2. Aslan #3
Witches founded this place. Built it from nothing, layer upon layer of wards and spells and protective enchantments. Shifters came later, hired as protection, and stayed because Mistvale became home.
But The Hollow still belongs to the witches. Their magic saturates every brick, every cobblestone, every curl of mist that drifts through the winding streets.
I watch.
She sets down the charm and stretches, rolling her shoulders, working out kinks from hunching over her workbench. The movement is unconscious, unguarded—the kind of thing you do when you think no one’s watching.
My grip tightens on the bakery’s doorframe.
She moves to the window, pressing close to the glass. For a moment, it seems like she sees me. My body goes still, predator instincts freezing every muscle, making me invisible in the shadows.
But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at the mist, expression shifting to wariness.
She steps back from the window. Her wards pulse. A deliberate check—she’s scanning for threats. Looking for whatever put that fear in her eyes.
She moves toward the back of the shop, and I lose sight of her. The fairy lights dim. A moment later, a second-floor window glows to life—her apartment, probably. Small, if the building’s proportions are any indication.
The protective instinct hits so hard my knuckles crack.
I force my hands to unclench. Take a breath that does nothing.
But as I stare at that second-floor window, watching the shadow of movement behind thin curtains, I feel—Recognition. Want.
The memory hits without warning.
I wrench myself back to the present, gasping, my hand pressed against the bakery’s wall to keep myself upright.
Five years of nothing. Five years of control, of duty, of being exactly what my pride needed me to be.
And now this witch—this stranger with her fiery hair and her fragile wards and her haunted expression—is making those walls shake.
I push off from the wall. Force my feet to move. One step, then another, putting distance between myself and the too-bright windows, the too-compelling witch.
The mist parts around me as I walk, tendrils reaching but never quite touching. It knows what I am. Knows that the predator walking through its depths is more dangerous than anything lurking beyond the Warding Line.
I’m almost to Market Bridge when I hear it.
A bell. Clear and bright, cutting through the mist-dampened silence.
The Familiar Registry.
I stop.
That bell. It only rings when a new match is recognized by the Registry’s magic—when two beings it has been watching finally acknowledge what they are to each other. Not engagement. Not courtship. The moment of recognition itself. The magic seeing itself reflected back.
The sound echoes across the rooftops, rolling through The Hollow like a proclamation. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then silence.
I stand frozen in the middle of the bridge, my reflection rippling in the dark water below. Every muscle locked. Every instinct screaming contradictory demands.
The beast inside me roars so loud, I’m afraid I’ve shifted without meaning to. But my hands are still hands, my body still human-shaped. Just barely.
I start walking again, faster, nearly running.
My feet pound against the cobblestones as I put distance between myself and Moonthread Square. The mist swirls in my wake, disturbed by my passage, and I swear I can still smell her—herbs and sweetness, clinging to my senses like a brand.
But my tiger doesn’t care about logic. Doesn’t care about walls or control or the very good reasons I have for staying away. He knows what he knows, with the certainty of instinct that has nothing to do with reason.
I don’t stop moving until I reach my cabin on the edge of tiger territory. It’s sparse—bare walls, simple furniture, nothing that could hold memories. Nothing that could hurt.
I built it that way on purpose. After everything, I’d needed a place with no echoes—the ghost of a woman’s laugh in a doorway, a garden I couldn’t bring myself to let die. Some things you don’t survive unchanged. The only answer is to build something new and bare and entirely yours.
I stand in the doorway, breathing hard, the pull toward the square—toward her—so strong, it takes physical effort to resist.
I step inside and close the door.
The silence wraps around me, familiar and cold. Outside, the mist thickens as dawn approaches, turning from silver to gray to something that looked almost gold, if you caught it at the right angle.
I don’t look.
Instead, I strip off my clothes and stand under water cold enough to shock. Let the chill drive out the heat that’s been building since I first caught her scent. Force my body back under the control that has kept me alive, kept me sane, for five years.
The charm witch is an assignment. Caius gave me orders. I’ve assessed. She’s not a threat.
I dry off, dress in clean clothes, lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Count my breaths. Force my mind to empty.
But when I finally sleep, I dream of copper hair and frightened eyes and the sound of a bell ringing in the darkness.
And when I wake, something deep in my chest is still restless.