Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Thirty-Nine Years Ago
From my front bay window, I watch the ward of the Magic Sector—a pale-grey line marching across the hills.
Two years ago, it was a rumour. Now the Ministry of Magic, together with the shifters, the vampire clans, and the ‘pure’ human government, has sliced the country into sectors, locking everyone inside prescribed borders.
Shifters claim the north, raising not one but two concrete walls that bite the sky. The Magic Sector lies to the southwest, where the ley lines run strongest. Vampires hold the southeast. Humans are penned in the centre.
The human government says pure humans are dying in droves; the news insists shifters and vampires hunt them for sport.
My own trawl of death notices shows only this: everyone is dying more.
Humans, shifters, vampires alike. The tighter the borders pull, the harder they fight over scraps of land and power.
The whole country feels like a miscast spell someone walked away from.
I sit on the very edge of the Human Sector, a few streets from the new line on the maps. Once that was convenient, Harriet could reach me in a single train journey. Now it is… complicated.
People have noticed me.
The mysterious house with suspiciously neat gardens and very strong wards.
“’S not natural, that place,” mutters Mr Jenkins three doors down, cigarette glowing while his dog does its business against my gatepost. “Look at that lawn—no weeds, no brown patches. Never seen anyone mow it.”
That is because I do it myself, blade by blade. Snip. Snip. Snip.
His friend snorts. “Probably some bloody wizard. We ought to ring the council. Or the Ministry of Magic. Can’t be lettin’ ’em set up wherever they like, not with the new rules.”
They drop their voices, but I hear every word.
“Reckon we should just torch it one night,” the friend says, too casually. “If they’re human, they’ll leg it right quick; if they’re not… well, fire sorts most things.”
My wards would not let a spark touch my bricks, yet a tremor ripples through my foundations—fear, anger. These are ordinary humans, frightened and flailing. It would take me half a second to pinch the gas line in their kitchen, or drop a shelf on their heads.
I do nothing.
Fear brings out the worst in people. I learned that lesson far too well.
Beryl’s voice drifts from the parlour. You going to let them talk about arson on your front step, or shall I introduce myself?
Stay exactly where you are, I tell her. The last thing we need is a human seeing a flying stake.
Tch. Spoilsport, she mutters, but the faint thrum of her magic settles.
The neighbours wander off, plotting letters instead of fire.
For now.
And it is not humans who worry me most.
A few days later, the Ministry of Magic arrives.
It is a weekday morning, low cloud pressing down, drizzle silvering the windows. I feel them before they reach the gate—a pair of magic users and a human officer, their signatures pricking at my wards like pins.
They pause outside to confer. The female mage consults a clipboard; the male peers up at my windows as though trying to meet my gaze.
“Property eight-seven-four,” the woman says. “No registered derivative. No confirmed human occupant. Utilities active. No compliance survey returned.”
The officer tugs at his cap. “Looks lived-in.” His eyes linger on my flowerbeds, the gleam of my brass knocker, the fresh paint on the door. “Bit too tidy, if you want my opinion.”
Rude, Beryl mutters.
I let them through the outer ward and the wooden gate, then tighten the house wards a fraction—just enough that the air on the step grows heavier. They mount the front steps. The woman presses the doorbell.
I let it ring. Once. Twice.
“Try again,” the officer suggests.
Three. Four.
The male mage frowns. “Anyone registered here?”
“None on file.” She flips a page. “There was a warding service twenty years ago, but the company’s dissolved.”
She traces a sensing spell over the lintel; magic brushes me, probing. I bare metaphysical teeth and yield nothing.
“Hm. Strong static wards,” she says. “Old work. No response inside.”
The officer shifts. “Empty? Squatters? Garden service?”
“Or someone avoiding questions.” Now the mage’s voice is cool. “Under the Sector Alignment Act every derivative must register to the proper territory. If an unregistered magic user lives here, they may be dodging relocation.”
Relocation. Such a polite word for being hauled from one’s home.
He lifts a hand for a stronger spell.
If he tries cracking you like a safe, I am taking the wand arm, Beryl bristles.
Patience, I murmur.
Instead, I feed a pulse into the doorbell. It shrieks, sparks, and dies in a curl of smoke. All three jump back.
“Bloody hell—” the officer yelps.
“Residual magic discharge,” the woman snaps, scowling at her clipboard. “Great.” She glances at the mage. “No warrant. If we damage property without cause, the government will have our heads.”
“Could be some eccentric human,” he says. “Council tax paid?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m not kicking in the door of a perfectly legal residence because the hedge is too straight.”
They argue in low voices. The officer wants to push; the mages dislike potential fallout. At last they shove a notice through the letter-box—occupier to contact the Ministry of Magic within fourteen days—and retreat, vowing to return ‘with proper paperwork.’
Beryl drifts off the console table and hovers above the notice, her point twitching. What do you reckon?
They will be back, I say, and next time, they will have permission to break things.
I sit with that. The Ministry tightening its grip. Neighbours whispering arson. New walls on the horizon. Death notices piling like fallen leaves.
Harriet and her family already live in the Magic Sector—visas, checkpoints, forms in triplicate. One more rule and she may never cross this border again.
We could always kill whoever knocks, Beryl offers. Nice, simple solution.
No, I answer, though the notion tempts me. Killing the odd shifter or vampire who stumbles into my jaws is one thing; slaughtering officials on the Human Sector doorstep is quite another. The full weight of the new order would crash down.
So what—sit tight and hope they forget the weird house on the map?
I stretch awareness along telephone wires and paper trails—Ministry memos, sector maps, property registries.
No, I decide. We move.
Beryl grows still. Move where, exactly? Planning to sprout legs and stomp off down the road?
Not quite.
I tell her what I have learned after months of research:
A strip of land sits between the two shifter walls—an uneasy, mixed-species buffer zone officially designated a joint commerce and enterprise area. Humans, shifters, vampires, and mages may live and work there under shifter protection.
The Enterprise Zone.
On a quiet street, an empty corner lot waits beneath a single oak tree, its roots curled deep in good soil. The paperwork still reads vacant residential plot—pending development.
That close to the shifters? Beryl says. Are you sure that is wise?
The shifters should leave us alone; humans and the Ministry are less inclined to mind their own business. The Enterprise Zone border is practically militarised.
There are vampires in that zone too, she points out. You really fancy being between a wall of wolves and a nest of leeches?
If the wolves want to keep their little strip of peace intact, they will not let anyone torch a magical house on their doorstep. I can file flawless paperwork and weave perfect wards. You can stab. Between us, we manage.
Beryl hardly stays here anyway; she is always off working with other hunters.
She hovers, vibrating with unease. And how exactly are you getting there?
I have been thinking about that for years. I can already fold my awareness through paper, slip along filaments, bend physics in small, local ways. If I can shift consciousness, why not matter—at least the matter that is me?
Like a magical snail. Theoretically possible. Utterly reckless. The magic required will be enormous; it may take years to recover, if I recover at all.
Magic, I reply.
You might die, Beryl says bluntly.
I recall the Ministry officer promising to return with a warrant. I could easily make that paperwork disappear, but the neighbours speak of arson, and the rising anti-magic rhetoric is in every local paper.
Staying here and waiting to be cracked open feels like the greater danger. I am powerful, yes, but not infallible. A concerted group of magic users could still seize control of me—like the ones employed by the Ministry.
I would rather risk myself than be caged a second time.
Beryl is silent, then sighs. All right. But you are not taking me along on the first jump. If it goes wrong, I do not fancy being scattered across the country.
Agreed.
We plan.
I use paper magic to purchase the Enterprise Zone plot through a forgettable company, hiding the trail like a spider concealing its web.
I rent a warehouse near the shifter wall in Harriet’s son-in-law’s name and quietly send my most precious possessions there: sentient objects, stored spells, delicate constructs.
If I succeed, I will collect them. If I fail and they remain unclaimed after six months, the lease will lapse and everything will pass to Harriet’s family. At least something of me will reach them.
We time the move for a night when the neighbours sleep, televisions dark, letters to the council unwritten. I must take not only the walls but the foundations, the pipes, the garden—the whole shape of myself.
Objectively, it is a terrible idea.
And yet, as I run through the calculations once more—feeling how my magic might gather every brick and beam into its filaments and step sideways—I am excited.
For the first time in decades I am not merely reacting to what others do to me. I am choosing.
If they want to cage me, they will have to find me first.