1. Leire #2
Custom work. That’s where the real money is. Anyone can sell crystals, but crafting personalized protection charms? That takes skill, training, and the kind of intuitive magic that can’t be taught.
It also takes a stable magical core, which I currently don’t have, but details.
The back room is my sanctuary. Copper bowls and silver wire coils organized on shelves.
Quartz points sorted by size in labeled boxes.
My grandmother’s tools—the ones I managed to grab before everything went to hell—hanging on a pegboard where I can reach them without thinking.
This is where the real work happens. Where my hands and magic merge.
I lay out my supplies. Silver wire. Small quartz points. A copper bowl for charging. The order came in yesterday through the town’s magical message system—a local shop owner wants a protection charm for their front door to ward off ill intent without being obvious about it.
Simple enough. Should take me maybe two hours.
I reach for my magic.
It comes. Slower than it should, thinner than it should, but it comes.
I feel it rise from somewhere deep in my chest, spreading down my arms, warming my fingertips.
The quartz points begin to glow softly as I channel energy into them, each one accepting the charge like a vessel being filled with light.
This is what I’m good at. What I’ve always been good at. Feeling what a charm needs to be, shaping it with intention and will until it becomes exactly what it’s meant to be.
The work absorbs me. Wire twists under my fingers. Crystals align. Magic flows—unsteady, yes, flickering like a candle in a draft, but flowing. I’m so focused that I don’t notice the mist growing thicker outside. Don’t notice the shadows lengthening as the fairy lights dim.
Don’t notice the shape outside my window until it moves.
My head snaps up.
There—just for a second—a silhouette against the mist. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Not quite human-shaped, the proportions slightly off in a way I can’t pinpoint.
My pulse kicks into overdrive. My half-finished charm pulses with uncontrolled energy, responding to my sudden spike of fear. Breathe. Ground. Pull the magic back before I accidentally blast a hole in my workbench.
The locals mention that sometimes the mist can show you things that aren’t there.
But.
But I’ve been running for two years. Hiding. Looking over my shoulder every damn day, waiting for them to find me.
I set down the charm and walk to the window, pressing my face close to the glass. The street outside is empty. Cobblestones gleaming with moisture. Fairy lights from the shop across the way creating little pools of warmth in the gray.
Nothing there.
Still.
I check every ward in the shop. Twice. They’re holding, weak as they are, and nothing’s triggered them. If someone had crossed my threshold with bad intentions, I’d know.
The rose quartz on the counter seems to agree.
But I don’t go back to my workbench. Instead, I climb the narrow stairs to my apartment above the shop—really just one room with a tiny bathroom and a kitchenette, but it’s mine—and I lock that door too.
The moonstone charm Grandmother Peach gave me is still in my pocket. I pull it out, turn it over in my hands. It’s definitely magical, but not in any way I recognize. Protective, yes. But there’s more woven into it.
The dream comes like it always does.
Shadow in my lap, purring. The warmth of his fur under my fingers, that beautiful steady rhythm that made everything easier. His golden eyes looking up at me with what I thought was devotion.
Then the door crashing open. Figures in dark cloaks. Spells flying, wards shattering, chaos and screaming and—
Shadow. Walking toward them. Not fleeing, not fighting.
Walking. Deliberately. Choosing.
And his eyes when he looked back at me. Not golden anymore. Flat. Empty. Like I was nothing. Like nine years of partnership meant absolutely nothing.
I wake up gasping, tangled in sheets that are damp with sweat, my magic crackling around me in uncontrolled bursts that make the fairy lights downstairs flicker.
Three AM. Mist pressing against the windows like it wants to come inside.
“Great. Fantastic. Love this for me.”
I don’t go back to sleep. Instead, I pull on a robe and pad downstairs to make tea I don’t really want, just to keep my hands busy.
The shop is quiet. Crystals glinting in the faint light from the street. The half-finished charm on my workbench, waiting for me to find the focus to complete it.
I stand at the window, cradling my tea, watching the mist drift and curl through the empty streets of Mistvale.
Somewhere out there, whatever I saw—or thought I saw—is either sleeping, watching, hunting, or none of the above.
But the wards are holding. The doors are locked. And tomorrow is another day—another chance to build a new life, to prove that a shattered past doesn’t have to mean a shattered future.
Fresh start. Sort of.
The mist turns gold for a moment, just a flicker, and then settles back to silver.
I drain my tea and go back to bed.
Tomorrow is another day.