7. Sakura
SEVEN
SAKURA
The map is starting to look less like paranoia and more like evidence.
Three red pins mark the wall above my desk.
The warehouse district. Near the Familiar Registry. And here, in my own studio.
The first two throb with the same wrongness Anouk taught me to recognize—an active source, close enough to touch. The studio pin is fainter. More like an echo than a source. But an echo has to be echoing something.
I’ve drawn lines between them. Measured distances. Cross-referenced timing with my mood journal, my client schedule, even the moon phases in case that mattered.
It doesn’t. The pattern isn’t lunar or emotional.
The pattern is geographic.
Your magic isn’t broken. It’s responding to external distortion.
Anouk’s words from girls’ night echo in my head as I study the pins. External distortion. Not me. An outside force triggering responses I couldn’t understand because I was looking for the wrong cause.
The bell chimes.
I don’t turn around. The shift in the air tells me exactly who it is—that particular quality of warmth and steadiness that announces Torin’s presence before I see him.
“You’re early.” I keep my focus on the map. “Coffee usually comes at nine.”
“I had a feeling.” His footsteps are surprisingly quiet for his size. I feel him approach rather than hear him—a warmth at my back, close enough to touch if I leaned back. “Bad night?”
“Productive night.” I tap the map. “I’ve been tracking my episodes. The real ones—the surges, not the minor weather stuff.”
He moves to stand beside me, studying the pins with focused attention. His shoulder nearly brushes mine. I’m acutely aware of the heat radiating from him, the scent of cedar and cold air that clings to him—faintly sweet, edged with resin.
“Three locations. All within the same sector.”
“All facing the Registry.” I trace the lines I drew. “The warehouse sits northwest. My studio faces the square directly. And last week’s episode happened while walking to Berry’s shop.”
“You’ve had episodes at all three locations?”
“Severe ones. The magic feels... wrong there. Poisoned.” I wrap my arms around myself. “Like the air itself is sick.”
“Then we should investigate.”
I wait for him to pull out his phone. Call for backup. Request official authorization.
Instead, he puts on his jacket.
“Coming?”
I stare at him. “Now?”
“Unless you have other plans.”
“I was going to reorganize my crystal inventory.”
“That can wait.”
“The clear quartz is mixed with the rose quartz.” I gesture at the chaotic shelves. “It’s complete anarchy.”
“Life-threatening.” His voice is completely flat. “Mineralogical chaos of the highest order.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Never.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“Bears don’t have expressive faces.”
“That’s a lie,” I say, and he doesn’t argue.
The corner of his mouth quirks. Almost a smile.
Stop flirting and investigate the magical anomaly.
“Fine.” I grab my jacket. “But if this is nothing, you’re helping me sort crystals.”
“Deal.”
The morning mist clings to the cobblestones as we walk through Moonthread Square. It’s early—shop owners just opening, first customers trickling toward the bakery. The air smells of fresh bread and the particular dampness that Mistvale wears like a permanent accessory.
Torin adjusts his stride to match mine. A small accommodation given the difference in our heights, but he does it without comment. Without making me feel small or inconvenient.
“You walk fast,” he observes.
“I have short legs. Efficiency is required.”
“You walk like you’re trying to outrun your thoughts.”
I glance at him, surprised. “That’s... uncomfortably accurate.”
“I do the same thing. When the bear gets too restless, when there’s too much in my head.” He shrugs. “Walking helps. Movement helps.”
“And when walking doesn’t help?”
“I build things. Or write.” He doesn’t elaborate on the writing. “Or I find the source of what’s bothering me and deal with it directly.”
“Is that what we’re doing now? Dealing directly?”
“Yes.”
We continue on past the early-morning bustle of shops preparing for the day. Marcus is visible through the Crescent Cup window, polishing glasses with vampiric precision. He catches my eye and raises a glass in silent toast.
“The vampires are very invested in my love life,” I mutter.
“The vampires are very invested in everyone’s love life.” Torin sounds amused. “Centuries of marriage gives them certain... opinions.”
“About me specifically?”
“About patterns. They recognize courtship when they see it.”
Before I can ask what that means—before I can demand clarification on whether he just admitted to courting me—we pass Berry’s bookshop.
Berry spots us through the window. Waves frantically. Then holds up a book with both hands, pressing it against the glass so we can see the cover clearly.
“Bearing It All” by Milly Taiden. The cover features a woman in the arms of a very shirtless, very muscular bear shifter. They appear to be embracing in a forest clearing while lightning crackles romantically in the background.
My face heats. I pretend not to see it. Keep walking with my gaze fixed firmly ahead.
Beside me, Torin makes a sound. Might be a cough. Might be suppressed laughter.
“Not a word.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your silence is very loud.”
He looks straight ahead, expression neutral, but there’s a gleam in his eyes that suggests he’s enjoying this far more than he should.
“The shop picks books for people,” I feel compelled to explain. “Berry says it’s semi-sentient. It chose those novels for me. I didn’t ask for them.”
“Of course.”
“I haven’t even read them.”
“Naturally.”
“Stop agreeing in that tone.”
“What tone?” Now he does look at me, and there’s definitely amusement there. “I’m simply acknowledging your statements.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“I prefer ‘persistent.’”
This feels like a date. Walking through misty streets, trading barbs, hyper-aware of every brush of shoulders.
I notice, distantly, that I haven’t checked the sky once.
No phantom clouds gathering at the corners of my vision.
No restless electricity at my fingertips. I tell myself it’s the fresh air.
“Here.” I stop in front of the warehouse. Stone walls stained with age, windows boarded over, door hanging askew on its hinges. “This is where I had the first major episode. Two weeks after I arrived.”
Torin studies the building with professional assessment. “What were you doing here?”
“Exploring. I walk when I’m anxious—burns off energy before it manifests as weather.” I swallow, remembering the sudden surge of wrongness, the way my power had erupted without warning. “I felt drawn here. Couldn’t explain why. And then...”
“Lost control?”
“Lost two hours. When I came back, there was a crater in the cobblestones outside.”
“You didn’t report it?”
“Report what? ‘Hi, I’m the new witch, and I accidentally destroyed your historic district because I can’t control my emotions’?” I shake my head. “I repaired the damage and hoped no one noticed.”
“I noticed.” His voice is quiet. “The repair work. Very subtle. But I know every cobblestone in this town.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I wasn’t sure what I’d noticed. Not until now.”
He moves toward the door, testing the handle. It creaks open without resistance.
“Ready?”
No. Absolutely not.
“Yes.”
The interior is exactly what you’d expect from decades of abandonment. Dust coats every surface. Debris litters the floor—broken crates, rotted fabric, the remains of a shipping operation long defunct. Weak light filters through gaps in the boarded windows.
But underneath the decay, there’s wrongness.
I feel it immediately—a pressure against my senses, a twist in the ambient magic that makes my stomach clench. My power stirs in response, reaching toward the distortion like a compass needle seeking north.
“You feel that?” Torin’s voice is low. Alert.
“Yes.” I press a hand to my chest, where my magic is coiling tighter with each step. “It’s stronger than before. When I was here last time, I thought it was me—my own instability. But this is...”
“External.”
“Definitely external.”
We move deeper, following the wrongness like a scent trail. Torin stays half a step ahead—not blocking my path, but positioned to intercept any threat. Protective. Automatic. Like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
The pressure intensifies near the back of the building. A door here—heavy, reinforced, newer than anything else in the structure. Someone has been maintaining this place.
“Cellar access.” Torin examines the hinges, the lock. “Recently oiled. The dust patterns suggest regular use.”
“Regular use of an abandoned warehouse?”
“Regular use of the cellar.” He produces lockpicks—apparently standard equipment for Protection Network members—and goes to work. “Someone’s been coming here. Frequently.”
The lock clicks. The door swings inward, revealing stairs descending into darkness.
My magic screams.
The sensation is overwhelming—like standing at the edge of a waterfall, feeling the pull of the current. Every instinct says run.
Instead, I take a step forward.
“Wait.” Torin’s hand catches my arm. Warm. Grounding. “Tell me what you’re sensing.”
I close my eyes. Focus on parsing the wrongness into comprehensible information.
“It’s a drain.” The realization crystallizes. “Pulling power from the area, funneling it somewhere else. That’s why my episodes cluster here—the drain creates a vacuum, and my magic rushes to fill it.”
“A siphon.”
“A siphon.”
We descend.
The cellar is smaller than expected. Stone walls, low ceiling, air thick with the residue of accumulated magic.
And in the center—
A crystalline device the size of a human head. Faceted surfaces catch what little light filters down, refracting sick rainbows across the walls. Inside, visible through the translucent structure, a web of pulsing energy that draws ambient magic toward it like a whirlpool.
“Gods.” The whisper escapes. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a weapon.” Torin moves between me and the device. “Don’t get closer.”
“I wasn’t—”