1. Anouk #2
Cordelia has been on the council for forty years. She’s outlasted three coven leaders. She knows every secret this town has buried.
And she was one of the last people to see Mathilda alive.
A young woman detaches herself from the departing crowd—Mathilda’s daughter, her eyes red-rimmed, a folded letter clutched in one hand like it might escape her.
“Coven Leader.” Her voice wavers. “My mother wanted you to have this. She made me promise—if anything happened to her, I was to put it in your hands myself. No one else’s.”
I take the letter. The paper is soft with handling, the edges worn, as if Mathilda carried it for days before she died. “Did she say why?”
“Just that you’d know what to do with it.” The daughter’s composure cracks, and for a moment she looks impossibly young. “She was scared, near the end. I didn’t understand why. I still don’t.”
I press her hand between both of mine—a gesture of comfort I rarely offer and mean every time I do. “I’ll find out. I promise you that.”
She nods, swallowing hard, and lets the crowd absorb her again.
The letter feels heavier than paper should.
“Coven Leader.”
A different voice. Lower. Rougher. A voice that vibrates through your chest if you stand too close.
I turn.
Caius Sternwolf stands three feet away. Closer than protocol demands. Closer than comfort allows. This near, I see the exact shade of gray in his eyes—the color of winter storms, of old silver, of smoke rising from dying fires.
“Alpha Sternwolf.” My voice is steady. A minor miracle. “Thank you for attending.”
“Elder Thornwood was respected by the Protection Network. Her loss affects us all.” He pauses. The silence stretches. “You spoke well.”
“Thank you.”
Another pause. In the distance, mourners drift toward the wake. The mist swirls between us, threading around his boots, curling at the hem of my robes. It seems thicker where we stand, as if drawn to the space we occupy.
“You don’t believe it was natural causes.” It’s not a question.
I consider lying. Consider the diplomatic deflection I’ve perfected over eight years of council politics.
“No,” I say instead. “I don’t.”
His expression doesn’t change. “Neither do I.”
For a moment, we just look at each other. My magic stirs beneath my skin—restless, reaching, doing things I don’t authorize.
“We should talk.” His voice is quiet. “Not here. Not now. But soon.”
“Tonight,” I hear myself say. “The apothecary. After closing.”
He nods once. Turns. Walks away without another word.
I watch him go and try to ignore the way my heart is pounding. The way everything just became significantly more complicated.
“You look like you need cobbler.”
Grandmother Peach materializes beside me on the path back to the apothecary.
“I don’t need cobbler.”
“Everyone needs cobbler, dear. It’s one of the universal constants. Like gravity, or the way cats always land on their feet, or the tendency of young witches to make poor romantic choices. This is condolence cobbler. It’s different from regular cobbler.”
“How is it different?”
“It has more sympathy.” She presses the dish into my hands. “There’s a difference. A significant one, in fact.”
The warmth seeps through the cloth. Peach cobbler, if the scent is any indication—butter and sugar and the perfect sweetness of summer fruit preserved at its peak.
Grandmother Peach’s cobbler is legendary.
Mood-adjusting, they say, though no one can quite explain how or why.
The Familiar Registry she runs has walls lined with records and baked goods in equal measure.
“Mathilda’s death wasn’t natural.” I don’t know why I say it. The words just emerge, as if Grandmother Peach’s presence has loosened a lock in my chest that I didn’t realize was fastened.
“No.” Grandmother Peach’s face doesn’t change. “It wasn’t.”
I stare at her. “You know.”
“I know many things. Most of them are quite boring. The interesting ones tend to be dangerous.” She adjusts the ribbon holding her hair back with fingers that don’t tremble despite her apparent age.
“I know that Mathilda was one of the few who remembered. Now she’s gone.
I know that you should be careful who you trust, dear. Not everyone who mourns is grieving.”
“Remembered what?”
“More than I can say. Less than you’ll need.
” Grandmother Peach reaches out and presses a charm into my palm alongside the cobbler dish.
A small, warm piece of metal humming with magic stronger than anything I’ve felt in years.
Protection, layered and ancient and woven with craft so old, it predates the coven itself.
“Trust the mountain, and the wolf can help. If you let him.”
My fingers close around the charm. “Caius Sternwolf is the last person I need help from.”
“He’s exactly the person you need help from.” Grandmother Peach’s smile deepens, showing teeth that are perhaps a bit too sharp for a simple matchmaker. “That’s why you’re so determined to refuse it.”
“That doesn’t—”
She’s gone.
I stare at the cobbler in my hands, then at the charm. Both are undeniably real. Both are warmer than they should be.