3. Anouk #2
Cordelia rises, smoothing her lavender skirts with practiced grace. “Think about what I’ve said, Coven Leader. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for our community is let the dead rest in peace. Continuing to dig will only cause pain—” A pause that feels theatrical. “—for everyone involved.”
She leaves. The bell above the door chimes pleasantly as it closes behind her.
I stare at the empty chair for a long moment, replaying every word, every flicker of expression, every carefully chosen phrase.
Pain for everyone involved.
That was a threat. Wrapped in maternal concern and coven unity, but a threat, nonetheless. She knows I suspect her—and she’s pushing hard for me to stop asking questions.
Either she’s genuinely worried about destabilizing the coven. Or she’s terrified of what I might find.
“Coven Leader Darkwater?”
Bryony appears in the doorway, holding a cup that glows faintly purple. Thistle drapes across her shoulders, watching me with feline inscrutability.
“I made you a new creation.” She beams. “You looked stressed when that elder left. Very pinched around the eyes.”
“What is it?”
“I call it ‘Midnight Clarity.’” She sets the cup on my desk with the pride of an artist unveiling a masterwork. “It’s supposed to enhance focus and calm the nerves.”
I take a cautious sip. The taste is… actually not terrible. A hint of mint, a whisper of lavender, and underneath—
“Is that nightshade?”
“Just a tiny bit! It’s supposed to—”
“Nightshade is poisonous.”
“Not in small doses! The grimoire said—”
“Which grimoire?”
Bryony’s confidence wavers. “The one with the skull on the cover?”
“That’s the grimoire of things we absolutely do not put in consumable beverages.” I set the cup down with careful deliberation. “Bryony. We’ve discussed this.”
“You said to be creative!”
“Creative with flavor. Not with toxicology.” But despite everything—the investigation, Cordelia’s veiled threats, the creeping exhaustion—I feel the corner of my mouth twitch. “Points for presentation, however. The purple glow is aesthetically pleasing.”
Bryony brightens. “I added powdered moonstone for that!”
“Moonstone is not toxic. Well done on that particular choice.” I push the cup toward her. “Please dispose of this safely. And perhaps review the ‘do not consume’ section of your training materials.”
She retreats with her illicit creation. Thistle gives me one last look before they leave—a look that suggests the cat knew exactly what was in that cup and found the entire situation beneath her dignity.
Cats. Absolutely untrustworthy.
Evening settles over The Hollow like a held breath.
I’m in the main shop, organizing inventory that doesn’t need organizing. The last customers departed an hour ago. The silence wraps around me with familiar weight—comfortable once, now just… empty.
My mind keeps circling back to Cordelia’s visit.
The careful pressure. The subtle threat dressed in lavender and concern.
Forty years she’s been on the council—long enough to perfect manipulation into an art form, long enough to embed herself so deeply that exposing her would shake the coven’s foundations.
If she’s even guilty. I still don’t have proof. Just suspicion and instinct and the nagging certainty that something is deeply, terribly wrong.
The wards flare.
Not the polite chime of a visitor at the door. This is different—sharp, urgent, the warning pulse of protections being actively breached.
Someone is inside the shop.
I’m moving before I can think, reaching for the defensive magic I’ve spent years honing.
Power floods my palms, too much, too eager—but I don’t have time to worry about control.
The back room. The door stands slightly ajar when I know I closed it. Shadows move beyond—two figures in dark clothing, faces obscured by spelled fabric that blurs their features into smudges.
One is rifling through my workstation. Pulling open drawers. Shoving aside carefully organized ingredients. Upending boxes with careless hands.
The other stands guard, hands raised in a casting position, dark energy already coiling between their fingers.
They’re not here to steal. They’re here to search.
“This area is restricted.” My voice comes out cold, controlled. “I suggest you leave. Now.”
Neither figure responds. The searcher continues their frantic work. The guard shifts into a wider stance.
“Last warning.” I raise my own hands, magic coiling between my palms. “Leave, or I will remove you.”
The guard attacks.
A bolt of dark energy streaks toward me—fast, vicious, aimed to incapacitate rather than kill. I throw up a shield on pure instinct, years of training overriding conscious thought, and the bolt shatters against it in a spray of black sparks.
The force drives me back a step. My magic surges in response.
Too much. Too strong. Six months of suppressed instability—grief and anger and fear I’ve been cramming down since Corwin died—come roaring to the surface.
I strike back without meaning to. A wave of force slams the guard into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
The searcher spins toward me, hands weaving a counter-spell, but I’m already moving—magic pouring out of me in ways I can’t control, wild and fierce and fueled by everything I’ve been forcing down.
The room erupts.
Glass jars shatter. Ingredients scatter—dried lavender and powdered moonstone and carefully preserved herbs reduced to chaos in seconds. My wards scream with feedback, the protective spells I’ve layered over years now amplifying my unstable power instead of containing it.
Somewhere in the chaos, I hear one of the intruders shout.
“The journals aren’t here!”
Journals.
Mathilda’s journals.
The knowledge hits like ice water. They think I have what Mathilda wrote.
They came here searching for evidence of what she remembered—what she was trying to tell people before she died.
Someone sent them. Someone who knew Mathilda had been documenting her dreams. Someone who feared what those documents might reveal.