Chapter 9 Sable
Sable
The Divide looked different in daylight.
Not safer—nothing in this district was ever safe—but the shadows that pooled in doorways at night had retreated, leaving behind cracked cobblestones and weathered facades that almost looked ordinary.
Almost.
Harkan walked beside me, close enough that my shoulder brushed his arm with every step. Behind us, Riven and Kael followed at a distance, their eyes scanning rooftops and alleyways with the vigilance of wolves who expected trouble.
I'd tried to put space between us twice. Both times, Harkan had closed the gap within seconds, pulling me into his side like he wanted to pull me into his skin.
"You're hovering," I said finally.
His amber gaze flicked toward me for half a second before he continued scanning our surroundings. "Yes."
"It's annoying." It wasn’t actually. It was kind of nice and reassuring, but letting myself have that was stupid and wrong and on a laundry list of reckless, no-good, very bad ideas.
"Tough shit." He didn't sound remotely apologetic. "The wolf won't let me give you space. Not here. Not with the Devourer still out there and Varro's men looking for you. It was a wonder that he let you leave at all."
I didn’t know whether that was comforting or terrifying. "And what you want doesn't factor into it?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then he finally answered: "What I want and what the wolf wants are the same thing right now."
I did not like how that sentence made my belly dip.
The streets grew more familiar as we walked—the crooked lane where I'd bought herbs from a one-eyed merchant, the alley where I'd once hidden from Varro's collectors, the corner where my mother used to meet me after school with warm bread and honeyed tea.
Memories pressed against my chest like stones.
"Tell me about her," Harkan murmured, his hand curling around mine as my steps faltered. "Your mother."
I almost stumbled. "What?"
"You said she was a mirror scryer. That she saw something in Rafe that frightened her.
" His gaze stayed forward, giving me the illusion of privacy even as he walked close enough to catch me if I fell, his warm hand reassuring in a way I didn’t want to think about.
"But you haven't told me who she was. What she was like. "
Why do you care? I bitterly wanted to ask. But the words that came out were different.
"She was... warm. Fierce. She had this laugh that could fill a whole room, and when she was angry, you knew it from three streets away." I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. "She taught me everything I know about magic. About reading people. About protecting myself."
He tilted his head as he regarded me for a moment. "But not about protecting your heart."
The observation landed like a blade between my ribs. "No. That lesson I had to learn on my own, unfortunately."
We turned the corner, and there it was.
My shop.
The building looked the same as it always had—narrow and crooked, wedged between a pawnbroker and a boarded-up tavern. The windows were dark, the door closed, the wards I'd set before fleeing still humming faintly against my senses.
But something was wrong.
I felt it before I could name it—a prickling at the back of my neck, a taste on my tongue like copper and char. The wards weren't just intact. They were strained, pushing back against something that had tried to breach them.
"Someone's been here," I murmured.
Harkan's hand closed around my arm, pulling me to a stop. "Wait."
"It's my shop. My wards. I can feel—"
"I know." His voice was low, controlled. "But let me go first."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to remind him that I'd survived thirty-two years without a dire wolf bodyguard and I could handle whatever was waiting inside.
But the look in his eyes stopped me. Not command. Not possession. Just... fear. For me.
"Fine," I said, pointing a finger right in his face. "But I'm right behind you."
He nodded and moved toward the door, his body shifting subtly—shoulders broader, movements more fluid, the wolf rising closer to the surface. Riven and Kael materialized at the edges of my vision, taking positions on either side of the building.
Harkan pressed his palm against the door. The wards recognized him—recognized the mark he'd left on my skin—and parted like water.
The door swung open.
Inside, the shop was exactly as I'd left it. Jars on shelves, candles in holders, the counter where I'd stood while Varro's men dragged an imp to his death. The bloodstain was gone—I'd scrubbed it clean myself—but the memory lingered like a ghost.
"Clear," Harkan said after a moment. "At least down here."
I stepped inside, and the familiar scent of dried herbs and beeswax wrapped around me like an embrace. Home. This had been my home for my whole life. My prison and my sanctuary all at once.
"The workroom," I said. "Upstairs. That's where my mother's things are."
Harkan followed me up the narrow staircase, his presence warm at my back.
The steps creaked in the same places they always had—third from the bottom, seventh from the top—and I counted them without thinking, an old habit from nights when I'd crept up to check on inventory after Varro's men had "visited. "
The door to my mother's workroom was at the end of the hall.
I hadn't opened it in years. Hadn't been able to make myself cross the threshold into the space where she'd taught me to scry, where she'd mixed potions and read futures and laughed at my clumsy early attempts at spellwork.
My hand trembled as I reached for the handle.
"I can go in first," Harkan offered quietly. "If you need—"
"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "No. This I have to do myself."
The door swung open, and the past rushed up to meet me.
It was exactly as she'd left it.
The workbench cluttered with half-finished projects—a salve she'd been perfecting for burn victims, the copper bowl she used for mixing remedies, dried lavender bundled and waiting to be hung.
The shelves lined with jars and bottles, their contents still preserved by the stasis charms she'd woven into the wood.
The small cot in the corner where she'd slept during long nights of work, the blanket still rumpled from the last time she'd risen from it.
And everywhere—everywhere—evidence of me.
A child's drawing pinned to the wall, faded with age but still legible: a stick figure with wild black hair holding hands with a taller figure, both of them surrounded by stars. I'd drawn it when I was six, after she'd taught me my first cantrip. She'd kept it all these years.
"This was hers?" Harkan asked from the doorway. He hadn't entered, I realized. He was giving me space, even though the wolf probably hated it.
"Her sanctuary." I moved to the shelves, running my fingers along the jars.
Moonflower essence. Powdered starlight. Dried dreamcap mushrooms. Ingredients I needed, ingredients I could use.
I began pulling them down, tucking them into my bag with mechanical efficiency.
"She used to say the shop was for customers, but this room was for truth. "
"Truth?"
"Her scrying. She couldn't do it downstairs—too many people had touched things, left their imprints.
Up here, everything was hers. Pure." I lifted a jar of preserved nightshade, remembering how she'd taught me to harvest it by moonlight.
"She said the mirrors only showed clearly when the space around them was clean. "
On a shelf above the workbench, I found what I was looking for—her scrying mirror. Small, oval, the frame carved from rowan wood and inlaid with chips of obsidian. The glass itself was dark, almost black, polished to a shine that seemed to drink in the light.
I lifted it carefully, half-expecting to see her face looking back at me.
"She used to let me watch," I said, the words coming unbidden. "When she scryed. She'd hold the mirror and her eyes would go distant, and I'd sit at her feet and wait for her to come back. Sometimes she'd tell me what she saw. Sometimes she'd just hold me and cry."
"The future isn't always kind."
"No." I wrapped the mirror in a cloth and tucked it into my bag. "It isn't."
On the workbench, beside her favorite mortar and pestle, lay her grimoire. Leather-bound, worn soft with decades of use, filled with her elegant handwriting. I opened it carefully, and a pressed flower fell into my palm—a moonblossom, the same kind she used to tuck behind my ear when I was small.
My throat tightened.
The margins were full of notes. Some about spells and potions, but others... others were about me.
Sable mastered the truth-taste today. She's only eight. I've never seen such natural talent.
Sable asked about her father again. I told her the same lie I always tell. One day I'll have to give her the truth, but not yet. Not while she still looks at me like I hung the moon.
She's growing so fast. Sixteen already. I worry about the way that merchant's son looks at her, but she laughs when I bring it up. She has my stubbornness. Gods help anyone who tries to cage her.
A tear splashed onto the page before I could stop it.
"She loved you." Harkan's voice was soft. He'd moved into the room at some point, standing close enough to see the pages but not close enough to crowd. "It's in every line."
"She warned me about Rafe." I closed the grimoire, pressing it to my chest like a talisman.
"Begged me to stay away from him. I thought she was being paranoid.
Overprotective." A bitter laugh scraped my throat.
"She saw what he was, and I chose him, anyway.
Chose his pretty words over her desperate truth. "
"You were young."
"I was stupid. And she died knowing I'd thrown away everything she taught me for a man who was already planning to sell me."
Harkan was quiet for a long moment. Then he said something that made the breath catch in my chest. "She died knowing you loved her. That's not nothing."