Chapter 1
ELLIE
The duck was perfect.
I knew it was perfect because I'd plated this dish a hundred times in the last six months.
Seared breast, skin crisped to a deep mahogany, fanned over blackberry gastrique that caught the light like dark glass.
Crispy kale tucked along the edge. Pomegranate seeds scattered across the top like drops of blood.
Chef had praised it when I first designed it. Customers asked for it by name. It was the kind of dish that should have made me feel something.
It didn't.
The heat from the line pressed against my back.
Pans clanged. Someone shouted for more salmon.
The exhaust fans roared overhead, but they never quite cleared the air—it was always too hot, too greasy, too thick with garlic and fat and steam.
I moved through it all with the kind of precision that came from two years of showing up, doing the work, and going home to an empty apartment.
I slid the plate onto the pass and turned back to my station. Three more duck orders. A steak. Two vegetarian mains that needed plating in five minutes. My hands moved without thought, reaching for ingredients, adjusting heat, checking temperatures. Muscle memory. That's all this was now.
It hadn't always been like this.
I used to love the kitchen. The chaos, the precision, the way a perfect dish could make someone's night. Mum had taught me that—taught me that food was love made visible, that feeding someone was one of the most honest things you could do. I'd believed her. I'd built my life around that belief.
Then Nathan had taken everything, and I'd learned that some things couldn't be fixed with a good meal and a warm smile.
"Ellie, you good?" Marco called from the line. He was one of the cooks—shifter, mid-thirties, usually full of energy. Lately, though, he'd been moving slower. His edges looked softer somehow, like something vital had been leached out of him.
"Fine," I said.
He nodded and went back to his station, but I caught the way his hand trembled slightly as he flipped a pan. He'd mentioned being tired last week. Said his wolf felt distant, like trying to hear someone through a thick wall.
"Everyone's tired," someone had muttered.
The conversation had ended there.
I plated the next duck. Then another. The rhythm was soothing in its emptiness—do the work, don't think, don't feel, just move.
In the break room, the TV played with the sound off. Subtitles scrolled across the bottom. Earthquake in Chile—6.8 magnitude. Death toll rising. Another line appeared beneath it. Fertility rates continue historic decline across Europe.
No one was watching. After five years, it wasn’t breaking news anymore.
I finished the vegetarian plates and wiped down my station. Across the kitchen, Sienna—the prep witch who worked part-time—was sealing containers of marinated meat with preservation charms. Her hands moved in the familiar patterns, but the magic flickered. Once. Twice. She frowned and tried again.
On the third attempt, the charm held.
"Bloody thing's been touchy all week," she muttered.
I said nothing. Just filed it away with all the other small wrongnesses I'd been noticing.
The supplier who'd called yesterday to say pomegranates were harder to source.
The third ingredient this month that had become unavailable.
Chef grumbling about costs rising faster than he could adjust the menu.
Little fractures in the world. Little signs that something was breaking. Or maybe it was just me breaking.
Service ended. I cleaned my station, changed out of my chef's whites, and walked out into the Manchester drizzle. The tram rattled past. People hurried by with their heads down, umbrellas angled against the wind.
The sky was grey. It was always grey now, or maybe I just remembered it that way.
My flat was a ten-minute walk. Small. Tidy. Impersonal in the way places became when you stopped caring about making them feel like home. I unlocked the door, dropped my bag on the counter, and stood in the kitchen staring at the fridge.
I should make dinner.
I didn't.
Instead, I went to bed at eight PM, still in my clothes, and lay there staring at the ceiling. I should call the grave keeper. I hadn't visited Mum's grave in three months. I should care about that.
Caring required energy I didn't have.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
I almost ignored it. But something—instinct, habit, the faint flicker of curiosity I hadn't quite killed—made me reach for it.
An unknown number. A message.
Eleanor Rollins. You are summoned by the Northern Coven Council. Attendance is mandatory. 10 AM tomorrow. Location attached.
I stared at the screen. That’s strange. I had never been summoned by the coven before.
Had I done something to get into trouble?
I racked my brains but couldn’t think of anything.
As my father had constantly reminded me, I may be a witch, but I was completely powerless as one.
I was a carrier - a witch who could absorb other’s magic into themselves.
Some of the stronger ones could even wield that borrowed magic, but I had never tried.
Absorbing someone else’s magic was forbidden, and all carriers were required to register with their nearest coven and to comply with regular spot checks to make sure we weren’t stealing magic from other supernaturals.
I certainly hadn’t stolen any magic. Maybe it was just another spot check.
I hadn’t had one for a year or so. It must be that.
I set my alarm for earlier than normal and lay back waiting for sleep to finally come. It took a while.
The building in Spinningfields looked like every other corporate office in Manchester—glass and steel and the kind of bland professionalism that made it impossible to guess what happened inside.
I'd dressed carefully that morning. Not fancy.
Just presentable. A grey jumper, dark jeans, my good coat.
The kind of outfit that said I'm taking this seriously without trying too hard.
The tram had been packed. I'd stood near the back, watching the city slide past, and tried not to think about what the council might want if it wasn’t a spot check.
I'd registered with the Northern Coven when I moved to Manchester two years ago after I’d given up my place at the cookery school in Paris.
Got a job. Kept my head down. Done nothing wrong.
But there was always a small fear, wasn't there? The fear that someone had noticed something. That I'd broken some rule I didn't know existed. That I was about to be punished for being inadequate all over again.
The receptionist barely looked up when I gave my name. She checked a list, nodded, and pointed toward the lifts. "Fourth floor. Conference Room B."
No explanation. I didn't ask for one.
The waiting room was full of witches. Eight or ten of them, all sitting in that particular kind of silence that came from shared nervousness. Some looked young—early twenties, maybe. Others were older, sharp-eyed and serious. No one was talking.
A door opened. A woman in formal robes stepped out—Magistra Verin, the council's lead witch. I recognised her from the registration ceremony. She was in her sixties, with iron-grey hair and a face that managed to look both kind and deeply serious at the same time.
"Thank you for coming," she said. "Please, follow me."
We filed into a large conference room. A large circular table was already full of council members and several people I didn’t recognise. They all looked serious and exhausted. Other seating had been arranged near the door, two rows facing the council table. I took a seat at the back, in the corner.
Magistra Verin waited until we were all seated, then folded her hands on the table in front of her.
"I know this is unusual," she said. "I know you have questions. Please hold them until we've finished. What we're about to tell you is classified under the Sovereign Accords. You may not discuss it outside this room. You will be bound by magical contract before you leave."
Someone shifted uncomfortably. I stayed still, wondering what was coming.
Magistra Verin's gaze swept the room. "Magic is failing."
For a moment, no one reacted. Then someone laughed—nervous, disbelieving.
The sound died quickly. Magistra Verin gestured, and the air above the table shimmered.
A projection formed—magical, not technological, though it flickered slightly at the edges.
A map of the world appeared, crisscrossed with glowing lines.
Ley lines. The magical network that connected the earth that pulsed steadily bright and strong. I’d seen a similar projection when I was younger. Now though, the image had changed. They were dimming. Stuttering. Dying.
"The ley network is collapsing," Magistra Verin said. "We don't know why. We don't know how to stop it. We only know it began ten years ago and it’s getting worse every day."
The room was silent.
The elder shifter leaned forward. His voice was rough. "Shifters are weakening. We're losing our connection to our animals. Fertility rates are plummeting across all species."
He paused, closing his eyes briefly, before opening them again. "Natural disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity, “he continued. "The earth is destabilising. Magic is the glue that holds the world together. Without it…"
He didn't finish. He didn't have to.
Magistra Verin gestured again, and a list appeared in the air above the map. I read it with a growing sense of cold certainty.
Ley reinforcement rituals—failed.
Blood magic anchors—failed.
Cross-species collaboration—failed.
Appeals to the Fae courts—refused.
"We've tried everything," Magistra Verin said. "We're out of options."