3. Anouk #3
“Retreat!” The guard scrambles up from where I knocked him, movements unsteady. “Now!”
They run. Out the back door, into the mist-shrouded evening, their footsteps fading before I can gather myself to pursue.
I’m left standing in the wreckage of my workroom.
Magic still crackles at my fingertips, refusing to fully dissipate.
My breath comes in ragged gasps. The floor is covered in broken glass and scattered herbs.
A potion I’d been brewing has overflowed its cauldron, spreading an acidic puddle across the stones.
The air reeks of burnt lavender and ozone.
My hands are shaking.
That was too close. The power that came out of me—I could have brought down the building. Could have killed someone. Could have—
A sound at the front of the shop. The wards flaring again—but differently this time. Recognizing someone. Allowing entry rather than raising alarm.
“Anouk!”
Caius bursts through the door—all barely contained energy and coiled tension. His gaze sweeps the destruction, cataloging the shattered glass, the scattered ingredients, the still-sparking remnants of defensive magic—
Then finds me.
His expression shifts. Relief warring with fury warring with concern—emotions I don’t have time to untangle, emotions that make my chest tighten in ways that have nothing to do with the fight I just survived.
“Are you injured?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” He crosses the room in seconds, standing near enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, see the tension coiled in every line of his body. “Your magic is still sparking. Your hands are shaking. Your—”
“Under control.”
“That—” He gestures at the devastation around us, jaw tight. “—is not under control.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right.
“How did you know?” I force my voice steady. Force my hands still through sheer will. “That I was in trouble?”
“Pack patrol picked up unusual magical discharge near The Hollow. Strong enough to register on our sensors from Ironwood Row.” His gaze searches my face, cataloging every detail with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “I was at The Den when the report came in.”
“And you came here.”
“I ran.” The words are simple. What they mean is not.
He ran. Across Mistvale. Because his patrol network detected my magic in distress.
“They mentioned journals.” I focus on the investigation. Facts. Evidence. Things I can control. “Mathilda’s journals. They came here looking for them.”
“They think you have them.”
“Which means Mathilda did write down what she was remembering. Whatever’s in those journals is important enough to send people after the coven leader.” I take a breath that’s not quite steady. “If we find them—”
“We find out why she had to die.”
“We.” The word stretches between us. “I thought this was my investigation.”
“It was.” The words come out scraped raw. “Then someone broke into your apothecary and attacked you.” He moves closer still—close enough that pine and woodsmoke and something purely him fills my lungs. “Now it’s ours.”
I should refuse. I should maintain boundaries. I should remember all the reasons why keeping my distance from Caius Sternwolf is the smart, safe, sensible choice.
Instead, I look at the destruction around us. At my shaking hands.
“Fine.” The word comes out rough. “Ours. But I’m still in charge.”
The tension in his shoulders eases. Just slightly. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
For a moment, neither of us moves. The air feels charged—not with magic, but with possibility. With awareness. With all the pretending finally wearing thin.
His hand lifts. I suck in a breath. I think he’s going to touch my face—
He reaches past me and plucks a fragment of glass from my hair.
“You have debris.” His voice is perfectly even. His eyes, when they meet mine, are not.
“Right.” I step back. Create space. Pretend my heart isn’t hammering against my ribs hard enough to bruise. “I should clean this up.”
“I’ll help.”
“You don’t have to—”
He’s already reaching for the broom propped in the corner. The silence says everything the words would have.
So we clean. Side by side, in silence, sweeping up the remnants of an attack that just made everything more complicated.
He handles the larger debris while I salvage what ingredients can be saved.
Our movements sync without discussion—a rhythm that feels too natural, too comfortable for two people supposedly maintaining professional boundaries.
His shoulder brushes mine as we both reach for the same fallen jar. Heat flares where we touch.
We don’t acknowledge it. We don’t move away, either.
“Tomorrow,” he says finally, straightening with a dustpan full of broken glass. “We search Mathilda’s home properly. If she hid her journals—”
“We find them before whoever sent those intruders does.”
“We.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Getting used to that.”
I don’t respond. I’m not sure I could trust my voice if I tried.
The chamomile, I notice as we finish, has finally stopped blooming.
That unsettles me more than anything else.