2. Caius
TWO
CAIUS
She invited me in.
I’ve been in Anouk Darkwater’s apothecary before.
Twice. Both times for official Protection Network business, both times standing in the main shop area with a counter between us and three feet of professional distance carefully maintained.
Both times lasting approximately seven minutes before she found a polite way to end the conversation.
This is different.
She’s leading me through the shop, past the counter, into the back rooms where the real work happens. Her territory. Her space. The part of herself she doesn’t show anyone.
After years of careful distance, she’s letting me past the threshold.
Her workroom is exactly what I would have expected and nothing like it at all.
The lavender bundles are releasing scent in waves that seem to pulse with an invisible rhythm.
Small signs. Tiny cracks in the careful facade. She probably thinks she’s hiding.
She isn’t.
I noticed the flicker at the funeral. The candles. The mist brightening around her for half a heartbeat before she clamped down on whatever was escaping. Anyone else might have missed it.
Her magic is unstable. Has been since she lost her familiar, if I had to guess.
The owl died six months ago—Corwin, she called him.
I know because I left a package at her door the next day.
Treats that owls prefer. I didn’t sign the card.
Didn’t wait for thanks. Didn’t even know if she’d realize they were from me.
She did. I know because she didn’t speak to me for two weeks afterward. Even less than our usual minimal contact.
Anouk Darkwater doesn’t accept comfort. She endures. She controls. She survives. The idea that anyone might want to ease her burden is apparently more offensive than the burden itself.
I want to comfort her anyway.
I don’t have that right. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if she has anything to say about it.
“You can sit.” She gestures to a stool near the main workstation. Her voice is the same controlled tone she uses in council meetings—pleasant, professional, utterly closed off. “Or stand. I don’t care.”
I choose to stand. Sitting would put me below her eye level, and I’m not interested in ceding that ground. She notices the choice. Her mouth tightens fractionally.
Good. Let her be aware of me. Let her feel the same hyperawareness that’s been plaguing me for nearly a decade.
She turns to gather papers from a shelf—a letter, documents, her movements quick and economical. My attention tracks the line of her spine, the elegant architecture of her updo, the single strand of dark hair that’s come loose to brush the nape of her neck.
Years of knowing with absolute certainty that she’s meant for me—and respecting her complete lack of interest in that fact.
Except she’s not uninterested. I’ve heard the way her heartbeat races when I enter a room. The way her gaze finds me before she realizes she’s looking. The way she goes very still whenever we’re forced into proximity.
She’s not uninterested. She’s terrified.
And I’ve never pushed, because fear deserves patience, not pressure. Because wanting someone isn’t the same as having the right to them. Because she’s the coven leader and I’m the head of the Protection Network and our positions are complicated enough without adding personal entanglement.
But tonight she invited me in.
Tonight, for the first time, the door is open.
“Mathilda left me a letter.” Anouk sets the papers on the workstation between us. Not handing them to me—placing them in neutral space. A compromise between sharing and surrendering control. “Her daughter gave it to me at the funeral.”
I pick up the letter. The handwriting is shaky, urgent—nothing like the neat script I remember from Mathilda’s formal correspondence. This was written by someone afraid. Someone running out of time.
My chest tightens. The wolf, Mathilda wrote. Not “Alpha Sternwolf.” Not “the Protection Network head.” The wolf.
“She was going to tell you something.” I set the letter down. “According to this, it was information she should have shared years ago.”
“I don’t know what the information was. She died. The official cause was magical exhaustion.” Anouk’s voice is flat, controlled, revealing nothing.
“You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
“She was the healthiest elder on the council. Her magic was strong. Stable.” A pause. Her expression flickers—grief, maybe, or fear—before she locks it away. “Unlike mine, lately.”
The admission costs her. I see it in the way her spine stiffens, the way her fingers curl against the workstation surface, the way she won’t quite meet my gaze. The great Anouk Darkwater, coven leader, admitting weakness.
To me.
I don’t comment on it. She’d hate that. Instead, I file the information away—confirmation of what I already suspected—and move forward.
“She contacted me too.” I pull out my own letter—delivered by a skittish familiar I didn’t recognize, two days before Mathilda died. “Requested a meeting. Said she had information the Protection Network needed. About ‘old threats returning.’”
Anouk takes the letter. Reads it with the focused attention of someone looking for clues. “Old threats. Dreams that feel like memories.” She sets it beside her own. “She was remembering things. Dangerous things.”
“And someone killed her before she could share them.”
“Yes.” Her gaze lifts to meet mine. Dark eyes, sharp. “The question is who. And why.”
“The Preservers.” I don’t phrase it as a question.
Her eyebrows rise fractionally. “You’ve heard of them.”
“Iskra mentioned them before she was captured. So did Valesh.” Two Preserver agents exposed in the past year.
Two cells dismantled. And both of them mentioned a ritual called ‘the Severing’ before they stopped talking entirely.
“My pack elders react strangely when certain old topics come up. Grief without explanation. Memories that don’t quite make sense. ”
Anouk processes this. I see her mind working—connecting dots, building patterns, that formidable intelligence analyzing data at speeds that have always impressed me.
“Someone on the council is a Preserver agent.” She says it quietly, as if speaking it aloud makes it more dangerous. “Someone who’s been in place for a long time. Long enough to anticipate Mathilda’s movements. Long enough to silence her before she could talk.”
“Do you have a suspect?”
She hesitates. The pause is telling. “Nothing I can prove.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Another pause. Then: “Elder Cordelia Ashworth.”
I nod. “My network can look into her background. Quietly. Financial records, travel history, contacts outside Mistvale.” I keep my voice neutral, professional. An offer between colleagues.
Anouk’s expression closes. “That won’t be necessary.”
“An elder was murdered. The Protection Network has resources—”
She shakes her head.
“Anouk.” Her first name. Deliberate. Not “Coven Leader Darkwater.” Not the formal title she hides behind. “Let me help.”
Her chin lifts. “The last time you helped me—”
“You almost died.” The memory surfaces, sharp-edged even after three years. A rogue magic incident. A spell gone wrong. Her, unconscious and bleeding while I carried her to the healers. “And then you refused to speak to me for three months.”
Guilt flickers in her expression. Or fear. “It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple. You needed help. I provided it. You treated it like a transaction instead of—” I stop. Take a breath. “We can discuss our personal issues after we find out who killed Mathilda. Will you accept my help?”
The silence stretches.
“Fine.” The word sounds extracted under duress.
We spend the next hour building a timeline. Mathilda’s recent movements. Her research requests. The gaps in her schedule that might indicate secret meetings or hidden activities.
Anouk is thorough. Methodical. Her records are impeccable—she’s been tracking council activities with a precision that borders on obsessive. Every meeting logged. Every request documented. Every interaction noted.
“She was researching the archives.” Anouk spreads papers across the workstation. “Old materials. Very old. Pre-dating the coven’s formal records.”
“What was she looking for?”
“I don’t know. The requests were vague. ‘Historical research.’ ‘Preservation studies.’ Nothing specific enough to flag.” She taps a finger against the edge of a document. “But she spent more time in the archives in the past three months than in the previous three years combined.”
I study the pattern of dates. The increasing frequency of visits. The archive records show Mathilda’s interest deepening over months, each visit drawing her farther into material that predated living memory.
“Her letter mentioned dreams.” I pick up Anouk’s copy. “Dreams that feel like memories. What if she wasn’t researching history? What if she was trying to understand what she was experiencing?”
Anouk considers this. “Witches don’t have prophetic dreams. That’s not how our magic works.”
“Pack elders sometimes dream of things from before their time. Memories that passed down through the generations. Shifter heritage runs deep.” I set the letter down. “What if witch heritage does too?”
Her brows draw tight. “You’re suggesting Mathilda was remembering events that happened before she was born.”
“I’m suggesting that whatever the Preservers want hidden might be old enough that remembering it is the only way to know it.” I meet her gaze. “They’ve been removing information from records for centuries. But they can’t remove what’s embedded in blood and bone.”
Her expression shifts. Not agreement—she’s too cautious for that—but consideration. The first crack in her skepticism.
“We need to find her journals.” Her voice is quiet. “She mentioned hiding them. If we can find what she wrote—”
“We find out what got her killed.”
A nod. Slight but definite. We’re on the same page now.
Focus settles over me. This is what I’ve been waiting for—not just proximity, but partnership. A reason to be in her orbit. A purpose beyond wanting.