Chapter 23 – MICAH #2
"You won't miss it," she says with a toothy grin, snipping off a lock and pocketing it before I can process. "There."
Sadie looks away with a grimace before I've even shifted back, and I change hastily back into my clothes. I rummage through my pockets for my wallet and hand her my credit card. "You uh, take card, right?"
“They don’t take cards, dumbass, remember?” Sadie cuts in.
"Five percent transaction fee," the old woman says with a smile, pointedly ignoring Sadie as she swipes it on a less-than-whimsical card reader. The machine chirps and spits out a receipt.
The merchant slips the pendant into a purple velvet pouch and hands it to me along with the receipt. As my fingers close around it, I feel a faint warmth, like distant starlight somehow made tangible.
"It will guide her when paths grow dark," the merchant says. "And remind her that even the night sky contains light."
"Thank you," I reply, pocketing the pendant carefully.
"Pleasure doing business with you!" she calls, suspiciously happy.
Sadie tugs at my arm. "Come on, Romeo. The lunar vendor awaits, and he's way less sentimental than this one."
I follow her deeper into the market, the weight of the pendant a comforting presence in my pocket. I can't explain why it feels so right, but my wolf is practically purring with satisfaction at the idea of giving it to our mate.
“That was reckless as fuck,” Sadie scolds as we push through increasingly dense crowds. “Giving your DNA to random witches is the magical equivalent of hopping into a van because some weird guy offered you candy.”
"It wasn't candy, it was a necklace," I grumble.
Sadie's eyes narrow. "How are you fucking alive?"
"Look, it just felt right, okay?" I sigh. "I think Regina will like it."
Something in my expression must convince her, because her irritation fades. "Fine. Your fur, your choice. But don't come crawling to me if that old bitch makes you her thrall."
"Yes, mom ."
She flips me off with a snort.
We arrive at a stall that doesn't look like a stall at all. It’s more like a tear in reality itself, edges frayed and smoking slightly. Inside the tear stands a figure draped in what appears to be liquidized shadow, face hidden beneath a hood that somehow contains galaxies.
"Sadie Bennett," the figure says, voice like distant thunder. "Right on schedule."
"Chronos," Sadie says with a respectful nod that’s practically a bow coming from her. "I need lunar venom. Three drams."
"Purpose?" The figure's voice ripples through the air.
"Siphon-shifter bonding."
A sound like cracking ice emerges from the hood—laughter, I realize with a start. "Ambitious. The wolf is involved, I presume?"
I step forward. "I am."
"Four alpha wolf shifters," Sadie adds. "One witch. Hence the triple dose."
"Fascinating." Chronos extends a hand—or what I assume is a hand, but it looks more like a black hole in roughly hand shape—and a small vial of silvery liquid materializes. "Payment?"
Sadie digs in her mesh bag, extracting something wrapped in black cloth. "As discussed. Three minutes of fossilized time, harvested from a ley line."
Where the fuck did she get that ? Not the kind of thing Killian can just put on his limitless credit card. Even I can sense this is serious magic. The exchange of items has the weight of ceremony, both beings careful not to directly touch the other. At all.
"Pleasure doing business," Chronos says, already beginning to fade from view. “Do invite me to the bonding. It's been millennia since I witnessed a spectacle like a siphon and four wolves .”
“Not happening,” Sadie says flatly. “Private, intimate ceremony. You know how it goes.”
The tear in reality seals itself with a sound like someone inhaling sharply through teeth, leaving us standing before an empty space.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," I remark.
"Trust me, boring is good when dealing with semi-corporeal entities who exist outside linear time." Sadie carefully tucks the vial into a special padded pocket in her bag. "One cosmic mishap and we're all experiencing puberty backwards for eternity."
"Is that an actual risk?"
“With Chronos? Everything’s a risk.” She checks her pocketwatch again. "We should go. Market's shifting soon, and we don't want to be here when the night vendors arrive."
"Too spooky for Madame Goth herself?" I ask dryly. "Impressive."
Sadie rolls her eyes, as usual.
As we make our way back toward the entrance, I pull out my phone, surprised to find out I actually have reception in this impossible space. The group chat has exploded with notifications.
TOP DAWG: Hey, anyone heard from Regina? She hasn't been in the group chat.
OTHER NERD: She's upstairs working on the ritual. Same place she's been all day.
TOP DAWG: I didn't ask.
OTHER NERD: Yes, you did. Literally.
TOP DAWG: stfu
KNOTHEAD: REGINA! HIGHLIGHT THIS MESSAGE IF THE BOOKS ARE HOLDING YOU HOSTAGE.
SEXY WITCH: I'm not being held hostage. I'm researching. Stop blowing up my phone lol
KNOTHEAD: SHE LIVES!!!!!
TOP DAWG: Just checking you're safe.
SEXY WITCH: Wait, who changed my name? Sexy Witch is even worse than Top Dawg.
TOP DAWG: Guilty.
OTHER NERD: Haha
TOP DAWG: Wait, what’s wrong with Top Dawg??
SEXY WITCH: Never mind. lol I’m literally in your attic, not in the wilderness. I'm fine. Unless your great grandma's ghost is somehow a threat??
TOP DAWG: Hey, she had a mean right hook.
KNOTHEAD: Are you hungry for anything? Food? Coffee? Cock?
SEXY WITCH: Rowan brought me coffee and snacks from the vending machine you guys have in the basement for some reason. I'm good.
KNOTHEAD: Vending machines don’t have real food. And I'm pretty sure it doesn’t serve cock. I HOPE
OTHER NERD: Seeaaannnn
SEXY WITCH: Haha well the "everything" ramen you made last night with Doritos in it wasn’t real food either.
TOP DAWG: She's got you there.
KNOTHEAD: That was brilliant and you know it. I’d win Kitchen Nightmares with that dish.
OTHER NERD: Wrong show, dude.
TOP DAWG: Actually, no, maybe it isn’t the wrong show.
I smile, typing out a quick message.
NERD: Hey Regina. Are you regretting joining the chat yet?
SEXY WITCH: Sean has texted me 33 pictures of dogs in hats. Rowan keeps "casually" walking outside where he can see the window.
OTHER NERD: I was just walking by!
SEXY WITCH: In the middle of the yard?
OTHER NERD: …
SEXY WITCH: When are you coming home, Micah?
NERD: I’ll be back soon. We just grabbed the last ingredient.
SEXY WITCH: Awesome! Tell Sadie hi for me.
NERD: Will do!
My brain has already latched onto the fact that Regina calls our pack house home. It was probably just a slip up, but still. Feels like someone dumped a bunch of warm coals into my chest.
“Regina says hi,” I say to Sadie, slipping my phone back into my pocket.
Sadie rolls her eyes. “You’ll see her again soon, lovebird. I promise. We should be good to go by the new moon. Unless she comes to her senses, of course.”
"Hey!" I protest.
"Kidding," she smirks. "Mostly."
As we near the exit, the market around us begins to shift, colors inverting and stalls rearranging themselves like pieces on a cosmic chessboard. Sadie picks up her pace, practically dragging me toward the shimmering veil that marks the transition back to the normal world.
"Brace yourself," she warns.
We step through the veil, and the jarring transition from magical pandemonium to quiet alley is like having the volume turned from eleven to zero in an instant. My ears pop, and I stumble slightly, disoriented.
"Always takes a minute," Sadie says, watching me with amusement. "Shifters seem to have it worse. Something about the sensory overload."
I shake my head to clear it. "That was... intense."
"Just a small corner of Twilight Market," she says with a shrug. "The full thing stretches across multiple dimensions. Most of it’s shit we wouldn’t survive."
We walk back toward main campus, the normalcy of streetlights and college students so shockingly different from what we've just experienced, it feels surreal. Like I’m in a weird dream.
"So," Sadie says as we near her apartment building, "when are you giving her the pendant?"
I touch my pocket, where the small weight reminds me of its presence. "Tonight, maybe. If it feels right."
"It will," she says with unusual certainty.
"How do you know?"
She shrugs. "Witch intuition. Plus, I can see the way she looks at you when she thinks no one's watching."
My heart does a stupid little flip. "Really?"
“Don't get too excited, Romeo.” Sadie stops at the entrance to her building. “She's been hurt. By one of your kind, more or less.” She sees me about to argue, and adds, “I know you see it as a huge difference, but to her, it's basically the difference between a witch and an alchemist.”
I sigh. "Point taken."
"The fact that she's willing to try at all from what you've told me is a miracle." She searches my face, uncharacteristically serious. "Don't expect too much too fast."
"I won't," I promise.
She nods, apparently satisfied. "All the ritual components will be ready by tomorrow. The new moon is perfect timing. Clean slate energy. Just make sure you follow the instructions exactly. Siphon magic is volatile even under normal circumstances."
"And bonding with four alphas isn't normal circumstances?"
"Understatement of the century." She smirks. "It's going to be quite the show."
I pull her into a quick hug, which she tolerates with minimal squirming. "Thanks, Sadie. For everything."
"Yeah, yeah," she mutters, extracting herself. "Just don't fuck it up. I actually like this one."
"No promises, but I'll try."
“Awesome. Now go get your witch,” she says, disappearing into her building before I can respond.
I stand there for a moment, hand in my pocket, fingers curled around the starlight compass. My wolf is practically pacing the imaginary cage of my soul, eager to return to our mate, to take another step toward making her truly ours.
Regina Cook walked into our lives with scars both visible and hidden, with power we barely understand, with fear that makes perfect sense. But with courage, too. More than anything, I want to be worthy of it.
With a deep breath, I turn and head back toward home.
Toward our mate.