But for me.
I stare down at the knots in the wooden table, tracing one with my fingertip as my pulse thuds unevenly in my throat.
I’m not ready.
Not to speak about the wand.
Not to speak about the visions.
Not to speak about those eyes, those ancient, golden, impossible eyes that felt far too aware.
But Trevor isn’t wrong.
Something happened.
Something dangerous.
Something that didn’t end just because the wand stopped glowing.
And sitting here in the warm amber dimness of the Willow Wisp, with the fae ale shimmering in our mugs and the rest of Anvaris waking beyond the windows, I realize the truth I haven’t allowed myself to say aloud: Whatever chose me in that wand shop, whatever I glimpsed, is not done with me.
Not by a long measure.
Liam drains his drink with the urgency of someone desperately trying to shake the weight of the world off his shoulders. The fae ale glimmers faintly, its magic swirling through the mug like liquid gold.
By the time he reaches for his second, Theo has nearly matched him sip for sip, though his pace is more measured, his breathing more controlled.
Trevor watches them both with a curious blend of amusement and unease, his gaze drifting back to me whenever he thinks I’m not looking.
The table feels warmer than the rest of the pub, as if the four of us have carved out a small refuge within the crowded room.
Yet my chest still feels tight, and every swig of ale only heightens the tremble in my hands.
I take my time with my drink, tracing the rim lazily before bringing it to my lips.
The ale is warm and deceptively smooth, the taste dancing between sweet and sharp.
It slips easily down my throat, settling in my stomach with a spreading heat that hits faster than expected, no doubt due to the emptiness of my belly.
The room softens around the edges, blurring into a hazy glow of lantern light, murmured laughter, and the scent of roasted meat drifting from the kitchen.
Liam is the first to break the fragile calm. He leans forward, elbow on the table, gaze sharp despite the alcohol. “So seriously,” he says, directing the question at Trevor but glancing at Theo for confirmation, “why does your friend always feel the need to poke at my sister?”
Trevor exhales, rubbing the side of his neck as if searching for a measured answer.
His expression folds into something that is equal parts honesty and disdain.
“I think he sees her as a challenge,” he finally says.
“Something to add to his scorecard.” His tone darkens, just a shade, revealing a quiet dislike for the idea.
Theo snorts softly, lifting his mug. “It’s not as if he’d be your first, Harper.
Most of us got that out of the way by fifteen.
” The joke hangs in the air a moment too long, its weight far heavier than he intends.
Liam’s smile drops instantly. My mouth goes dry.
Trevor’s laughter begins but falters as he watches my reaction.
Trevor leans closer, his eyes narrowing with curiosity rather than cruelty. “You’ve… lain with someone before, haven’t you? Everyone has by now. Especially in a world like ours.”
My fingers curl into my palms, nails biting into skin. The warmth of the ale morphs into something suffocating. My breath quickens. Images I’ve spent years trying to bury claw at the surface, cold nights, hiding in shadows, not belonging anywhere, not feeling safe with anyone until Locke found us.
Theo senses the shift in silence and tenses slightly beside Liam, but the damage is done.
I force the lie past the lump in my throat. “Of course I have.”
The words scrape out fragile and brittle, and the moment they leave my lips, the walls of the tavern feel as if they inch closer, suffocating the air around me. The table seems too small. The room too loud. The lights too bright.
“I… excuse me,” I manage, my voice trembling as I push to my feet.
The boys call after me, but their voices fall away as the tavern’s doorway swings shut behind me and I stumble out into the chill air.
The cold hits me with startling force. It rushes into my lungs like ice water, steadying and painful all at once.
The lantern light outside flickers faint blue, haloed in enchantment.
A few patrons mill about, their chatter rising and falling like waves against stone.
The crisp air should calm me, but it only makes me more aware of the tight coil of panic winding itself up in my stomach.
I press a hand to the wall, grounding myself with the roughness of the wood.
“You alright there, honey?”
The voice is coarse, close, too close. Before I can turn fully, a pair of rough hands clamp around my waist. They are not gentle. They grip as if they have claim to me, fingers digging through cloth and into skin.
My breath catches painfully in my throat.
I lift my gaze to find a man who smells of stale ale and sweat, his beard matted, his face smeared with dirt. His yellowed teeth show through a crooked smirk, and nothing resembling kindness exists in his expression. His eyes roam over me in a way that makes bile rise in the back of my throat.
“I’m fine,” I say, struggling to slip free. The attempt only tightens his hold.
“You don’t look fine,” he mutters, dragging me closer. The smell on him is foul.
Before I can protest further, he slams me back against the tavern wall.
Pain explodes across my spine as wood splinters against my skin, catching on old scars and tearing new marks across my back.
The wand beneath my clothing digs sharply into my side, its presence a jolt of pressure against my ribs.
“You don’t want to do this,” I warn, voice shaking despite my attempt at steel.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he rasps, leaning in, his breath sour against my cheek, “I think I do.”
His hand slides lower, toward the hem of my shirt.
The panic swells, heavy and suffocating.
And then something else rises inside me.
A heat.
A pulse.
A deep, ancient thrum that coils in my blood.
The man freezes mid-movement.
Because the eyes staring back at him are no longer violet.
They burn, unearthly, a color I do not recognize but feel somehow connected to, as if my very bones remember it.
He recoils, stumbling away, muttering something incoherent.
But he doesn’t get far.
A shadow moves behind him, fast and violent.
The next sound splits the air.
A fist connecting with flesh.
Once.
Twice.
Then over and over, a rhythm of fury so fierce the cold night seems to vibrate.
I drop to my knees, breath sawing in and out of me, vision dimming around the edges. My heart slams against my ribs as the sound of struggling shifts into the groan of a man being beaten, not in self-defense, but with intent, with rage, with something far more primal.
Bootsteps approach, shaking the ground beneath them.
A pair of hands slide beneath my arms and haul me upright. I twist on instinct, half-ready to fight off another attacker.
But the grip tightens.
“Stop! Harper, stop. It’s me.”
The voice comes hard and breathless, threaded with something that is not quite fear but close enough to sting.
Sebastian.
My vision finally sharpens, allowing me to take him in fully.
His curls are disheveled, falling across his forehead.
His chest rises and falls in harsh, uneven breaths.
His fists, still half-curled, are stained with fresh blood, split across the knuckles.
Behind him, the man who grabbed me lies sprawled on the steps, unconscious or close to it.
Sebastian turns his attention back to me, scanning every inch of my face, then my side, then the trembling of my hands. His jaw tightens into a line so sharp it looks painful. The anger radiating off him is territorial in a way that makes something low in my stomach twist.
“If I get you out of here,” he says, voice low but laced with fire, “you’re going to tell me what the fuck just happened.”
The words hit harder than the cold, harder than the fear, harder than the memory of the man’s hands on me.
Sebastian steps closer, close enough that the heat of his body pushes back the morning chill.
His breath brushes my cheek, warm and uneven.
His fingers slide up my forearms, not forcefully, but with a possessive urgency he doesn’t bother to hide.
I slip a hand beneath my shirt, fingers finding the torn skin along my side. Blood coats my fingertips, sticky and warm.
Sebastian sees it. His nostrils flare. His gaze darkens.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters, voice cracking into something raw and dangerous. “How bad did he hurt you?”
The question isn’t gentle. It’s violent with emotion. Violent with fear.
And it breaks something inside me, the part of me that fights, that hides, that lies, that masks everything with sharp words and sarcasm.
Before I can stop myself, I lean into him, gripping the front of his coat. Not out of weakness, but out of the sudden, overwhelming need not to be alone in the aftermath of what almost happened.
“Get me out of here,” I whisper into his chest, the words shaking loose.
He doesn’t hesitate.
Not for a single breath.
His arm slips around my waist, steadying me, claiming me, pulling me tight against him as though daring the shadows, or anyone in it, to come close again.