Chapter 7 Iris
Iris
Thea's cottage is nothing like Grandmother's.
It's smaller, genuinely cottage-sized, not "estate pretending to be humble,” and it smells like herbs and wet dog and something baking that makes my mouth water.
The windows are fogged with warmth, and through them I can see herb bundles hanging from the rafters and what looks like an entire wall dedicated to drying medicinal plants.
This is what a hedge witch's home should look like.
Thea answers the door with flour on her cheek and a grin. "Iris! Perfect timing. I just put bread in the oven, so we have about an hour before I have to do anything responsible."
Behind me, Cadeon freezes. Alert.
A man appears in the doorway behind Thea, ”tall, broad-shouldered, with silver threading through dark hair and eyes that reflect the light strangely. Wolf eyes.
"Ash," Thea says, gesturing him forward. "This is Iris Ashwood. And her..." She pauses, glancing at me uncertainly.
"Partner," I supply, because I've been practicing the word. "Cadeon."
Ash steps forward with an easy smile, offering his hand. "Good to meet you. Thea's been looking forward to comparing notes."
Cadeon doesn't move. Doesn't acknowledge the offered hand. Just stands there radiating cold menace like a particularly unfriendly glacier.
"Cadeon," I say quietly. "It's okay. They're friends."
He glances at me, something flickering in his expression, then gives Ash the smallest, stiffest nod I've ever seen. He doesn't shake hands. Doesn't step fully inside. Just positions himself where he can see both the door and the room's occupants.
Ash withdraws his hand without offense, exchanging a look with Thea I read as: oh, boy.
"Come in, come in," Thea ushers me inside. "Ash, love, can you put the kettle on?"
"Already done." He heads toward the kitchen with the comfortable ease of someone completely at home. "I'll bring tea."
I watch him go, then turn to Thea. "He's... not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Someone more..." I struggle for the word, and risk a glance at Cadeon. "Guarded? Formal?"
Thea laughs. "Ash? Gods, no. He's the least formal person I know.
" She leads me to a comfortable sitting area near the fire, Cadeon following, wary.
"We've been bonded for twelve years. It took about three days for him to start making fun of my terrible organizational skills and another week before he was rearranging my stillroom without asking. "
"He rearranged your stillroom?"
"Alphabetically. By common name, not botanical name, which is completely useless but very sweet.
" She settles into a chair, tucking her feet under her.
"He's my partner. My friend. Sometimes my conscience when I'm about to do something stupid.
The bond just... is. It doesn't define us.
It's just part of how we work together."
I think about Cadeon standing guard by the door, about the way he still flinches when I make sudden movements, about the careful distance he usually maintains.
"I don't know how to get there," I admit quietly. "To partnership. We’ve...we’re, trying. He's so..."
"Traumatized?" Thea's voice is gentle.
"Yes."
Ash returns with a tray of tea and what smells like ginger biscuits. He sets it down and immediately claims the chair next to Thea, close enough that their shoulders brush. She leans into him without thinking, and he hands her a biscuit like it's the most natural thing in the world.
The casual intimacy of it makes my chest ache, but I can’t tell if it’s the same as what I feel for Cadeon now. Not intimate in a romantic way, more like friendship.
"Your grandmother," Ash says carefully, "had a reputation. Powerful. Brilliant. Absolutely terrifying."
"That's diplomatic."
"I'm trying to be polite." He takes a biscuit for himself. "The way she bonded... it wasn't the way most of us do it. Hasn't been the way for a long time. But she was old-school. Very old-school."
"She dominated him," I say flatly. "Kept constant pressure on the bond. Treated him like a weapon."
Thea winces. "That would explain why your bond feels so different."
"Different how?"
"Thin. Gossamer-thin. I can barely sense it at all." She sets down her tea, leaning forward. "Which is strange, because bonds usually strengthen over time, especially in the first few weeks. But yours... it's like it's barely there. Can you even feel him?"
I glance toward the door, where Cadeon stands silent sentinel. Through the bond, I feel... something. A thread of awareness. Cold and distant and faint enough that I have to concentrate to sense it at all. It’s grown stronger since the last feeding, but it’s still not very strong in my opinion.
"Barely," I admit. "Is that bad?"
Thea and Ash exchange a look.
"It's unusual," Thea says carefully. "Most bonds, even new ones, have more presence. More weight. But yours..." She tilts her head, studying me with that focused healer's attention. "You're not maintaining it, are you? Not the way your grandmother did."
"I don't know how to maintain it the way she did. I don't want to maintain it that way."
"Good," Ash says firmly. "That way is shit."
"Ash," Thea chides, but she's smiling.
"It is. The domination model is outdated and cruel and frankly lazy magic.
" He leans back in his chair, completely relaxed.
"Bonds are supposed to be partnerships. Symbiotic relationships.
Your grandmother's generation treated familiars like tools because that's what they were taught, but it doesn't have to be that way. "
"So my bond is weakening because I'm not dominating him?"
"Maybe," Thea says thoughtfully. "Or maybe it's changing. Transforming into something else. The weakening we're seeing across the region, it's not uniform. Bonds like ours, based on partnership and mutual respect, they're weakening faster than the domination-style bonds."
"That doesn't sound good."
"Or it sounds like the magic is evolving," Ash suggests. "Rejecting the old ways. Trying to become something better."
I turn that over in my mind, watching the way he sits beside Thea, close but not possessive, attentive but not servile. Like they're simply two people who've chosen to be together.
"How did you do it?" I ask. "Build that kind of partnership?"
Thea smiles. "Time. Trust. And a willingness to be honest about what we both needed. Ash came to me when he was twenty-two, feeling the call to bond. I was already established as a healer, set in my ways. We had to figure out how to make space for each other."
"She tried to give me orders for the first week," Ash says drily. "I ignored most of them."
"You did not."
"I absolutely did. Remember when you told me to stay home while you went to treat old Marvin's gout?"
"You followed me anyway."
"Because Marvin lives two miles into the woods and you have a terrible sense of direction. You would have ended up in the next county." He grins at her, and she swats his shoulder affectionately.
I watch them bicker like siblings, and something in my chest eases. This. This is what a bond can be.
"The market is today," Thea says, checking the time. "Midwinter preparations are in full swing. You should go get a feel for the village, pick up supplies. The feast is only a week away."
The feast. Right. The thing I'm supposed to be hosting.
"I should probably figure out what I'm doing for that," I admit.
"Start with wassail," Ash suggests. "Traditional, expected, and hard to mess up if you have decent spices."
"I don't even know what wassail is."
Thea laughs. "Then definitely go to the market. Old Greta sells the best spice blends, and she'll talk your ear off about proper wassail technique. Fair warning though, she has opinions."
The village market is chaos in the best possible way.
The main square has been transformed into a winter wonderland of stalls and decorations.
Evergreen garlands drape between posts, studded with red berries and pine cones.
Someone has enchanted fairy lights to float above the crowd, casting a warm golden glow.
The air smells of roasted chestnuts, mulled cider, and fresh pine.
It's crowded. Very crowded.
I feel Cadeon tense beside me the moment we enter the square.
"It's okay," I murmur. "Just shopping."
"Too many people." His voice is low, strained. "Too many variables. I can't watch them all."
"You don't have to watch them all. We're just here to buy spices."
But he's already scanning the crowd with that hypervigilant intensity I'm learning to recognize. Every person who passes too close gets assessed. Every loud laugh or sudden movement makes him shift position, placing himself between me and potential threats.
"Cadeon."
He doesn't look at me, too focused on his self-appointed guard duty.
"Cadeon," I try again, this time touching his arm lightly.
He startles, gaze snapping to me, and for just a moment I see the warrior he was, the weapon my grandmother made him, the thing that lives underneath his careful control. Then he blinks, and it's gone.
"Apologies," he says stiffly. "I—I apologize."
"It's okay to be uncomfortable. But no one here is going to hurt me. Or you."
"You can't know that."
"No," I agree. "But I can choose to believe it anyway. Come on. Let's find these famous spices before I lose my nerve about this entire feast situation."
We weave through the crowd, and I'm acutely aware of Cadeon behind me. Not quite touching but close enough that I can feel the cold radiating off him. His hand hovers near the small of my back: protective, possessive, but not quite making contact.
The spice stall is easy to find: it smells like every herb and spice in existence had a party and invited their friends. An elderly woman with wild gray hair and sharp eyes stands behind the counter, arguing with a customer about the proper ratio of cinnamon to nutmeg.
"I'm telling you, Martha, three to one is far too much nutmeg. You'll give everyone nightmares."