slippinmickeys

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (49/?)

“You can… read them?” Fox said. 

Dana didn’t answer, instead, she knelt down closer to the fire where the light was better and turned Bite point-down into the dirt at her feet so that she could see it, looking like a knight making a vow to her king. She studied the small sword for another moment and then flipped it over to look at the other side. 

Fox knelt beside her. 

“Dana?” he said softly. 

She looked up at him and then lifted Bite, handing it to him. 

The blade caught the firelight, and the runes that were upon it seemed to glow in the light.

“North for what seeks you,” he read aloud, their bond mark tingling as he spoke. 

Dana pressed her lips together, then said. “Flip it.”

He turned the small sword over. 

“Look beside you for what you seek.” He turned to look at her.

“Look beside you for what you seek,” she repeated, her words weighted with unspoken significance. “North for what seeks you.”

“What does it mean?” Fox said breathlessly. 

“It means,” said a voice from close by. “That you’re ready to cross the Veil.”

***

Dana jumped at the sound of the voice, twisting fast, Bite already raised and gleaming in the firelight. At the edge of the circle stood an old man. Stooped and thin as winter branches, his grey robes hung loose around his frame, and he leaned heavily on a staff that seemed to hold him up more than he held it.

Fox recognized him a breath before she did. He stepped forward, his anger dissipating, as alarm and disbelief flickered across his face. “Are you—what happened?”

The Overseer lifted one hand in reassurance and moved slowly closer, lowering himself onto the trunk of a nearby windfall with a weary sigh, the moth fluttering silently at his elbow. The fire painted deep lines on his face, age etched in places where it hadn’t been before. Overhead, the raven shifted on her branch, feathers rustling, watching them all with her bright, sharp eyes.

Fox crouched closer, concern creasing his brow. “You don’t look well.”

The Overseer gave a thin, humorless smile.

“I believe you mean I look old,” he said. 

Fox exchanged a look with Dana, a flicker of unease passing between them.

The Overseer shifted slightly, wincing as though the act of sitting upright cost him something. His fingers tightened briefly around the head of his staff before he spoke again.

“Every time I use my power, I spend myself,” he went on. “Years, all at once, burned like kindling.” He stared into the flames again, eyes dimmed but steady. “My magic is finite, boy. When it’s gone, so am I.”

Fox swallowed, glanced up briefly at Dana—and then back at the Overseer. He had sacrificed much to help them.

“What happened back there?” Fox asked. 

“The Dark Mage. We fought the Dreyn side by side, if you can believe it,” the old man said, voice rasped with exhaustion. “His sword burned dark as pitch, and still the thing only flinched. I used more power than I should have just to keep it from draining us, and it still wouldn’t die.” He shifted, wincing, as though the memory weighed on his bones.

Inside her, fear turned tight and hot. “The Dreyn fled,” he went on. “Wounded, hungry, but not dead. The horse saw to my escape. Bore me far enough to reach your track, then left me and went back to its rider.”

Fox flinched. “In the village,” he said. “As we were trying to get away. You helped that creature. The Dark Mage’s stallion.”

She swallowed thickly and could feel a different kind of tension rising in Fox, his emotion swirling up through their bond as a cool breeze sweeps into a hot kitchen.

“I helped his familiar,” the Overseer corrected, quiet but firm. “As I do.”

Dana’s gaze darted between them, fingers tightening on Bite—something in the way Fox’s fists clenched at his sides made her stomach knot tighter.

“Helping him helps the Dark Mage,” Fox hissed.

The Overseer only shook his head, weary.  “Not every familiar has the bond you do. That stallion is a proud creature, bound to a master who sees him as little more than a weapon. I offered him freedom. He refused… but he did not betray your path.”

Dana had questions of her own, but the tension between the Overseer and Fox made the air feel heavy and she held her tongue. 

The raven swooped down from her perch, landing on the ground near the fire. Her black eyes fixed on Fox, then slid to Dana, glinting like polished stone. “The world binds more than masters do,” she said, blinking. “Threads tug unseen, and not even a witch can cut them all.”

Dana felt a chill trace over her skin, though the fire burned bright. Perhaps fate isn’t a chain or a blessing, she thought, just threads pulling two people together, no matter how far apart they start.

She glanced at Fox, but he was staring frankly at the raven, his breath coming in short pants. 

She stepped forward. 

“Why are you here?” she finally spoke. “Why do you help us?”

“I help familiars,” the Overseer said, shrugging. “As I promised my witch I would.”

Fox shook his head slowly, frustration coiling tighter in his voice. “No. There’s more to it than that.” He looked between the Overseer and the raven, his jaw tight. “You drop hints, riddles—threads you say are binding—but you never tell us what they are. You know something about all of this, about me, about Dana, and you just sit there, watching.” His breath caught, raw anger scraping his throat. “You lord the knowing over us while we stumble blind.”

The Overseer’s eyes narrowed, his own temper flaring to life. “Think you know everything, do you?”

“I know nothing!” Fox snapped, rising to his feet now, the words spilling hot and sharp. “I have no memory. Only a compulsion to serve this witch.” 

Dana felt her breath hitch in her chest, but Fox had already built up a head of steam and was finally releasing it.

“And you!” He pointed an angry fist at the Overseer. “You with your vague speeches and hints and half-truths. The heir of Light. The last. The prophecy. We know nothing of these things! Because you have told us nothing! A help? Hah!”

Fox’s anger left the air crackling, his chest heaving as the last words spat out of him. Even the fire seemed to gutter under the weight of his fury.

The Overseer regarded him for a long, unreadable moment. 

“You fight with the Dark Mage though he wants Dana dead,” Fox pressed, his voice sharp, demanding. “You keep things from us. Tell us it’s not yet time to know them. Why?”

The Overseer’s gaze, old and unblinking, settled on him. “Because the future has been written,” he said at last. “Many paths lead toward it. And he must be alive to tread it. As must you. This is not the time for your confrontation. That will come.”

Beside her, Fox paled. Dana shifted uneasily, her fingers tightening on Bite’s handle. “How do you know this?” she asked, hesitant but unable to stay silent.

The Overseer’s eyes seemed to dim with memory, his voice lowering. “My witch was a seer,” he said. “A woman unmatched in her gift. She foresaw all of this. Every choice, every thread. And if we want to save the magical world, if we want to save its future—your future—we must all walk the One Path.”

Fox stared at him, the firelight throwing sharp lines across his face. His jaw worked as if he had more to say, more to throw at the old man, but no words came.

“And what is the One Path?” Dana asked. “Where does it lead?” 

“North of the Veil,” the Overseer said. 

“So you said when you stepped into our firelight,” Fox said, glancing at Bite. “What do the words on the blade mean?”

“What do they say?” the Overseer asked. 

Dana could see Fox’s exasperation building and put a calming hand on his arm. 

“Look beside you for what you seek,” she read. “North for what seeks you.”

“What else does it say?” 

Dana felt her brow furrow in a chevron of confusion.

“On the hilt, lass,” the Overseer said. 

She looked to the hilt. The runes there, she still couldn’t read. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. 

The Overseer’s gaze flicked to where her hand rested on Fox’s arm. 

“You will,” he said.

***

A breeze stirred the ashes at the fire’s edge, carrying the faint scent of damp earth and smoke. Beyond the small circle of warmth, the forest was shifting, the deep black of night thinning toward slate grey. The first hints of dawn threaded between the branches, quiet but relentless, and Dana felt a tight pull in her chest.

If both the Dark Mage and the Dreyn were still out there, they couldn’t linger a moment longer.

Her fingers tightened on Fox’s arm, grounding herself against the tension still humming through him. He stood beside her, gaze locked on the Overseer, his shoulders rigid, every muscle tight with the effort of holding himself still. 

The Overseer leaned heavily on his staff as he pushed himself upright. “We should move,” he said, voice rough, but steady enough. “North. The Veil isn’t far now.”

Dana glanced up at Fox. For a moment, she thought he might refuse. Tell the Overseer that he could take his staff and put it in a rather indelicate position and that they’d find their own way. But when his eyes met hers, they were weary but determined, and he gave a sharp nod. 

Together they bent to scatter the fire, smothering the last embers until only smoke coiled low and thin over the earth. Overhead, the raven launched skyward with a soft beat of wings, vanishing into the paling dark.

The Overseer waited until they were ready, his presence a watchful presence behind them. When they finally turned north, the horizon was already beginning to smolder with light.

***

Daylight spread through the thinning trees as they walked, the mist slowly lifting off the forest floor. The path began to rise, and as Dana crested a small ridge, the trees opened just enough for her to see the jagged cliffs to the north. Beyond them, snow-capped mountains rose like teeth into the pale morning sky, their icy ridges stark against the sunlight. The sight made her chest tighten. They were impossibly far, brutal in their promise of cold and danger.

Dana’s fingers curled around Bite’s hilt as they walked, her eyes falling again and again to the runes. Look beside you for what you seek. Her gaze slid to Fox, padding behind her, next to the Overseer, tail brushing low to the ground. Was that what the blade meant? That the answer she’d been chasing was already with her? Or was it something else—someone else—they hadn’t met yet?

Her stomach knotted. And the other words… North for what seeks you. That one felt heavier, darker, like a pull she couldn’t see and couldn’t escape. Something—or someone—was waiting for her out there. Hunting her, maybe. The Dark Mage. The Dreyn. 

She tightened her grip on the blade, as if the pressure of her fingers could squeeze meaning out of the metal. A warning or a promise, she couldn’t tell. Maybe both.

The raven glided ahead, wings whispering through the air before it hopped on a low branch beside her, keeping pace as she walked. Its dark eyes fixed on her, unblinking, as though it could see the weight of her thoughts laid bare. The silence stretched for a few steps, the crunch of leaves and the faint snap of twigs underfoot filling the space between them.

Finally, Dana drew a breath, the cold air stinging her lungs. “Is Silas well?” she asked, voice barely above a murmur.

“He will heal,” the raven replied, voice calm as water in a still pool. Dana would have felt better if she could have seen her friend with her own eyes, but she had to trust what the raven said was true. 

She hesitated, glancing again at the distant peaks. “Silas,” she said, “spoke of the Veil. What do you know of it?”

“It is the boundary of the land of magic,” the raven said. “Only those with power may cross it.”

“What is it like?” Dana asked.

There was a pause, then a faint shift in the raven’s tone, almost like a smile. “You’ll see.”

“Have you been across it?”

“I lived above it with my mage for many years.”

Dana frowned slightly, her hand brushing Bite’s hilt as she asked, “Who was your mage?”

“A mage of dark magic.”

“Was he… bad?” The word slipped out before she could stop it.

“No magic is all bad. Nor all good,” the raven said, her feathers lifting and settling. “The two schools are merely different sides of the same coin, though those who practice them may tell you otherwise.”

Dana let that sink in before murmuring, “How did you find your mage?”

“He found me,” the raven said. “I was injured. He healed me and asked me into his service.”

“How so?”

“The witch or mage chooses their familiar. The familiar chooses back.”

The words landed oddly in Dana’s chest. She hadn’t chosen Fox. As far as she knew, Fox hadn’t chosen her, either—not really. They had been bound before they’d even met.

The raven seemed to sense her unease. “The bond between witch and familiar is as different as the witches themselves,” she said softly. “Fear not.”

Dana glanced over her shoulder. Fox padded quietly behind her, the Overseer and the moth following a few paces back. Their presence was comforting, but the shadow of the mountains looming in the distance still filled her with dread.

They reached a small clearing, and the air grew heavy, charged with that strange hush Dana remembered from the glade where she and Fox had first found the calling stone. The Overseer moved past them, planting his staff in the leaf-strewn earth as his gaze fixed on the snow-tipped peaks.

“The Veil lies beyond those mountains,” he said, his voice roughened with fatigue but certain.

Fox’s ears flicked back, his tail lashing once. “You said it was close now,” he growled, frustration biting at the edges of his words.

Dana stared at the distant ridges, her heart sinking. How could they possibly hike through all that? The journey looked endless, pitiless in their promise of cold and danger. They would freeze before they even reached the foothills.

The Overseer turned, the faintest trace of a knowing smile tugging at his lips. “Not everything is as it seems.”

He set the staff firmly into the ground. Power thrummed outward in a green ripple, making the leaves stir and the air shimmer. Then, with a sound like tearing silk, a tall, arched portal split the space before them, revealing the mountains up close on the other side. Snow swirled in the frigid wind that gusted through, biting into Dana’s skin and frosting the leaves at her boots.

“The way north awaits,” the Overseer said, his voice carrying over the sudden roar of winter air spilling into the autumn hollow.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (48/?)

The cord bit into his wrists, was wrapped tight around his chest, squeezing, making it difficult to breathe. But it wasn’t just rope that bound him, it was magic, too; odd and discordant, humming with someone else’s power. He pulled once, twice, but it only cinched tighter. 

Stone pressed against his knees. His head throbbed, his ribs screamed where he'd been thrown. He tried to lift his chin, but the dark dragged him under again—

—then, just as suddenly, up. A flicker in his sightline. Yellow-green eyes watched him from the shadows. A black cat crouched low, tail twitching once, silent and knowing. It didn’t blink, just stared, judging. Watching.

He wanted to speak, but no sound came. The world swam.

Through the roar in his ears, another voice cut through. A woman’s voice. Distant, urgent. Pleading.

 “…prophecy…”

The magic twisted tighter, sinking its claws into him.

“…heir…bound…”

He tried to focus, to cling to her voice, but it slipped, muffled, lost in the torrent of foreign magic clawing at him. It seemed to go on and on and he floated up and out of it and then sank back down, swimming in and out of consciousness. 

The chanting started. Quick. Wrong in every way. Words made of teeth and iron hooks, dragging something loose inside his chest. Every syllable scraped his nerves raw.

“NO!” 

The word came from her, sharp and breaking, a scream that seemed to tear the world apart.

For a heartbeat, the magic binding him tangled with something achingly known—and then it tore loose, shattering through him, jagged and wrong, leaving fire-and-ice agony in its wake.

—Fox woke with a strangled breath, heart hammering, sweat chilling his skin. It took him a moment to realize where he was. To feel the weight and warmth curled against him, Dana’s hand fisted lightly in his tunic, her breath soft against his chest.

She sniffed to awareness, inhaling deeply, the current of disquiet from his dream drifting through the bond that marked their skin. He tried to pull it back, but it was too late. 

Dana sat up, her hand still clutching his front. 

“Are you well?” she said, blinking into the dying firelight. Above them, the sky was awash in stars, the pinpricks of light like the sun shining through a curtain of dark linen. 

He swallowed, needing a moment to adjust to his surroundings. To her. It had only been a 

week—perhaps two—since they’d last been together, but their time apart had felt interminable. 

“It was the dream again, wasn’t it?” Dana asked, sitting up completely. The cool night air drifted in where she’d been pressed up next to him, and he shivered, once. 

“Yes,” he panted, his breathing just beginning to regulate. 

Dana rose and added another piece of wood to the fire, sending up a plume of orange sparks that blazed and then winked out. Her face was amber in the fire’s renewed glow, her freckles lost in the monochrome.

She came back over to him and lowered herself mindfully to the blanket he still lay upon, reaching out to loosely lace her fingers with his. 

“Was it the same?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he said once again. “And no.”

She tilted her head at him, curious. 

He rubbed a hand over his face. There was grit there amongst the shadow of hair that grew, though he would be freshly shaved again with dusk. “There was a woman there trying to help me. She mentioned a prophecy. An heir.”

Dana’s mouth pressed into a long, thin line. “Like the Dark Mage.”

He nodded.

“I was bound,” he said. “But it wasn’t just with ropes,” he went on. “This time I could feel… it was with magic, too.”

She nodded at this. 

“You saw more this time? It was different?”

“It was the same,” he said. “ I was more.”

She looked at him for a long moment, 

“You’re a mage,” Dana said softly. 

He thought of the moment in the backroom of the apothecary, the magic of the sea witch’s grimoire rising up to meet him like the tide.

“Yes.” 

The word landed heavily between them, a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading in the silence. 

Dana swallowed. Looked at him. “Your body is starting to remember,” she said. “Even if your mind won’t.”

His hand up in the air, the magic trying to course through him, but held back by some unknown force. A force like the binding of a cord.  

“Do you think,” Dana started, “that the dream you’re having is—”

“—the memory of my being bewitched,” Fox finished. He was certain now. The feeling was the same. 

“What was done to me, to change me…”

He looked up at her. The firelight played across her face—curious, open, unafraid. 

“It’s binding my magic, too.”

Her expression didn’t change. There was understanding there. 

“So your dreams are memories,” she said after a moment.

He nodded once.

Dana looked over to her satchel and then pulled it to her, digging inside until she pulled out the spellbook and began rifling through the pages. After a few moments, she sighed unhappily. 

“What?” he asked. 

She shifted closer, licked her lips. “I was hoping there would be a spell,” she said. “To help you regain your memories. Maybe even your power.”

He smiled, rueful. “How easy that would be.”

“It has helped me in the past. When I’ve been in need,” she explained, nodding towards the book. “But I’m beginning to get the sense that it’s as stubborn as Penny White.” 

“Who is Penny White?”

“Mildred’s good-for-nothing hinny,” Dana explained. “I opened the gate when I ran, freed every animal I could, but that lump’s probably still glued there, hollering for dinner.” 

Fox chuckled and reached out to wrap his hand around her wrist. She dropped the spell book back into her satchel and turned her hand over in his, lacing their fingers together once again. 

“I’m sorry,” she said earnestly. 

“Don’t be.” 

Dana squeezed his hand. “You deserve to know your past, Fox. You deserve to know who you are.” She shifted, leaning a little closer. “So do I. It’s something we share.”

He let her words settle in his chest, grounding him.

“So we’re both connected to the prophecy the Dark Mage spoke of.” He watched as she took a deep breath, tilted her chin to her shoulder. “Perhaps this isn’t just your story after all,” he went on. “But ours.”

Her eyes shone in the firelight. 

“Everything has to be connected,” she nodded. “The Dreyn. The Dark Mage. All of the things that he said—” A look washed over her face, like she’d only just considered something. “What did the Overseer tell you?” she asked. “He obviously knows far more than—”

Anger overtook him. Anger at the Overseer. The frustration of not knowing pulling at already frayed nerves. He squeezed her hand and then rose to his feet, suddenly too irritated to stay seated a moment longer. 

“I asked the Overseer,” he growled. “To tell me who I was. But he only said I wasn’t ready yet.”

“Do you think he knows?”

Fox hesitated, considering the question. “Yes. But he’s waiting. For what, I don’t know.”

Dana blinked up at him. “Do you think he survived… whatever it was we left behind?” 

His anger veered ever so slightly toward concern. The man may be withholding important information, but he had helped both Fox and Dana. At great cost to himself. 

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I hope he did. Because I have questions for him.” 

“About who you are?” 

“About who we both are,” he answered, looking at her levelly. 

Her gaze faltered under his. 

“The Heir of Light,” she said, her voice quiet, repeating the words of the Dark Mage. 

Fox nodded. 

“The last,” he said. 

Dana’s hand reached for Bite, though her eyes remained on the fire. It didn’t seem a conscious action. 

“The prophecy he spoke of… He seemed to think I was a threat to him.”

“Yes,” Fox said, lowering himself back down so that they were on the same level. “He seemed sure of it. Like he’s spent his life preparing for it.” He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think it’s true?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But if it is… if I’m the last… maybe my mother was the one before me.”

“She must’ve known something,” Fox said. “Why else would she hide you?”

Dana looked down at the blade in her hands. “She left me with people who didn’t know what I was. But maybe that was the point. Maybe it was the only way to keep me safe.”

“She was protecting you,” Fox said softly.

Dana nodded. 

Her voice faltered, then steadied. “I want to know who she was. If she’s still alive.”

“She saved you,” Fox said. “That’s a start.”

Dana gave a quiet hum of agreement, then added, “And that thing in the jail—the Dreyn. It wasn’t supposed to be there. The Dark Mage was surprised to see it.” She shuddered with the memory. “It drained me,” she whispered. “Took my magic. My strength. I think… I think if it had kept going, it would’ve killed me.”

Fox’s jaw clenched.

“It wasn’t just pain. It was a hollowing. Like it was pulling the magic out of me, stripping it down to nothing.” She looked up at him. “If that creature is loose now—if there are more like it…”

“Then the world’s even more dangerous than it used to be.”

She nodded.

“And then there’s you,” Dana added softly. “You cast that protective spell.”

Fox swallowed tightly.

“It took something from you when I did it. I’m sorry.”

“No,” she said quickly and placing her hand on his chest. “You did what you had to do. You protected me.”

His eyes searched hers. “But it drew from you. Through our bond.”

She hesitated. “Then maybe it’s stronger than either of us thought.”

Under Fox’s skin, the bond seemed to shift and surge with its own strange gravity, and he knew she felt it too. It moved between them like water in a rockbound inlet, waves ricocheting off unseen walls, a ceaseless back-and-forth that gathered its own momentum and would not still.

The sky was beginning to lighten. He would be changing soon, whittled down and carved back into something small and earthbound—a creature too far from her warmth, stripped of the limbs that could enfold her against his chest, the feel of her body pressed to his slipping away with the dawn. He covered her hand in his own and leaned his head forward, lightly touching his forehead to hers. 

“Dana,” he whispered. 

He felt her pull back slightly from him. 

When he opened his eyes, he met hers looking back. There was the faintest spark of gold in them, there one moment, gone the next. Then her eyes drifted shut and she closed the little distance between them, pressing her lips into his. 

All thought, all worry, all the weight of unknowing disappeared when their mouths met, leaving only the warmth of her kiss. Her tongue sought his, languid as the morning tide, pulling him under in a way that felt both inevitable and entirely new. His hand found her cheek, thumb brushing over soft skin, and she leaned into it, deepening the kiss with a need that matched his own. Time slipped loose around them, everything else falling away until there was nothing but breath and heat and the fragile, desperate certainty of her mouth on his.

But then, behind them, the crack of a branch from not far beyond the circle of light cast by their fire. 

They broke apart, leaping to their feet. In Dana’s hand, Bite was already aloft, at fighting ready. 

He scanned the tree line, every muscle coiled, certain the mage they’d been fleeing would emerge from the shadows. But then the firelight flickered over something else—a stag, a single shining eye catching the glow as it lifted its head, mouth still working the tender leaves it had pulled from the forest floor. It studied them for a breath, then slipped silently back into the night.

Fox let out the breath he’d been holding, a shaky huff of relief. He turned to Dana, half ready to laugh at their own nerves—but the sound died in his throat. She wasn’t watching the place where the deer had vanished. Nor was she looking at him.

Her gaze was fixed on the blade in her hands, eyes wide.

“Dana?” he asked, cautious now.

Slowly, she looked up at him, wonder dawning across her face. Her voice was hushed, reverent.

“North,” she whispered. “For what seeks you.”

He blinked, trying to make sense of it, but before he could speak, she swallowed hard and said, almost disbelieving—

“Fox… I can read the blade.”

[slippinmickeys]

Hi. I see you met Gillian. What is she like? How was your experience?

Thanks

I have met Gillian at Cons, which are like lightening-quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 5 second encounters.

If you’re referring to the video of her signing a copy of Want with a personalized inscription, the people in the video are the lovely people who work for SaYes Mentoring, who relayed my inscription request. I was not there.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (47/?)

​​​​They ran until breath became a stranger.

The world narrowed to pounding feet, the crack of branches, the rasp of lungs scraping for air. Dana didn’t know how long they’d been running—minutes? hours? Time had lost all meaning somewhere between the howl of ancient magic behind them and the forest swallowing them whole. Morning had broken fully, casting long gold slats through the thinning canopy above, but even the light felt brittle. Untrustworthy.

Fox darted ahead of her, little more than a streak of copper and white, his movements sharp but slowing, the slight limp he’d had since they reunited more pronounced. Dana’s legs trembled beneath her, each step heavier than the last, her boots dragging through damp leaves and churned mud. Her breath tore ragged from her chest, and still she pushed forward.

They couldn’t stop. Not yet.

The wind shifted—she tasted salt, distant water—and her stomach twisted. They were nearing the northern cliffs. Maybe that was good. Maybe it wasn’t. She wasn’t sure anymore.

Fox paused at the top of a rise, tail twitching, and turned back to her. His flanks rose and fell with effort, fur matted and streaked with the wet of dew and dirt. “Here,” he said, voice breathless through their bond. “Just a moment. We need to breathe.”

Dana collapsed beside him without protest, dropping to her knees and bracing her hands in the loam. She was shaking. Her blade seemed to drag at her hip. Her satchel bit into her shoulder, its weight growing ever heavier.

For a moment, there was only the sound of their breath and the rustle of the forest.

“How is your leg?” she finally asked.

“Still attached to my body,” he said. “Are you well?”

“I think,” she whispered, “I might be dead.”

Fox huffed, ears flicking toward her. “If you’re dead, I’m worse.” He flopped down beside her, tongue lolling, sides heaving. “Do ghosts pant?”

She let out a laugh—dry and cracked.

She pulled her satchel off of her shoulder, digging into it with a trembling hand for the bladder of water she knew rested there. But her fingers came to rest on the small flask Silas had given her, which clinked faintly as she pulled it free.

“Might I hope that’s a potion infused with endurance, clarity and the strength to keep going?” Fox asked.

Dana opened the cork with her teeth. The scent of cloves and something sharper—ginger, maybe—rose up to meet her.

“I’d settle for whatever keeps me upright,” she said, and tipped it back.

Warmth bloomed down her throat and into her belly, spreading outward like firelight. Her limbs didn’t stop aching, but the shaking eased, and her breath came easier.

Fox sat up, watching her, narrow snout still open in a pant. He didn’t look any less tired than she felt, and he bent down and licked briefly at his sore ankle.

“Perhaps I should try the healing spell again?” she asked, shoving the cork back in.

Fox looked up quickly as if embarrassed to be caught doing something so animalistic, but she held his gaze steadily and sent a pulse of reassurance through the bond between them.

He seemed to relax slightly on his haunches.

“Perhaps you could,” he said.

Dana shifted to her knees and pulled the satchel closer. Her fingers were steadier now as she loosened the ties on the pouch of herbs—yarrow, comfrey, mallow root. Only a little left. But she didn’t think she’d need much.

She crushed them between her fingers, and the scent rose around her, sharper now, more familiar. Grounding.

She glanced at Fox. He was watching her closely, his ears high, eyes bright despite the exhaustion that clung to both of them.

This time, she didn’t fumble for a strand of his hair. She reached out and gently plucked one from the thick fur near his shoulder. He didn’t flinch.

Bite’s blade flashed briefly as she pricked her finger. The pain was sharp, but fleeting. A single drop welled up.

She let it fall into the crushed herbs in the center of her palm. Then she closed her hand, drew in a breath—and spoke the spell as if it had always belonged to her:

“From root to vein, from sky to stone, By blood and bond, not flesh alone, Mend what’s torn, restore what’s true, My will, my heart—I give to you.”

She didn’t falter, the words leaving her lips steady and sure.

The magic came instantly.

A shimmer passed over her skin like the hush before a storm. Light bloomed at her fingertips, delicate and golden, and spilled from her palm into the space between them. It curled toward Fox like a ribbon in water, drawn by the thread that bound them.

He blinked, startled—not in pain, but in wonder—as the light touched his paw, his ankle. His fur stirred in a wind that didn’t blow. The mark from the bonding spell pulsed faintly, as if echoing the rhythm of her words.

Dana could feel the spell take hold in a quiet, potent thrum. Power moved through her with ease, no longer hesitant or unsure, so unlike the first time she’d tried the spell.

Fox let out a breath, long and low. Then he stretched his leg cautiously and gave an approving flick of his tail.

“Well,” he said, voice tinged with relief, and a little awe. “Well.”

She rubbed the bits of herb out of her hand and stood, her legs still weak and stiff, despite Silas’s restorative elixir.

“Perhaps travel will be easier now,” she said.

Fox rose to standing, flexing his fully healed leg. “I’m like to never want to travel again after this,” he said.

Dana couldn’t help but give him a weary smile. She felt the same way.

“We’ll walk now,” she said. “Just walk.”

He gave a small nod and fell into step beside her as they continued on, the world shifting from silver morning into the slanted gold of afternoon. Neither had the energy for more talk.

The trees thinned, then thickened again. The path—if it could even be called that—twisted and tangled, nothing but a faint thread of trodden underbrush winding through the early autumn forest.

Dana pressed a hand to her side, where a dull cramp had begun to burn. Her legs throbbed with every step, and her boots, damp with sweat and the fading memory of morning dew, squelched against her heels. Fox trotted ahead, his paws near-silent on the mossy ground, but even he was flagging, tail low, gait uneven.

Dusk had begun to settle by the time Dana finally let herself drop to the forest floor beneath a crooked, moss-veiled tree. The sky above was now streaked with red and the first hints of lavender, clouds limned in gold. Her limbs screamed in protest as she folded them beneath her. Every muscle throbbed, her back ached, and the skin around her shoulders felt rubbed raw where her satchel had dug in.

She sat for a long moment, motionless, staring at nothing.

The weight of it all pressed in at once—what they had seen, what they had done, what they had barely escaped. The Dreyn. The prophecy. The Dark Mage’s eyes, cold with knowing, the words “your mother” on his lips. And still, something inside her had not caught up. It was too much to hold. Too much to think. She could feel it circling in her chest like a storm, but she pushed it away for now.

“We’ll talk,” she murmured hoarsely. “Later.”

Fox gave a soft huff of agreement as she pulled out the small wool blanket from her bag and he curled in beside her without another word, his flank pressed against her hip, grounding and warm. For a moment, she let herself lean into it.

“No fire?” he asked, his voice low, already drifting toward sleep.

“I don’t have it in me.”

They lay together under the spreading limbs of the tree, the air cooling by degrees. Dana closed her eyes, hoping for sleep to claim her. But it didn’t. Her body was spent, beyond exhaustion—but her mind wouldn’t follow. Every time she neared the edge of rest, it dragged her back with some fresh worry, some flicker of memory: the crack of the trapdoor. The wet thump of the viper’s body hitting the cobbles. The sight of the Overseer’s bloodied face. The raw assault of the mage’s gaze.

She rolled onto her side, restless, but it didn’t help. Her legs still ached. Her thoughts still churned. Her magic still stirred under her skin like smoke trapped under an iron snuffer.

Fox shifted, his soft fur brushing against her arm. Just enough to remind her he was there. His warmth, the steady rise and fall of his breath.

“I’m fine,” she said, though her voice betrayed her.

“You’re not,” he murmured, eyes still closed. “What is it?”

She hesitated. The words felt foolish as they formed—but they came anyway.

“I don’t feel safe.”

Fox cracked an eye.

“I know we’re far,” she said. “But it feels like they’ll find me. Like he’ll find me. Like my magic’s some kind of beacon. Is that silly?”

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t scoff. “That doesn’t sound silly.”

Her throat tightened.

“Is there a spell?” he asked gently. “Something that could shield your magic? Keep it from being sensed?”

She pulled her spellbook from her bag with shaking fingers. The cover felt warm in her hands, as though it already knew what she needed. She opened it, skimming the two other spells the book contained.

There, across the middle of the next page, overlaying a description of the uses of meadowsweet, ink blossomed and curved.

A Shielding Spell: To Conceal Magic Below the Veil

Dana read it twice before letting out a breath. “It needs willow bark and bog myrtle.”

Fox was already rising to stand. “I’ll help.”

They foraged by the last rays of the sun, Fox sniffing through fallen leaves, nosing at bark and shrubs. Between them, they found enough to fill her wooden bowl. She ground and mixed and whispered the words the spellbook gave her, letting the bowl rest between her hands as the power settled.

She felt it flow outward—slow and cool like a river, cloaking her skin, then Fox’s. It settled gently, like a second skin of stillness.

“Do you feel it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Like chain mail. Heavy and light all at once.”

She nodded and closed the book, but paused before putting it away, rubbing her hands over the cover and thumbing the thick pages along their edge.

“It does this,” she said. “Gives me what I need, when I need it. It’s like it listens.”

Fox peered at it. “Is there a spell in there for conjuring a warm bed under a sturdy roof?”

The ink dulled, the page growing faint.

Dana laughed softly. “No. I’m beginning to sense it only deals in emergencies and epiphanies. Creature comforts offend its sensibilities.”

She tucked the book back into her satchel, stifling a yawn.

Fox circled once and curled back beside her, his eyes drifting closed. “Sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

“You’re already falling asleep,” she whispered, smiling.

“Only a little.”

They lay there, the two of them pressed close beneath the trees, wrapped in quiet and spellwork and everything left unsaid.

And finally, finally, sleep came.

***

Dana stirred in the dark, the hush of the forest pressing in close. The air had grown cooler, damp with night, but she was warm—her body pressed against something firm and alive. Her hand, half-curled in sleep, rested against the slow rise and fall of a linen-clad chest—solid and warm. Human.

She blinked.

Fox.

No longer furred and four-legged, but flesh and blood beside her. Long-limbed and lean, the heat of his body a low, steady burn. One of his arms lay loose around her waist, and his breathing was steady, contented. In the faint moonlight, his face was soft in sleep—shadows hollowing his cheeks, lashes dark against his skin, full lips slightly parted. Even at rest, there was something striking in his stillness. Something noble. Beautiful.

She exhaled slowly and let her eyes close again, tempted to stay there, tucked into his side. But something stirred in her—the restlessness of energy regained, the small magic of Silas’s draught still lingering in her blood.

Though Fox was warm beside her, the night carried the chill of autumn and of the north.

She thought about building a fire. Something small, just enough to take the edge off the cold.

Sliding away gently, she gathered a small bundle of kindling and pine needles from the forest floor. She crouched beside the pile and reached for her satchel, fingers brushing over her flint. She paused.

No.

She straightened and drew in a breath, grounding herself.

Her lungs filled with the scent of pine and damp earth, and she remembered the candles in Silas’s shop, how they’d leapt to life with her breath. She shaped her exhale around that memory.

Intent. Focus.

A single breath out—and a flame sparked in the heart of the kindling.

Dana sat back, satisfied pleasure curling through her. The fire flickered to life, small but proud, and she could feel the protective spell still wrapped around her magic, tucking it safely away from any watching eyes—but not from her.

She leaned back to admire her work.

Behind her, Fox stirred.

She turned to see him shift onto one elbow, his eyes hooded with sleep but sharp and assessing as they slid over her in the small firelight. A low, satisfied sound escaped him.

“That’s a clever trick,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.

She shrugged, suddenly shy under his gaze. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” His eyes swept over her again, slower this time. “Come here.”

Something in his words curled something low in her belly and bloomed.

She moved toward him, drawn like a tide, until she was nestled against his side once more. His arm came around her, anchoring her, and the world narrowed to her own tremulous breath and the heat of him against her.

It felt right.

Her cheek rested against his shoulder. He was warm, his heartbeat steady under her palm. She should sleep. Should let her mind still and drift off again. But—

She didn’t want sleep. Not yet.

Fox was watching her, the firelight flickering in his eyes. They held a spark of tenderness. And something else—something deeper, darker, hungrier. His gaze caught hers and held it, and suddenly she couldn’t look away. The fire beside them crackled gently, but the true fire was in his eyes, and it lit something fierce inside her.

“Dana,” he murmured, low and rough. Her name, and everything wrapped inside it.

She leaned into him—into the heat between them, into the bond that pulled them close, into the way her body curved into his like she had always belonged there.

His lips met hers.

The kiss was unhurried, but it seared—slow and deliberate—their desire undeniable. His hands roamed her back, her hips, relearning her shape with reverent certainty. She rolled herself on top of him, one of her hands tangled in his hair, the other fisting the blanket beneath them. Her breath hitched as the spark inside her flared—wild and electric.

And for the first time, she felt safe enough to let it burn.

She didn’t know what she needed. She only knew she needed more. She pressed into him, pulling him closer with both arms, thrusting tentatively with her hips.

He hissed in a breath, sharp and trembling, and reached down to still her hands—gentle, but firm.

“Not here,” he said, lips still brushing hers, breath shallow and shared. “Not like this.”

“Not like what?” she panted, lost in the rush of feeling. More was everything. More was the only thing that made sense.

She moved again, hips pressing against his, and the friction was exquisite. Her breath stuttered.

His did too, a deeper sound this time—something more than breath, something barely held together. And it thrilled her.

She was doing this to him. Whatever this was—this ache, this need, this pull—it was hers. It was because she was his.

He lifted his head to touch his forehead to hers, eyes closed. “Don’t think I don’t want to.”

“Then why—”

“Because if I start,” he said, voice tight and ragged, “I won’t be able to stop.”

His hand came to her cheek, brushing a thumb across her skin. “And it shouldn’t be when we’re half-dead. Not in the dirt. Not after what you just survived.”

Her breath caught—and this time, not from want, but from something gentler. Something that wrapped around her chest like light.

Fox opened his eyes.

“Dana,” he said again, softer now, “I want you. But I want it to be all of us—whole, steady. Not something we steal from the edge of exhaustion.”

She swallowed, her body still thrumming, but her heart shifting.

“All right,” she whispered, sliding back to his side.

He nodded and kissed her again—slower, just once, but it went through her like a vow.

Then he pulled her against him and tucked her head beneath his chin.

And this time, when she closed her eyes, it wasn’t sleep she fell into.

It was peace.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (46/?)

Fox walked toward the window with a slight limp, ears pinned back, fur still bristling as he kept watch. Dana felt the tug of their bond—tight and urgent—and ducked into the workroom to grab her satchel. Her spellbook was already inside. Silas pressed a warm flask into her hand, muttering something about strength and energy, before turning to help Maren sweep aside the rug near the hearth.

A moment later, Maren stepped in close and handed her a wrapped parcel. 

“Provisions,” she said, her eyes watery. “I wish I had more to give you.” 

Dana took the food and put both it and the flask into her satchel, turning to the older woman with tears in her own eyes. She reached out a hand. “Thank you,” she said, finding it difficult to speak past the lump in her throat. 

Maren glanced at her outstretched hand, then shook her head and pulled her in for a tight hug. “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are,” Maren said fiercely into her ear. “You already know.” 

One more tight squeeze and then the woman released her, sniffing and briskly wiping at her eyes. “Now go! And don’t forget your blade!”

Dana, fighting back a swell of emotion, glanced toward the edge of the workbench where Bite lay. She reached for it without a word, the weight of it steadying in her palm. She looped it through her belt and turned to Fox, who had trotted in anxiously from the window—her anchor, her witness, the one person who hadn’t let her go. 

“Courage,” he said, looking up at her with his golden eyes. 

Silas pulled open the hatch. Cold, damp air wafted up from the darkness beneath. A narrow flight of stone steps led down, carved into old earth and lined with crumbling mortar.

“This cellar runs behind the buildings on this row,” Silas said, brushing dust from his hands. “The apothecary, the baker’s next door, the weaver’s, the old tannery and its storehouse—if we exit out the storehouse we’ll come out in the alley running perpendicular to the shops. It’s not a clean escape exactly, but it gets you out of here without being seen.”

The Overseer gave a sharp nod. “Then that’s the way. All of you had best get moving.”

“You’re not coming?” Fox asked. 

“I’ll be along,” the Overseer said, and turned to walk back into the shop of the apothecary, his grey robes sweeping along behind him.

Dana watched him go and turned back when she heard the apothecary’s voice. 

“I’ll take you as far as the village’s edge,” Silas said. He touched Maren’s hand briefly before offering Dana a determined nod. “Let’s move.”

Dana looked from the stairwell to Fox, then back at Maren, her heart squeezing with a sharp pang of gratitude.

“I—” she started to say.

“Go!” Maren rushed, turning away to hide her tears. 

Dana descended first, careful on the uneven steps, the glow from the lantern Silas had handed her casting long shadows. Fox padded beside her, alert. The Raven fluttered silently down into the stairwell as Moth alighted on Dana’s shoulder. The viper slipped ahead like a whisper.

A moment later, Maren grabbed Silas’s arm as he was about to descend. 

“Alexander is gone,” she hissed “Move quickly!” 

Fox let out a vicious growl. 

Silas swore and hustled down the steps, the lantern he was holding swinging in his haste, casting odd shapes on the rough walls. 

They didn’t speak until the hatch closed behind them, sealing off the noise of the waking village above. The stairwell swallowed them in shadows and silence, and the only sound was the soft echo of their footsteps as they slipped beneath the earth. 

Ahead, Dana could see the pulsing glow of the wards protecting the apothecary in the high corners of the small tunnel, the light gradually dimming the further along they walked.

The air in the passageway had grown colder, heavy with the scent of old stone, damp earth, and the sharp tang of mildew. Dana’s limbs still ached from the events of the day before, but her grip was steady on Bite, and the certainty of having Fox back at her side spread through her like warmth.

Fox trotted just ahead, his limp barely noticeable now, ears alert and golden eyes gleaming in the flickering lantern light. Silas walked close behind him, the apothecary’s breath audible, his eyes scanning every door they passed.

“The tannery’s just ahead,” he said, voice low. “There’s a side entrance—if the hinges haven’t rusted clean through, we’ll come out into the alley just past the square.”

Dana nodded, clutching her satchel tighter. Moth shifted on her shoulder, wings twitching.

“Someone’s coming,” it said, the voice in her head startling her.

Fox stilled, and Dana followed suit.

Ahead, the narrow corridor widened slightly, the faint glow of early morning filtering through a warped wooden trap door at the far end, a narrow wooden staircase leading toward it. Dana could smell the cool, dew-laced air just beyond it—and something else. A wrongness in the light. A pressure in the air that made her stomach twist.

Silas turned toward them and his face fell in the light of the lantern he held. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Something’s not right,” Dana said. “Up ahead.”

They couldn’t yet tell what waited above—whether it was the Dark Mage himself, an enchanted, escaped Alexander, or some new horror they hadn’t yet faced—but the energy had shifted. Thickened. As if bracing for what came next.

Silas’s hand gripped the lantern, his knuckles going white. “Back,” he said, pointing somewhere just behind them. “Up through the weaver’s.”

They doubled back in silence, the cobwebs hanging from the low ceiling flicking shadows on the walls. 

“Just there,” Silas said, pointing upward.

Dana lifted her lantern. The light flickered across the rough stone walls, catching on a narrow wooden panel overhead—the weaver’s trapdoor. Weathered and warped with age, it was inset tightly into the ceiling, a single iron ring embedded at its center. Below it, a narrow ladder lay on its side, half-caught on an overturned bucket. 

Silas set his lantern down and picked up the ladder, leaning it against the wall. He turned to the familiars. 

“Will you be able to climb?” he asked them. 

In answer, the viper coiled her way up the first few rungs. 

Fox’s ears went back. “I may need some help,” he said, his voice dripping with displeasure. 

“If he’s amenable,” Dana said, turning to Silas. “I may need to pick Fox up and hand him to you if you can go through first.” 

Silas nodded curtly and put a hand on the ladder, but beside her, Fox gave a displeased sniff. 

The apothecary ascended, the narrow rungs creaking under his weight. When he reached the top, he shoved at the door, which only lifted a few inches. 

Silas grunted and shoved again. The trapdoor gave with a protesting creak, wood scraping against stone. Dust and chilled morning air spilled in. Silas scrambled up and into the room above.

“It’s clear,” he whispered down. “Quickly.”

Dana turned to Fox. “Ready?”

Beside them, the raven hopped deftly from rung to rung, the moth fluttered through the opening in a fluttering spiral, and the viper wove her way upward in a silent, sinuous glide.

Fox watched them and then looked up at her. “Yes,” he said glumly, ears twitching.

She set down her lantern and crouched down to wrap her arms around him, hefting him with a grunt. “You’ve been eating well,” she muttered.

Fox made a noise that might’ve been a growl or a laugh, but he didn’t resist. Still, he was heavier than he looked—dense with muscle, warm and bristling with tension. She staggered slightly as she hoisted him into her arms, up and over one shoulder.

“Saints,” she breathed. “You’re built like a stoneware kettle.”

“One indignity after the next,” he huffed, like he meant to say it under his breath. 

“Do you have thoughts you’re not sharing?” she grunted, awkwardly climbing the first few rungs. 

“Many,” he quipped. 

Once she got to the top, she pushed him up as well as she could. Silas leaned down to take him, lifting Fox by the scruff like a well-trained midwife with a wriggling pup. Fox whipped a disgruntled tail  but didn’t struggle.

Then a sound echoed through the corridor behind them. A dull scrape. A scuff of something dragging over stone.

Dana froze.

Silas’s head snapped toward the sound, eyes narrowing.

Fox’s ears swiveled back. “The tannery passage,” he growled. “Someone’s trying the door.”

The viper hissed from above. Moth fluttered its wings, flitting to land on Silas’s collar. Dana shoved her satchel higher on her back and scrambled up through the hatch, letting Silas take her hand and haul her the last few inches into the weaver’s shop.

The trapdoor shut with a muted thud behind them.

The air inside was musty and still, tinged with lanolin and beeswax. Long bolts of fabric lined the walls, and half-finished garments hung like ghosts from hooks above the counter. Shadows stretched wide across the floor, touched by the first blush of dawn pressing through the shutters.

Fox was already at the window, fur on end.

Silas motioned for silence and crept to the door. He cracked it just enough to peer out into the lane, then dropped back with a grim shake of his head.

“It’s empty,” he said, uneasy.

Dana stepped up beside him and looked through a thin gap in the shutters. The village beyond looked like it had been abandoned mid-thought. No smoke rising from chimneys. No carts or horses. No vendors bringing their wares to the market. Only the silence—and the weight pressing behind it.

“Doesn’t feel right,” she said. “Shouldn’t there be people about? Starting their day?”

Then a flicker of motion. A figure stepped into view at the far end of the street.

Tall and dressed in black so dark it seemed to devour the light, there was the man who had haunted the edges of every whispered warning. The Dark Mage.

He walked with unsettling poise, his long coat tailored close to the body, its velvet folds stitched with a glimmer of silver thread that shimmered like veins of magic. Polished black boots struck the stone with each step, precise and unhurried, and gloves of supple leather clung to his hands like second skin. A high collar framed his face—sharp-jawed, clean-shaven, every line elegant and exacting. No wizard’s robe, no wild hair or ragged staff. This was refinement sharpened into a weapon. A man who had chosen darkness and wore it like silk.

Dana’s breath caught. 

And behind them, a thump from the tunnel they’d just left. 

A second sharp dart of fear pierced her chest. 

Fox turned toward the trapdoor, nosing the air, muzzle pulling back in a snarl.

“Alexander,” he hissed.

“Silas,” Dana whispered, nodding at the trap door. 

With a silent nod, they moved together, grabbing onto a nearby warping board and shoving it on top of the door just as it started to lift. 

They held it—just barely. The warping board skidded slightly as the trapdoor shuddered beneath it, Alexander ramming upward with sudden force. Silas dropped a heavy crate on top. Dana grabbed a second and added her weight to it, heart pounding in her throat.

The thud came again. A grunt.

“He’s trying to force it,” Fox growled before he too jumped on top of the pile.

“You think your weight will be what stops him?” Dana asked.

“Heavier than a stonewear kettle, wasn’t I?” he replied, shifting to balance his weight.

Dana shook her head and turned sharply toward the door.

The raven was already there, peering through the shutters. “We can’t run,” she said, voice tight. “The Dark Mage is out there. Blocking the lane.”

“I’ve got the weight of it,” Silas said, heaving a large sack of wool roving—recently dampened—on top of the pile. “Have a look.”

The struggle beneath them slowed, and Dana moved to the window, Fox close behind. Through the narrow gap in the shutters, they could just see their pursuer at the far end of the street: the sleek, looming figure, jet black hair shot through with grey. He stood still, surveying the silent village as though his gaze could pass through stone.

“We’re trapped,” Dana said, her voice low. “He’s ahead. Alexander’s behind.”

The Raven fluttered nervously on a ceiling beam. “He won’t stop,” she said. “Until he has Dana.”

Fox’s body coiled low. “If he moves this way, I’ll—”

“You’ll die,” Dana said, gripping his scruff. “So will I. We can’t fight him. Not alone.”

The trapdoor shuddered again. A crack splintered through the old wood.

Then, just when panic threatened to crest, the bell over the apothecary’s door gave a distant chime.

The Overseer stepped out into the open street, robes brushing the stone, staff glinting faintly in the strange morning light.

“Looking for someone?” he called, calm and clear.

The Dark Mage turned.

And for a moment—just a breathless, teetering moment—the weight of his power filled the entire lane, thick and electric as a coming storm. Magic began to hum at the edges of things, coiling like smoke in the still air.

Inside the weaver’s, no one moved. No one dared.

“Well aren’t you interesting,” the Dark Mage said, stepping forward and peering curiously at the Overseer. 

The Overseer didn’t flinch. “I could say the same.”

“You’re not a mage but emit dark power,” the man in black mused, his voice light, but a sharpness beneath. “How very curious.” He tilted his head. “What can you do for me?”

“I’m here merely to offer you a warning,” the Overseer replied. “Turn around. Leave this place.”

The Dark Mage laughed. It was a low, amused sound that didn’t reach his eyes. “A warning. From a man in rags.”

His fingers twitched, and the air flexed around him. The cobblestones underfoot cracked softly as if under the pressure of something vast and invisible.

Inside the weaver’s, Dana dared a glance at Fox, who crouched low beside the door, his golden eyes fixed on the street. There was still thumping on the trap door, though Silas was managing to keep it closed. 

“Is he stalling?” she whispered.

“He’s trying,” Fox answered grimly. “The second the mage turns his back or is distracted, we have to run.”

“We’ll never make it,” hissed the viper. “The Overseer may be distracting him, but if you step into the lane, he’ll see you.”

Fox swore. The viper was right. Once they exited the weaver’s they would still have to dart down the lane, past the tannery and storehouse before they could disappear into the alley and out of sight. 

“What if we had cover?” Dana asked. “What if I could magick something?” 

Without waiting for an answer, Dana reached into her satchel and pulled out her spell book, riffling through the pages. Plants, drawings, descriptions, nothing new—and then—filling in the script as she watched, a spell unfurled across a page. A Spell To Conjure Fog. It required nothing but focus and a recitation. She could do this.  

Outside, the Overseer raised his staff.

“You’ve enchanted a man,” he said, voice sharp now. “Used him to breach the walls of a protected place. Threatened innocents. What do you want?”

She closed her eyes, grounding herself in the quiet seam where her magic kissed the waiting earth. Then she looked down at the spell. 

In the lane, the Dark Mage answered the Overseer’s question. “There’s a girl,” he said, and Dana could practically feel his eyes scanning the shuttered windows. “A threat. A prophecy. I imagine you’ve heard of it.”

Dana’s concentration faltered. What had the man said? She looked away from the book and back out at the two older men in the lane. 

“She’s just a girl,” the Overseer said.

The Dark Mage’s expression didn’t change. “Then why protect her?”

Dana swallowed, her mind spinning.

“Dana?” Fox said, his voice worried. 

She looked at her familiar then back at her book. The spell in front of her seemed to waver on the page. 

Then, from his perch above the trapdoor—still braced against the force of Alexander straining below—Silas spoke with a startling calm, a quiet resolve, as though the chaos around him didn’t exist.

“Dana,” he said. “There is nothing in this world but you and your spell. Let everything fall aside. Connect to the earth. Recite your enchantment.” 

Dana looked to the lane once more, just as the Dark Mage lifted one hand and sent a bolt of magic streaking toward the apothecary. The air warped around it, heat and pressure gathering in its wake. The cobblestones beneath the blast line trembled, a low quake shivering through the street.

But before it could land, the Overseer struck his staff to the ground.

Light flared outward in a dome from the staff’s crystal—radiant green laced with white. The bolt collided with it in a roar of heat and energy, the barrier holding fast. Waves of light rippled through the air. The apothecary stood untouched, still and silent behind its shield.

The mage narrowed his eyes at the Overseer. “Interesting indeed.” He took a slow step forward. “Did the girl conjure you? Send you like some guardian ghost?” His voice darkened. “She was hidden from me for years. My children were meant to fulfill the prophecy. But Light took them.” The mage paused, gaze flicking toward the apothecary, as if Dana were still inside. “If she thinks she’s its answer, she’s more foolish than I thought.” 

Behind the barrier, the Overseer’s voice boomed—not with volume, but with gravity. “You will not touch her.”

In the weaver’s shop, the young witch flinched. 

“Dana,” said Fox, and then warmth bloomed through their bond, steady and sure. Despite the chaos outside, the mage’s words, her fear and uncertainty, she drew a breath, let the warmth anchor her, and spoke the enchantment.

The words left her lips like breath into winter air—soft, but charged with purpose. She pictured fog rolling in off the sea, slow and thick, cloaking the shore like a secret. She held that image in her mind and whispered the command.

The air stirred.

At first, it was nothing—just a faint shift, a hush in the street beyond the shutters. Then the temperature dropped, and from somewhere deeper in the village, a silver mist began to unfurl. It curled low along the ground, clinging to cobblestones, thickening with every heartbeat.

Outside, the Overseer squared his stance, as though bracing against a wind only he could feel. The Dark Mage turned slightly, his brow furrowing.

Still Dana murmured the spell, drawing the fog forward like pulling thread from a spool. It pooled around the edges of the weaver’s, masking their doorway and the lane beyond it in a veil of lightless gray. Sound dulled. Shapes blurred.

“Now,” Fox said. 

Even Silas, whose ears were deaf to the language of the familiars, moved without needing to be told. The trap door he was holding shut had gone quiet. After stepping back a moment to be sure it wouldn’t be flung open, he hurried to where Dana and Fox waited and shouldered the door just wide enough to slip into the lane. One by one, they vanished into the mist—Fox’s golden eyes just visible before the fog swallowed him whole. The familiars scattered into the shadows above and below. Dana went last, the final syllable of the spell still warm on her tongue as she stepped into the thick gray veil she’d conjured.

They darted down the lane, ghostlike in the fog. 

Dana’s breath sounded too loud in her ears. Her heartbeat pounded in her throat.

A shout rang out behind them—too indistinct to make out, but edged with anger.

“Faster,” Silas hissed.

They didn’t run. They flew—feet light, silhouettes vanishing and reappearing in the shifting gray. The mist moved with them now, thickening where it needed to, parting just enough to show the next few steps ahead.

There. The alley. 

Fox led the way, taking the corner quickly, skidding across the wet. Dana followed, her boots striking the flagstones of the alley floor. She turned the corner with a gasp, mist still curling after her like smoke from a snuffed flame.

They had made it. 

Each of them paused to trade relieved looks before they moved on, slipping from doorway to doorway, darting past hanging laundry, abandoned crates, and silent shutters. But just as they reached the end of the alley, where a small arched passage would lead them to a courtyard and then the woods beyond the village—

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Alexander’s voice cut through the stillness like a blade.

He stood at the entrance to the wynd, eyes glassy with enchantment. And behind him—

A monstrous black horse, muscular and tall, its flanks shiny as a mountain pool. It snorted and took a menacing step forward. 

“Beware!” shouted the viper. “The stallion is the Dark Mage’s familiar!”

But there was nowhere to go. 

Behind them and down the lane, distracted by the Overseer and the conjured fog, loomed the Dark Mage. Ahead, the only other exit was blocked—Alexander stood there, unsteady on his feet, eyes glazed, and beside him the massive black stallion pawed the ground, its head lowered, tail flicking with agitation.

“I’ll deal with him,” Fox said, his voice low, but before he could move, the viper shot forward, slithering toward the beast with an angry hiss. 

Alexander lurched, trying to stomp her, but she twisted away and struck him—sinking her fangs deep into his other ankle. With a whip of her body, she flipped clear, venom already coursing through her foe, and darted straight toward the horse. Alexander crumpled to his knees with a strangled gasp.

The stallion reared up, giving a whinny and kicking its front feet in the air. “Go!” the viper shouted at Dana and Fox. 

“Fly!” reaffirmed the raven, who swooped under the horse and onward through the arched passage, leading the way. 

Fox and Dana wasted no time, dashing past Alexander—slumped and groaning—and the rearing stallion, Silas close behind. As they passed, the horse came crashing down onto the cobbles and kicked, hooves sharp as razors striking the viper mid-lunge.

“No!” Silas roared.

Dana spun in time to see the viper’s body flung hard against the stone wall, the impact sickening. She writhed once—twice—then fell still, her coils slackening into silence.

Silas lunged toward her, but the stallion wheeled and bucked, catching him in the ribs with a savage kick. He crumpled with a grunt, and rolled onto his back, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

Dana started toward him, heart clenching, but Fox sprang in front of her.

“Go!” he shouted, raw and anguished. “Viper is gone—don’t let it be for nothing!”

Before Dana could respond, another figure burst from the end of the lane and into the alley—the familiar blur of Maren’s skirts and wild hair.

“No—Silas!” she cried, skidding to a stop and dropping to her knees beside him.

He lifted his head, blood trickling from a gash at his temple. “I will heal,” he rasped. 

Maren looked up. “Go, girl! Now!” 

Dana took a reluctant step, then another—but a sudden weight tugged at her chest, like gravity twisting sideways.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Dana turned—and there he was.

The Dark Mage.

He stood, blocking the wynd as if he had always been there, black cloak rustling in the faint breeze, eyes as black as obsidian.

Fox dropped low beside her, hackles up, teeth bared in a snarl.

The Dark Mage looked past him—past everyone—and fixed his gaze directly on her.

He took a slow step forward.

“So this is the heir of Light,” he said, his voice edged like a blade. “The last.”

Dana stood frozen, though her fingers found the hilt of Bite without thinking.

The Dark Mage tilted his head, studying her like a puzzle.

“Your mother was wise to hide you,” he said. 

Dana swallowed, feeling the soft fingers of dark magic creep steadily toward her from where the mage stood, like a shadow growing long with the setting sun. 

She and Fox took several steps back into the alley, Fox sure to keep his body between hers and the dark figure before them. 

“One will fall,” the Dark Mage said, stepping forward, his voice like metal dragged over gravel. 

With a gasp, Dana looked toward Fox but he seemed unaffected by the words which she had heard come from his own lips, in what now seemed like a different life. 

Before she could compose another thought, the air changed. Again.

Not the way it had before—not with the coiling tension of power, or the sharp snap of magic being drawn—but something deeper. Like the slow pulling of breath through air choked with ash. Dana staggered back half a step. The weakness came on slowly but unmistakably.

Fox turned. “What is that?”

From behind them, where the mist continued to slide in low along the stones—came that feeling. The same one she’d felt in the tower—when her strength had begun to slip away. A drain, as if something inside her were being pulled toward the cold of a sunless death.

Silas swore under his breath. The stallion familiar shifted uneasily, snorting and stomping its hooves. Even the Dark Mage turned, sensing the shift.

And from the edge of the mist came the sound of footsteps. Measured. Unhurried. Approaching.

A figure emerged into view—a man, or something that only looked like one. He wore travel-worn boots and dark, threadbare clothing that clung to his lean frame like it had been soaked and left to dry on him. His dark hair hung damp over his forehead, and his pale skin caught the dawnlight with a strange, dull sheen.

The man—Dana recognized him with dread—was the prisoner from the neighboring cell. The one who had almost killed her when she’d tried to draw on her magic.

His eyes gleamed yellow in the gloom.

He sniffed the air once, slow and deliberate, then smiled—sharp and hungry.

“Ah,” he said. “So this is what true power smells like.”

The Dark Mage’s head whipped around.

He was coming up behind them, positioning himself like a hunter finding a new target, his eyes keenly on the Dark Mage.

Dana’s heart pounded. A chill slicked down her spine.

The man’s smile widened as he flicked his eyes toward her. “She was a meal,” he said, turning to the Dark Mage. “You’ll be a feast.”

The Dark Mage didn’t flinch, but something in his posture shifted. A flicker of recognition. Wariness. He stepped away from the arched passage.

“A Dreyn,” he said, his voice low. “Below the Veil?”

A long blade shimmered into existence at his side, rippling into form from a wisp of shadow. He gripped it without ceremony.

Dreyn, Dana thought. An apt description of a beast who looked like a man. Who sucked the life right out of you. “Are there more of you?” The Dark Mage went on. 

The Dreyn smiled. “Not yet.”

A beat passed, thick with magic and dread.

Then— “Away!”

The voice rang down the alley, hoarse but commanding. In the narrow passage leading out from the storehouse stood the Overseer—bloodied, one arm pressed to his side, but upright and unyielding, his staff crackling with light.

The Dreyn’s head snapped toward him with interest. The Dark Mage did not take his eyes off the thing in front of him.

The Dreyn merely grinned, unconcerned—as if the Overseer were a curiosity, not a threat. He took in the scene with a predator’s ease, his yellow eyes sweeping lazily across the cobbles, pausing on the mage, the horse, the girl.

Then, slowly, deliberately, he turned—not toward Dana or the Mage or even Silas—but toward the stallion.

The horse’s ears pinned flat. Muscles rippled under its black coat. It snorted, stamping once, but didn’t back away. The Dreyn took a step closer. Another. He lifted one hand.

“Such fine bindings,” he murmured, fingers spread wide, palm glowing faintly as if drawing something unseen from the air. “Even familiars bleed power, if you know how to take it.”

The stallion screamed.

It reared, hooves flailing, eyes rolling white. For a terrifying second, its legs locked midair—then trembled, buckling slightly as the Dreyn advanced, hand still outstretched.

“No!” the Overseer bellowed.

He surged forward, blood still streaked down the side of his face, his staff raised high. A blast of green light exploded outward as he struck the cobbles—the energy slamming into the Dreyn with a flash that knocked the creature stumbling back, smoke curling from his chest, tunic hissing where it met the wet stone.

The stallion staggered away, flanks heaving, but upright. The Overseer edged his way over to it and put a calming hand on the familiar’s flank, whispering a spell under his breath.

The Dark Mage turned fully now, blade drawn and pulsing with black flame, eyes locked on the Dreyn, who rose back to standing. “A creature of hunger,” the mage said. “You should’ve stayed above the Veil.”

The Dreyn smiled again, slow and delighted, and licked his teeth.

That was the moment.

The Overseer didn’t even look at them—just hissed, low and urgent: “Go. Now!”

Dana and Fox scrabbled for the passage and flew through the wynd.

Behind them, the street lit with clashing magic. But ahead of them, the fog beckoned. They didn’t look back, and the air behind them thundered with the storm they’d left behind.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (45/?)

Silas sat up sharply, instantly awake.

“Do you get many callers this time of night?” the Overseer asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” the apothecary replied grimly. “We’re usually at home in our beds.”

He stood and came around the counter, pressing himself behind the door, shadowed in the flickering candlelight. The scent of burnt herbs and candle smoke still lingered in the air, curling in the corners of the dim room.

He stuck a finger in the curtain and pulled it back just enough to glimpse the figure on the stoop.

“It’s a man,” he whispered.

“What does he look like?” the Overseer asked softly.

“He’s in shadow. Too dark to see.”

The wards around the apothecary not only cloaked the building from magical view, but also prevented those within from looking out. If it was the Dark Mage, none of them might leave alive.

“Wake Fox and Dana,” the Overseer said to the viper, who slipped into motion at once. “Have them gather their things. They may need to slip out the rear door.”

The snake did as he bade, silent as smoke, disappearing beneath the curtain that led to the back.

A knock rang again—sharp, clear, too casual for the hour. “Hello? I can see candlelight.” called a voice from the other side of the door.

“Do you recognize the voice?” the Overseer asked, low.

Silas looked at his wife. She shook her head.

“Sounds young,” he said.

The Overseer considered, then called silently to the raven on the rafters above. “Is this the voice of the other prisoner?”

“Nay,” the bird replied, feathers rustling.

The man outside knocked again, giving no indication that he planned to stop. 

Maren had her apron in her hands and was wringing the fabric nervously. 

“If he keeps up this pounding and the constable or Nightwatch comes by, we could be inviting more trouble than we care to deal with,” she said, her voice tense. 

The Overseer considered this. Sighed heavily. “Open it,” he said. “But don’t let him in. Let us see what danger lurks beyond the wards tonight.”

Silas nodded, wetting his lips nervously.

“Hide yourselves,” Maren said, turning to the Overseer and the familiars. “All of you. At least get out of sight. If it’s a villager, the look of you will send them running.”

The floorboards creaked beneath the Overseer’s retreating step. Silas waited beside the door, breath even but tight in his chest. Without a word, Maren handed him a lit candle. He drew back the bolt and eased the door open just a few inches, peering into the blue-gray hush of the gloaming.The flame of the candle guttered in the draft.

“We’re closed, stranger,” Silas said warily. “If you’re in need of medical treatment, the blacksmith’s a better surgeon than I.”

“I don’t seek treatment,” the man said. His voice was warm, upbeat, the kind of voice that belonged to easy smiles and boyish charm. “I’m here for a friend. Word has it you’ve been boarding her these last few days. Dana.”

Maren inhaled sharply, her hand flying to her mouth.

“It is early,” Silas said. “Perhaps you can find your friend after the sun has risen. But not here.”

He began to close the door, but the man put a hand against it—gently, not threatening, more petition than force.

“Please,” the man said, more earnest now. “I’ve brought some bad luck to her, and I want to make it right. I know she had trouble this afternoon. I want to help her leave this place. She’s from my village. I promised I’d bring her home. May I come in? I’d rather the constable not see me.”

Alexander, the Overseer thought, his stomach knotting. The boy was tangled up somehow with the Dark Mage. He had been the one to use the stone. His presence could bring ruin down upon them all.

“Bad luck has a way of spreading,” Silas said coldly. “I suggest you take it from my doorstep.”

He moved to close the door again, but the young man pushed back harder. Had Silas not been distracted by the sudden, sharp gasp behind him, he might have managed it. But his head turned at the sound—and in that instant, the door swung open just far enough for the candlelight—and the pale, bleeding light of approaching dawn—to fall across the stranger’s face.

Dana stepped through the curtain from the back room, Fox looming behind her, a silent sentinel, close as her shadow.

And the last thing the Overseer heard before chaos descended was her whisper: “Alexander?”

The name had barely left her lips when Fox moved.

He didn’t wait. Didn’t ask. Didn’t think. One heartbeat he was beside Dana—and the next, he launched forward like a loosed arrow, a flash of fury and motion.

The apothecary door slammed open with the force of his leap, candlelight whipping sideways in the gust. Alexander barely had time to register the blur before a fist met his jaw with bone-cracking force. The sound of it echoed through the narrow street—a sickening thud followed by the wet crunch of cartilage. Alexander flew backward and crashed into the cobbles outside the shop, his limbs sprawling as he landed hard on his back.

Dana cried out. Silas cursed.

And then—the sharp, rhythmic clip-clop of hooves.

“The Nightwatch,” Silas hissed, his eyes darting toward the edge of the square where torches flickered in the decreasing darkness.

“Damn it,” the Overseer muttered. He stepped quickly over Alexander’s prone form and knelt beside him, his long fingers rifling through the young man’s coat and tunic.

“Hurry!” Maren warned. “They’re turning the corner!”

The Overseer found what he sought instantly: the smooth, round calling stone pulsing a sickly green against Alexander’s ribs. He yanked it free with a snarl of recognition.

“Drag him inside. Quickly!” he snapped, already reaching for the dagger at his belt.

Silas and Maren scrambled to obey, each grabbing an arm and hauling Alexander’s limp form through the door as the Overseer pressed the stone to his palm and began to chant. His voice was low and fast, the syllables coiled tight with power. He scored a sharp rune across the surface of the stone with the tip of his blade—deep enough to bite through the glow—and with a final word, the pulsing light dimmed to nothing. 

He ducked back into the apothecary, shoving the door shut with his shoulder and slamming the bolt into place. The apothecary fell silent but for the sound of ragged breathing.

Everyone stood frozen as the sound of horse hooves clopped by the outside of the shop and on into the fading night. 

Alexander stirred on the floor, a thin ribbon of blood trickling from his nose.

Fox stood over him, body trembling with restrained rage, his hands curled into fists at his sides.

Dana caught his arm. “Fox—no.”

Silas joined her, planting a steady hand on Fox’s shoulder. “We need answers. Not blood.”

Fox didn’t look away from Alexander. His jaw was clenched, his chest heaving.

“Fox—” the Overseer said, and before the rest of the warning could leave his lips, the first rays of dawn hit the curtains in the shop windows and the sickening sound of bones snapping filled the small space as the man that had been Fox transformed into Dana’s familiar. 

***

Pain shattered through him as the shift overtook his body—ribs cracking, muscle twisting, arms collapsing beneath him as they shortened into forelegs. He hit the floor with a grunt, claws skidding on wood, his fur bristling in a flare of indignity and rage.

Not again.

Not now.

The change still stole his breath. Stole more than that—his voice, his reach, the ability to hold her. His skin still remembered the weight of Dana in his arms, the silk of her breath against his throat. The echo of her kiss hadn’t faded, not even a little.

And now he was reduced again. Small and powerless.

The ache of it—of losing the shape that had allowed her to look at him like that—her eyes half-lidded, stepping up to kiss him—twisted through him worse than the shift itself. He’d had her in his arms. Held her. He didn’t know when he’d be able to again. Or if. Not with the danger outside.

He turned, fangs bared, hackles raised. His eyes locked on Alexander’s crumpled form, and all Fox’s fury surged up at once.

The man who had turned an entire village against Dana. Who had lied. Who had called the Dark Mage.

Fox took one step forward, a low growl rising in his throat.

The Overseer dropped to a crouch in front of him, blocking his path. Met his eyes without flinching.

“Peace,” he said. “We do not have time for vengeance.”

Fox didn’t move, every muscle drawn tight as a bowstring. The mark on his paw flickered dimly, echoing the magic still roiling inside him. His snarl deepened.

“He’s not worth it,” the Overseer said.

A beat passed. Then another.

Fox’s snarl didn’t cease, but it wavered. His golden eyes stayed fixed on Alexander’s prone body, and slowly, inch by inch, his head dropped in barely controlled restraint.

His breaths huffed fast through his nose, sharp and furious.

And then Dana stepped forward.

She knelt beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder—human or fox, it didn’t matter. Her palm was warm, grounding. Her voice was even warmer.

“I need you,” she whispered.

That was what steadied him.

Fox turned his gaze toward her, and though fire still smoldered in his eyes, it no longer threatened to consume him. He held her gaze. Let it anchor him.

Then he dipped his head, just once, and backed away from the man on the floor.

The Overseer gave a single approving nod before crouching beside Alexander, his fingers reaching to pry open one eyelid.

“Dana,” he said without looking up, “what color are this man’s eyes?”

She hesitated, her voice uncertain. “Brown… I think?”

Fox padded forward, his body low and tense. He peered down, golden eyes narrowing. The exposed eye was green. But not naturally. There was a strange cast to it, a pale, waxy sheen like moss growing beneath glass. Not his green. Not human.

He sniffed, nostrils flaring. The scent rising off the man wasn’t right—sweet and metallic, threaded through with something oily and dark. It didn’t belong to any one person. It felt… conjured.

The Overseer rose slowly, the joints in his knees cracking softly as he straightened. His expression had gone hollow, grim.

“This man is enchanted,” he said. “A puppet on a string.”

Silas swore under his breath. Maren gripped the edge of the counter, her knuckles white.

“He’s been sent to find us,” the Overseer continued, his voice low and heavy. He looked toward the shuttered window, where pale dawn was just beginning to press through the curtains.

“The Dark Mage knows we’re here.”

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (44/?)

His lips were warm. Known. Like memory, like magic—something she had carried in her bones but hadn’t allowed herself to name. The kiss was gentle at first, the kind that held its breath, testing the shape of things now that they had changed. But when his hand rose to her cheek and she felt the tremble in his fingertips, she melted into him.

The world stilled.

There was no village outside these walls. No fear. No vipers or crows, no salves or sigils or lingering pain. Just the breath between them, the singing in her ears, the certainty of his hands. The bond that shimmered beneath their skin pulsed again, and this time she felt it—magic humming low and sure between them, not insistent, not demanding. Just there. Steady. Real.

He was real.

She had never really done this before though some village boys had tried—Alexander after a fair day, the sourness of cider on his breath leaning in to catch her by surprise. But where before she’d felt revulsion, here she only felt pull. The skim of his lips over hers an inevitability set into motion when the earth was forged.

And then the warm, slow slide of his tongue begging entrance into her mouth—tentative, reverent. Dana parted her lips, breath catching as the kiss deepened. There was no hesitation now. No nerves, no fear. Just the heat of him, the way he fit against her, the way she opened under his touch.

She let go of his hand to fist the fabric of his shirt, anchoring herself as her knees softened, threatening to give out beneath her. Every inch of her felt alive—her skin buzzing where he touched her, her heart thudding hard against the cage of her ribs. She had imagined this, in flickers and stolen dreams, but the reality of it eclipsed all imagining. He wasn’t a fantasy. He wasn’t a hope.

He was here. Flesh and breath and want.

And he wanted her.

Fox’s hand curled around her waist, pulling her flush against him, his mouth trailing from her lips to the line of her jaw, then lower, to the tender place beneath her ear. She gasped, her whole body arcing forward into his.

The mark on her wrist glowed brighter, heat building at the point where their bond shimmered just beneath the skin. His thumb brushed it, and the sensation lanced through her like lightning—sharp, clean, holy. She made a soft sound, one she didn’t know she could make, and he answered it with a low groan against her throat.

“Dana,” he whispered, as if her name was both prayer and plea.

She pulled back just far enough to look at him, her face flushed, lips swollen, breath ragged. His eyes were wild—bright and dark all at once, as if every part of him was caught between restraint and hunger. 

He looked as though he wanted to say something, do something, but was holding himself back. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said softly.

“I’m afraid of me,” Fox admitted. His voice was hoarse, shaking with things he hadn’t yet said.

She reached up to run her fingers through the thick, dark weft of his hair, wanting to pull him down to her again, when he pressed his hand to hers, stilling her movement.

“You need rest,” he rasped. “I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Dana answered, but pulled back from him just enough. He leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers and their eyes slipped closed. 

The solid heat of him in front of her, the quiet weight of his presence. She couldn’t help thinking again: real.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered. Her voice was raw around the edges, low and aching.

“I thought the same,” Fox murmured. “Every second apart from you…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

Everything had changed since that night in Highmere—since they’d leapt the waterfall, side by side, into the unknown. For so long, Dana had believed herself alone in the world. An orphan. Unclaimed. It hadn’t occurred to her that family could be something you found, not something you were born into. That it could be built in moments of shared danger, quiet loyalty, and the kind of love that didn’t need to be spoken to be felt.

That truth had crept up on her, slow and quiet, until it crashed down like a wave the first time she found herself without him. The silence was too loud. The emptiness, too sharp. She missed him with an ache so fierce it left her breathless—not just his presence, but the way he looked at her, listened to her, believed in her.

That was when it struck her—not with drama, but with clarity. She hadn’t just come to rely on him. Her heart had shifted, quietly and irrevocably, and he’d become something else entirely.

Dana opened her eyes, and the storm she’d held at bay since the constable’s hands first closed around her arms threatened to rise again—terror, fury, shame—all of it… couldn’t touch her here. Not with him like this. Not with the warmth of his arms wrapped around her, the mark glowing faintly between them.

She reached up and brushed her fingers along his jaw, his cheek, just to feel the solidness of him. To confirm again that he was not some phantom summoned by longing. “You’re really here,” she said.

“I’ll never be far again,” he promised.

She believed him. She wanted to. And yet…

Dana stepped back, just slightly, enough to look him over. He looked tired. More than tired. There were dark hollows beneath his eyes and a tightness in his shoulders that she hadn’t often seen.

She glanced up at the firefly light of the magical weave above the door, at the shape of the magic. Familiar.

“You cast this spell,” she said. “The one protecting this place.” It wasn’t a question. She could feel it in the room, the way the air seemed gentler now, more like him, the wards holding strong at the corners. Tender. Strong. Fox. 

He nodded.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” she said. 

“I didn’t either.” His eyes were sea-storm green in the candle light, and his lips were glistening from their kiss. 

“I have so many questions,” she said, her voice soft and quiet.

“So do I,” he whispered.

They stood like that for a beat longer, the moment quiet and close. But her body had begun to feel the weight of all she’d been through, the magical drain, the haze of smoke still lingering in her senses. She swayed slightly, and Fox reached for her.

“Bedroll,” he said. “Now.”

Dana laughed softly, not protesting as he led her toward it, his hand steady at her elbow, her eyes casting up once again at the wards over the doors. As she sat, as the feeling that she couldn’t be touched while in the embrace of his arms faded, and reality crashed down. She looked up at him.

“The Dark Mage,” she said. “The man in the jail. Fox, how are we going to—”

He knelt down next to her and put a finger gently over her lips, silencing her.

“You need to rest.”

“But—”

“Dana.” The way he said her name gentled the storm inside her. It was firm, but full of warmth—reverent, almost. Like a rope tied to a boat, pulling it back from the current.

“We’ll face it,” he said. “But not right now.”

She searched his eyes, saw the same fear, the same fire, the same unshakable devotion she felt echoing in her own chest. Slowly, she nodded.

“Stay with me?” 

His answer was a quiet nod as he lowered himself beside the head of the bedroll, legs stretched out, shoulders resting against the wall. Dana lay down with a soft sigh, the narrow bedding pressing gently against her spine as she turned and rested her head on his thigh. Exhaustion bloomed in her bones, heavy and insistent, and she let it come, letting the tension drain from her at last.

His arm curled around her, slow and sure, his hand—big enough to span almost the whole of it—resting across her waist. It was warm and steady and his fingers moved in idle, soothing patterns over the bodice of her dress.

“You’ve ripped your skirt,” Fox murmured, voice low and rough against the quiet.

She glanced down. The tear from the loose nail in the clerk’s office had split the fabric clean through, leaving a long strip of her skirt hanging loose. From the top of her boot to the middle of her thigh, pale skin was bared to the firelight.

She heard Fox swallow thickly.

When she looked up, his eyes had gone dark with something he didn’t try to hide.

“Better my skirt than my skin,” she murmured, though her voice wavered just slightly.

“Yes,” he said, gaze lifting to meet hers. “A stroke of luck.”

A beat passed, charged and wordless. The fire crackled in the hearth. Somewhere in the shop beyond, a quiet murmur of voices. But here, in the stillness between them, something more dangerous than silence had taken root.

She didn’t move, didn’t dare. But she felt it again—that low thrum from her sacrum, the echo of their bond and everything beneath it. Not just magic. Not just fate.

Want.

Fox’s hand, still resting along her side, tightened, just slightly, his fingers curling against her ribs like he meant to anchor himself there. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t trust what might come out.

Dana’s breath shivered out.

“I should probably… fix it,” she said, tugging gently at the torn fabric, but her voice lacked any real conviction.

Fox raised an eyebrow, and something wry ghosted across his face. “You’ll sew that up right now, will you?”

She smiled—small, crooked, tired. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, his gaze lingering just a second too long before he turned his eyes to the fire.

She let herself watch him in return—his tousled hair, the faint smudge of exhaustion under his eyes, the way his chest rose and fell with the effort of staying composed.

She didn’t feel shy anymore.

Not with him.

She reached out with her hand and laced her fingers with his other hand, and this time when her eyes drifted shut, it wasn’t just sleep that drew her there.

It was safety.

It was him.

***

Maren had drawn the curtains across the front of the shop and the space felt cloistered and dim. There had been commotion on the lane outside when they first trundled out of the workroom—shouts from a few men and the sound of several horses trotting quickly by. The Overseer had pulled a corner of the curtain aside to look: the constable and several of his men. But things had died down and the street outside was quiet. 

Maren and Silas had settled onto stools behind the service countertop and the latter was dozing where he sat, head dropped down, soft snuffly snores emanating from him. The familiars were dozing as well, the raven treating the rafters at the top of the apothecary as a rookery, the moth beside her, the viper curled on the table.

The Overseer would not rest. Not tonight. Not until they were all safely away from the village and the Dark Mage, and whatever that creature was that had fed on Dana. The raven’s description of what it had done, and the clear physical toll it had taken on her was a terrifying prospect. One he had not foreseen. One his witch had not foreseen. And that was rare. 

He had every confidence in the magic of the protection spell—he had felt its power when he had helped Fox to cast it—but they could not tarry. The sooner they were away from this place, the better. He hoped Dana was resting well. 

He chanced another peek outside and then turned back to the room, not sure where to place his restlessness. Maren, her eyes sleepy, but her mouth curving up in a friendly smile, caught his own. 

“Tell me about your witch,” she said curiously. “She must have been formidable to do what she did. To pass her power on to you. When my mother died, I had hoped she could do the same for me, but the magic is not written in my blood.”

The Overseer leaned on his staff, as though the memory carried weight.

“She was of the Dark,” he said, and Maren nodded at him, her brow creasing slightly, but offering no judgement. “But as loving and kind as she was powerful. I served her for many years.”

“As her familiar?” Maren asked, a quizzical look on her face. 

The Overseer nodded. 

“In what shape?” The woman wanted to know. “Surely not this one.”

He looked down at his human hands, remembering the feel of soft moss beneath his feet as he ran fleetly through the forest to do his witch’s bidding. 

“A fox,” he said, looking up at Maren with a rueful expression. 

Maren’s brows rose and she nodded toward the back room. “Is he—”

“That boy is no more a fox than I am truly a man,” the Overseer interjected. “Bewitched is he,” he went on, “in a cruel and calculated spell. One my witch tried to stop.”

He had never spoken this out loud and the words felt stiff on his tongue. 

Maren looked at him with open curiosity, clearly hoping he would elaborate, but this was a story that he owed to Fox first, and Fox wasn’t ready to hear it. Not yet. 

“I’m sorry you’ve lost her,” Maren said after a long silence. “Your witch. My mother had a familiar when I was very young. A seal, he was. Though he grew jealous of the attention she paid me.”

The Overseer nodded in recognition. “The relationship between a witch and her familiar is complex,” he said, an understatement. 

Maren nodded knowingly, and, he turned from her to look at the curtain which separated the back room from the front of the shop. It had been quiet for some time, and the Overseer hoped Dana was getting the rest she would need to make their escape when the morning came. 

Which wouldn’t be long now. The darkness outside was shifting, the blackness turning purple. Dawn was on its way. 

He almost felt bad for the young lovers. It would be one of their harder mornings, when Fox turned. 

“Once we’re gone,” the Overseer said, turning back to the apothecary’s wife. “Will you be safe here? The spell Fox cast will turn eyes of all kinds away from this place while we are here and it holds. But once we’re gone, people will remember the young woman that escaped and that you helped and spoke for her.”

Maren drew herself up to her full height. “We’ll not be run out of our own village,” she said. “The magic Silas has may be small, and unable to casts spells such as this one, but he has helped far more people than just your young witch. They’ll remember that.”

The Overseer hoped she was right. Silas, roused by the sound of his name, blinked sleepily up at his wife, and looked around the shop. 

“All is well?” he asked. 

“So far,” the Overseer said. 

And as the words left his lips there was a sharp knock on the apothecary’s door. 

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (43/?)

Fox felt the stirring in his blood, though it felt capped by something, held back. A lid thrown over a pot. Still. It was there. The truth of the Overseer’s words was like a fault line under his feet—quiet now but ready to crack open. 

His thoughts were a swirling mass of wonder, disbelief, denial, fear, but he pushed all of that down. He needed to be strong for Dana. He needed to have a clear head. Protect, came that undeniable instinct in his chest. He was determined to listen to it. 

He had been crouching next to the work table upon which Dana lay, but now, he stood, the Overseer’s hand still on his shoulder. 

“This spell,” Fox asked. “What is it for? What are we protecting ourselves from? That thing in the tower? The thing that did this to Dana?” He looked down at her and ran his fingers lightly through the hair at her brow. 

“That,” the Overseer answered, his voice tight. “And more.”

“Come. Now,” he went on, squeezing Fox’s shoulder. 

Fox rose, reluctantly stepping away from Dana’s side. 

“What’s ‘more?’” he asked as he walked to the old grimoire. 

Up in the rafters, the raven flapped her wings. 

“I’ll tell you,” the Overseer said. “After.”

A snarl curled his lip, but then the crystal atop the Overseer’s staff throbbed—green light flashing like a racing heartbeat. The room shifted. Something heavy pressed on the air.

Fox cursed, giving Dana one last look before he turned to the book. The old grimoire lay open on the altar, its pages rippling slightly though there was no wind. Strange symbols moved faintly beneath the words, as if inked in something half-alive.

He reached toward it—and the page pulsed beneath his fingertips.

Not in welcome. Not in warning.

Recognition. Magic recognizing magic. 

A tremor ran through him, the hairs on his arms rising as his pulse quickened.

Fox stared at the open grimoire. The ink shimmered faintly, like the spell was waiting to be cast, and something inside him—long buried—rose to meet it.

His eyes tracked the lines. The words were plain, but they resonated with familiarity and weight,  as if each one struck a chord that had always been waiting to sound.

He read them aloud.

“Let ward be drawn where harm might fall. Let bone and breath and will make wall. By root and ash, let power bend— Hold fast. Protect. Defend.”

As he spoke, the room shifted. Not visibly, but he could feel it in his bones—the way the spell settled into him, the way it answered.

One hand stayed braced on the page. The other lifted, palm forward, fingers trembling slightly. Threads of light began to rise from the grimoire, curling upward like seafoam drawn into wind.

Behind him, he could hear Maren and Silas at work—glass clinking, herbs ground to dust. Dana’s breath, soft and fragile. But he couldn’t look. The spell was wending its way inside him now, threading itself through his limbs, cold and sharp and clear. His skin prickled.

The crystal in the Overseer’s staff pulsed again, brighter this time—urgent. The air thickened. The walls around them seemed to ripple, and a verging, penultimate tension drew tight across the room, like a bowstring pulled to the chin. 

Fox gritted his teeth and spoke the final line again, louder this time.

“Hold fast. Protect. Defend!”

The magic surged, fast and forceful, like floodwaters battering a dam. But something inside him held it back. Whatever had blocked his power—memory or something else—rose again now, trying to seal him off, to shut the door just as it opened.

The spell faltered.

He clenched his jaw. No. If that thing was coming after Dana, he wouldn’t let it finish her off. 

He pushed—but the barrier clamped down harder, and pain flared behind his ribs. He gasped, wincing, as fear surged up to meet it. If he failed, it wouldn’t just cost him. It could cost Dana her life.

Then—a spark. Not in the air. In his wrist. The bond-mark flared with warmth. The magic shifted, flowing freely now. Whatever was blocking it had slackened. He took a deep breath, about to repeat the incantation, but there was a cry of alarm from behind him. 

Dana groaned, a harrowing, desperate sound. The urge to turn around was overwhelming, but he didn’t dare, not when the magic was finally coursing through him, unbound.

“Stop!” Silas called out. 

“Don’t stop!” instructed the Overseer, staring at the crystal atop his staff. 

Fox’s instincts screamed to stop—but then the Overseer’s hand rose, steadying his.

A rush of magic flowed through him, but not his own. He could feel it purling off of the Overseer in a steady flow. The texture of it was different, old and gentle and achingly familiar.

Before he could contemplate the feeling, the warmth in his bond-brand cooled and the sigils in front of him flared, rising like a constellation from the page. The floor beneath his boots hummed—low, then louder, until the stone itself seemed to sing. A breath of wind moved through the room, lifting the edges of cloth and parchment. At the doors, the wood groaned. Then—

BOOM.

A shockwave rippled outward.

Wards bloomed across the windows and doorframes—pale green and flickering, like fireflies suspended midair. Where the light gathered, it looked woven, like threads of energy threaded into a tight lattice. The magic formed a barrier—not solid, but living—drawn from spellwork older than words, meant to keep danger out. 

The pressure in the room lifted.

Fox gasped, reeling back from the book. The Overseer’s hand dropped from where it had been touching his own.

“It’s done,” the Overseer panted. He sounded relieved, though he seemed to wilt slightly under his hat.

Fox wheeled around, his eyes landing on Dana, his heart in his throat. 

“Is she—?” 

“She’s all right.” Silas nodded at him, a little breathless. “I think… I think you were drawing magic from her,” he said. “Magic she doesn’t have to give.” 

Fox felt his stomach lurch in horror. 

“It stopped,” the apothecary assured him. “When he…”

Fox then turned on the Overseer. 

“What was that?” he asked. “What did you do? I thought you said you weren’t a mage!”

“I am not,” the Overseer said simply, pulling off his hat to wipe sweat off of his bald pate. 

“Then what did I feel coming off of you?” Fox demanded. 

“Magic given to me by my own witch. Passed to me when she died.” 

“And you can wield her power?”

The Overseer shook his head sadly. “Only to help other familiars. You are both mage and familiar. A unique combination.”

Fox had other pressing questions, but as he spoke, the raven swooped down from the rafters to land next to the Overseer, her feathers ruffling in agitation. The viper slithered over as well, darting her tongue out to taste at the air near his hand, as if checking for injury or imbalance. The moth, still riding on his shoulder, flitted her wings and flew over to land on Fox’s.

“It is finite, this magic she imparted to him, ” Moth explained. “ He cannot draw on the magic from the land like living mages and witches. What he has lives in him. When he gives it away to help our kind, his stores grow lighter. What he gave you was a gift that cannot be restored. Or repaid.”

Fox swallowed thickly. Opened his mouth to say something—to apologize maybe or give his thanks, but at that moment, Dana stirred. 

A breath caught in her throat. Her eyes fluttered. Her lips parted as though surfacing from deep water.

“Fox?” she rasped.

He was beside her in an instant, the moth flitting back to the Overseer.

“I’m here,” he whispered, leaning down and pressing his forehead to hers. “You made it.”

She blinked up at him, dazed. “What happened?”

In his mind’s eye, he saw her stumble out of the old scullery door behind the town’s prison, weak as a newborn fawn—pale and frightened. The sight had cleaved him in two. 

“What do you remember?” 

She swallowed with difficulty, and tried to sit up. Fox and Maren rushed to help her. 

“Alexander,” she said, bringing a hand to her head as if it was in pain. “He was here, in this village. There was a stone, like the one I dropped behind the waterfall.” Fox reached up and tugged on the cord around his neck, pulling it off and holding it up. 

“Yes,” she winced. “But it didn’t have the etching on it. There was a flash. A bright flash. Nessa was there. Saw it. And accused me of being a witch. Publicly.” At this she looked to Silas and Maren, who looked alternately aghast and furious. “The constable took me to the jail and…” For a moment, it looked as though she might vomit, but she shook her head slightly and swallowed. “There was a man there. He…” 

She looked a little lost and the raven hopped forward, flapped once until she was sitting on the work table next to her. 

“Fed on your power, he did,” said the raven. 

Silas’s eyes widened. “What could do such a thing?”

No one in the room had an answer, though everyone’s eyes drifted to the Overseer, who, looking a little pale, replaced his hat upon his head. 

“Something new,” he said with finality. 

Fox’s voice was quiet. Shameful. “I just drew from her, too.”

“That,” said the Overseer, “was the spell. Your mark. The bond.”

“I stole her power?” Fox asked. 

“No,” the Overseer said. “Borrowed. You weren’t feeding on her. Her power was supplementing yours. Your powers… They are tangled, now.”

Dana’s brow furrowed. “How do you know?” she asked. “How do you know so much about my spell?” 

“Because,” the Overseer said. “Before the spell was yours, it was hers. My witch. She created it.”

Dana blinked several times. The room was quiet for a moment. 

“You said there was something else after us?” said Fox. 

“Someone,” the Overseer clarified. 

Fox watched the light fade from Dana’s expression, her face turning ashen.

“The flash you saw from the stone held by your Alexander,” the Overseer said. 

“He’s not my Alexander,” Dana hissed, weak though she was. Silas, coming over from a nearby table, pressed a freshly made tonic into her hand and urged her to drink. 

The Overseer nodded to her deferentially. 

“I believe he held a calling stone,” the man went on. 

“Like this?” Fox asked, lifting the stone on the thong once more. 

“Not quite,” the Overseer said. “The one you carry has been altered. By me.”

Fox tilted his head, vulpine-like. 

“The Dark Mage has left them all over the land beyond the veil. I have found and altered as many as I can.”

“The Dark Mage?” Fox asked. 

“There are two kinds of magic in this world. Dark. And Light.”

Fox looked at Dana. She was pure Light. He’d known since the moment the moth had mentioned the two schools of magic to him as he limped his way back to his witch. There was something about her magic—something steady, radiant and whole. He didn’t have a name for it, but he’d felt it. When her spell reached him in the woods. When the bond took hold. Even now, faintly, in the air between them. It was like standing in sunlight after too long in shadow. 

“And this mage,” Dana asked. “He’s of the Dark? And he’s coming here?”

The Overseer nodded gravely. 

“What does he want with me?” she asked. 

“Your end,” said the Overseer. 

Fox’s hands curled into tight fists, but Maren put up a gentling hand, calling everyone’s attention to her. 

“Silas needs to perform a small healing spell,” she said. “And then Dana needs rest. You’ve bought her some time,” Maren said, nodding toward the wards that shimmered over the doorways. “Let her use it to regain her strength.”

There seemed to be a collective agreement, all of the beings in the room falling silent. Fox lifted Dana’s hand to his lips, pressing a long kiss there, unable to help himself after almost losing her. 

Where their skin met, there was a feeling of the barest rush of sparks. Their eyes connected and tension of a different sort filled the air. It seemed to tighten, the reality of their reunion blazing with promise—with the ache of nearness. His breath caught, and hers shivered out, shallow and slow. The world fell away, all of it, until there was only the place where their skin touched. 

Maren cleared her throat. “We’ll give you two some time,” she said. “But first, Silas needs to heal her.” She turned to the rest of their odd collective: “Let us give him some space to work,” she said, spreading her arms wide and ushering everyone but Fox and the apothecary into the outer room of the shop, the viper threading her way loosely up the Overseer’s wrist, the raven hopping up to swoop over their heads and through the flap that separated the workshop from the front room. 

Silas moved to the table above Dana’s head and closed his eyes, raising his hands as if in prayer. He recited a short incantation and Fox could feel the magic he’d summoned flow into the room and surround Dana. 

The apothecary nodded toward the tonic he’d pressed into her free hand. “Finish it,” he said. “And then,” he went on, holding a packet of herbs out to her. “I want you to breathe in the smoke of this. You’ll set the mixture aflame, extinguish it and then waft the smoke over you. Now that we know more about what happened to you, I can better target your treatment. The smoke will help restore your magic.”

Fox reluctantly let go of her hand so that she could reach out and take the packet from Silas. 

The older man smiled at her gently. “Let us make you more comfortable, shall we?” he said, and moved to a low cupboard, pulling out a narrow bedroll, which he unrolled along the wall near the back door, where the wards still glowed upon the wood. 

“When you’re finished,” he said, nodding toward the bedding. “Rest.” 

He then nodded at Fox and disappeared through the curtain and into the shop. 

Dana caught his eye and they exchanged a look–a flicker of knowing, of want. A confirmation of everything unspoken. 

He wanted nothing more in that moment than to sweep Dana into his arms, but restoring her health was paramount. 

When she moved to gingerly swing her legs over the side of the worktable, Fox took the packet from her hands and looped his arm around her. 

“Let me help you,” he said, and she gave him a smile, weak, but grateful. Her color had improved since Silas spoke his spell over her, and Fox walked with her over to the altar, his hand on her elbow. 

As she approached the raised table, she gave a small sound of startled appreciation, running her hand along the sea witch’s grimoire. The words on the page seemed to rise up to meet her touch and then sink back to the page like the very swell of the sea. 

“This,” she said. “Is beautiful.” 

“It is,” Fox agreed, and then handed her the packet of herbs Silas had given them. 

Dana closed the book and pushed it aside, pulling a small wooden bowl toward herself. It was a pretty thing, carved with ivy and sunbursts and hardened with tallow. 

She shook out the herb mixture that the apothecary had given her and grabbed a stubby candle, blowing gently on the blackened wick until it caught flame. 

Wonder bloomed inside him. Despite being drained by the creature in the jail, in the short amount of time they’d been separated, Dana had grown into her magic by leaps and bounds. Even her movements, which had been clumsy and self-conscious before, now flowed with a confident precision conveying a new and evolving strength. He was struck dumb. 

He took a small step back, giving her room to work, and watched in quiet awe as she lowered the flame to the bowl, set the herbs to smolder, and then gently extinguished the flame. The smoke that rose up smelled of acrid pine and winter, and she fanned the smoke gently toward herself and let it waft over her shoulders to sink unnaturally to the ground behind her. 

When the smoke began to dissipate, Dana stood taller, inhaled deeply and then turned to him. 

There was a brightness to her now, a pale glow that hadn’t been there before that seemed to shimmer around her like an aura. And her eyes, blue and liquid as a shallow sea, held a shine he had never before seen. 

The urge to kneel before her in awe was almost overwhelming. 

“You’re coming into your own,” he whispered, for the first time wondering if he’d be left behind. 

She offered him a faint smile and then reached out and took his hand, turning them so that the bonded mark on their wrists was pointing up. Where their skin touched, a tingling warmth began to stir, and their marks began to glow under their skin. 

“Not without you,” she whispered back, as if she heard his thoughts, stepping up to him, their hands still linked. When she looked up at him, there was a brief moment of shyness that passed between them, and then…

And then.

She lifted herself up onto her toes and pressed her lips into his.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (42/?)

Fox barely felt the cold stone beneath his knees, the cobbles slick with mist. She was in his arms—real, breathing. Finally. After everything. The distance. The fear. The longing he had felt in the marrow of his bones. The bond between them pulsed, alive and electric—but there was something more, something deeper than magic. A pull from the very core of him, raw and unnameable. Her head sagged against his shoulder, breath thin and shaky. Her skin was far too pale. Her body, limp.

“Dana? Dana!” His voice cracked open, hoarse with fear.

She didn’t stir. Panic surged—hot and blinding—but he forced it down. He cursed, clutching her even tighter to him. 

Her body was warm in his arms, but far too still. Her head had dropped against his shoulder, breath still shallow, skin chilled. He pressed his cheek to her hair and let out a low, quavering breath.

“You found me,” he whispered. “Now don’t you dare leave.”

He cradled her close, instinct overriding everything else. Her wrist brushed his chest—and he saw it.

The mark.

The soft, curling shape of the bonded brand, glowing faintly even through the grime on her skin.

His breath caught. A thousand questions bottlenecked in his throat, but none of them mattered now. She’d found him. She’d come back.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re safe, now,” he whispered into her skin, trying to convince them both. “I swear it.”

A sharp beat of wings broke the silence. The raven landed lightly on the edge of a rain barrel just feet away, feathers sleek with mist and fury radiating off her in waves.

“She made it,” the Raven said. “A lucky thing, with whatever that creature is still in the tower.”

Fox’s eyes snapped to hers. “It did this to her?”

The raven gave a grim nod. “It could do it to any of us, I think.”

Fox looked sharply toward the building. A window on the upper level still glowed faintly with the dying light. Cold crept down his spine like melting snow.

The wind shifted.

From the open doorway behind them, he felt it—a wrongness in the air. The trace of something that made his skin crawl, made his instincts bristle like a wild animal’s.

And Dana had been in there alone.

His hands curled into fists around her. The fury that rose was different than anything he remembered feeling before. This was deeper. Protective. Vicious.

Whoever had touched her—hurt her—he would end them.

But not now. Not yet. She needed help first.

Footsteps approached. 

He turned sharply toward the alley’s mouth, relaxing only when the silhouette resolved into the Overseer, robes sweeping through the mist, the moth resting on his shoulder.

“She’s alive,” Fox said, his voice hoarse.

The Overseer knelt beside them, eyes scanning Dana with quiet intensity. “And you,” he said, tone gentler now, “have returned.”

Fox didn’t answer. He looked down at her face, still slack with exhaustion. His thumb brushed the line of her jaw.

The Overseer turned, scanning the shadows, his hand gripping his staff. Above them, there were dull shouts from inside the tower, and the sharp click of hoofbeats coming up the lane on the tower’s other side. The crystal at the top of the Overseer’s staff glowed faintly green, its light beginning to slowly pulse. 

“Come,” he said. “Quickly. There is more danger here than you know.”

Fox nodded tightly. He rose with Dana in his arms, cradling her as if she were made of glass. She didn’t stir.

“She needs help,” he said, falling in beside the Overseer who was walking quickly through the alley, looking furtively around them, his expression hard. 

“Yes,” the man said grimly. 

They moved swiftly down a narrow back lane, long strides devouring the distance. At a sharp left turn, the Overseer reached the apothecary’s back door and shoved it open without pause, Fox close on his heels.

Silas and his wife jumped, looking at Fox with startled expressions. When their eyes fell to Dana, the apothecary let out a low, harsh curse. 

“Who are you?” he asked sharply. “What have you done to her?”

“This is Fox, her familiar,” the Overseer explained. “Her injuries were not his doing.”

Silas blinked. Once. Twice. “Her… familiar?”

“Please,” Fox said hoarsely, barely able to get the word out. “Help her.”

That snapped them both into motion.

“Gods,” Silas muttered. “Here. Lay her here.” He swept the contents of a long worktable onto the floor with one quick motion, jars and vials clattering and rolling as he cleared the space.

Fox lowered Dana gently to the tabletop, carefully laying her head, which lolled unsteadily.

Behind them, the raven swooped into the room and perched on a beam overhead. The Overseer moved to the door and closed it firmly, throwing the latch. He turned to the apothecary, who had stepped up to the table upon which Dana lay and was gently peeling up her eyelids, examining her pupils. Fox could see they were blown black, her sclera shot through with red. 

“What protective charms have you?” the Overseer said urgently, turning from the door. “What spells? Any that could shield this building from magical eyes?”

Silas’s mouth dropped open a little and he looked helplessly toward his wife, who was busily trying to tidy up the items that had crashed to the floor. 

“I am but a hedge mage, sir,” the apothecary said. “I make healing draughts and can perform small magicks. I think I can help Dana. But I have nothing in my repertoire so powerful as what you’re asking for.”

The Overseer turned to the altar upon which the apothecary’s spell book sat, Dana’s nestled up beside it. He began riffling through them both. 

“You may not be able to cast a charm like that, but do you have one? A spell passed down?”

“I have nothing, sir,” Silas said, turning his attention back to Dana, who looked paler than she had when they entered. Fox could see beads of sweat forming along her brow. “Maren, fetch me the Valerian tonic. Quickly.” 

But Maren merely stood where she was, several bottles clutched in her arms from where she had been cleaning up the mess on the floor, a scroll hanging limply from her hand. 

“Maren?” Silas said, his brow creasing. 

“My mother’s grimoire,” Maren said softly. 

“What?” asked her husband. 

Maren cleared her throat and spoke with more force. “My mother’s grimoire.”

The Overseer took a step towards her, and she looked up at him. 

“My mother was a sea witch,” she said. “I have her grimoire. There are powerful spells in it. Several protective ones.”

The Overseer looked at the crystal atop his staff which was pulsing more quickly now, the glow growing brighter. 

“Fetch it,” he said. “Now.” 

While Maren hurried to the other end of the room to get what the Overseer asked for, Fox looked down at Dana and gently wiped the sweat forming on her brow, tenderly tucking the curls of hair that had escaped her braid behind the seashell curve of her ear. Her skin was hot to the touch. 

The apothecary had gone to a shelf and was coming back with a small vial. 

“Lift up her head for me,” he said to Fox, “this should help cool her.”

Fox put his arm around the back of Dana’s neck and lifted it gently. “Can she swallow?” he asked Silas. 

The man put the vial to Dana’s lips and tipped it in. “Let us see,” he said softly.

Dana’s eyelids fluttered and her throat moved in a slow, instinctive swallow. 

“Good,” Silas said, giving Fox a tight smile as he lowered her head tenderly back onto the table. 

Everyone’s attention was pulled when Maren set her mother’s grimoire onto the altar with a loud thump. The book was thick and salt-warped, its cover the deep green of kelp after a storm. Damp-stained leather clung to its spine, and its edges were uneven like sea grass tugged by tides. A length of twine, knotted with shells and bits of coral, kept it bound shut. Even now, long dry, it carried the faint tang of brine.

The Overseer wasted no time, opening up the tome and flipping quickly through the pages. The black viper slithered her way out of his sleeve and curled up next to the book, her tongue darting out to taste the air. 

A moment later, her body rose up higher off the table and Fox heard her say, “There!”

The Overseer stopped flipping and laid the book open flat. 

“Can you cast it?” He turned to look at Maren. 

Maren shook her head sadly. “I did not inherit her power.”

The Overseer turned his attention to Silas. 

The apothecary looked grim. “I have never been able to cast a single spell from that book,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Can’t you?” he asked. 

The Overseer’s already stern face frowned. “Despite appearances,” he said. “I am no mage.”

The man then turned in his direction, but Fox barely noticed. He had Dana’s hand in his own, the mark on her wrist catching the light—his mark, too. He ran his thumb over it, as if he could anchor her with touch alone. His world had narrowed to this: her skin, too pale; her breathing, too shallow. Nothing else mattered.

The Overseer moved forward and put his hand on Fox’s shoulder. 

Fox looked up at him. The older man paused and seemed to consider something. 

“It’s all right,” the moth said from the Overseer’s shoulder. “Go on.”

The Overseer sighed and then spoke. His voice was calm, but there was no mistaking the weight behind it. 

“You’ll have to do it,” he said, his eyes looking into Fox’s with an intensity that could not be ignored. 

Fox blinked several times, dread spreading out from his stomach, bubbling through the veins of his chest until it forced the croaky voice from his throat: “What?”

The older man gestured to the grimoire lying open on the altar. Its pages shimmered faintly in the low light, ink shifting as if stirred by an unseen current.

“The spell,” the Overseer said. “It requires a mage’s hand.”

Fox stared at him. “I’m not—” He stopped. Shook his head. “I’m no mage.”

Above them, the raven trilled a string of dry clicks from the rafters, like bones tumbling in a wooden bowl.

“You are,” said the Overseer gently, as if saying it any louder might break a tenuous détente. “You’ve only forgotten.”

Fox recoiled in shock and disbelief. Actually recoiled, like he’d been slapped. 

“Come,” the Overseer instructed, his hand sweeping toward the sea witch’s grimoire. “We have little time.”

Fox felt the ground tilt beneath him.

“No,” he said, more forcefully this time. “I’m bonded. I’m a familiar. I belong to—”

He broke off, the words collapsing on his tongue.

The Overseer leaned closer. His voice was steady. Unyielding.

“That is not all you are.”

Fox stared at him, the truth of his words pressing into the cracks of his memory, into the hollow places long since sealed shut.

The candles flickered. The ink in the sea grimoire rippled.

And somewhere deep in his chest, something old and forgotten stirred.

[slippinmickeys]

Okay remember when I posted that thing asking for your favorite quotes from my fics?

Well it turns out I won the SaYes mentoring raffle for a personalized copy of WANT from Gillian Anderson. I had three days to figure out what I wanted her to say.

I had considered having her write something that I wrote (from fic).

But. Um. I went with this instead 👀

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (41/?)

“You’re different from the last time I saw you,” the man in the other cell  said. His voice was quieter now, but no less sharp. “There’s something more to you,” he said, eyeing her up.

He tilted his head slightly, nostrils flaring as though scenting something just beyond reach.  “Light,” he murmured. His smile deepened, curdling into something hungry. “I can feel it.”

He stepped forward, coming to the bars that divided the room. Dana backed away without thinking, the backs of her knees bumping into the bench behind her.

There had been fear in the woods, yes—but this was worse. Not just the threat of violence, though that still lingered beneath his words. It was deeper now. Her stomach twisted. Her skin crawled.

“What are you?” she asked, the words pulled from her throat.

He gave a soft laugh. “I might ask you the same.”

He licked his lips, pale tongue darting out to wet them.

“I knew coming below the veil would pay off” he said thoughtfully. “I know power when I smell it.” He inhaled again, deeply, and smiled. “And yours is ripening.”

He leaned his forehead lightly against the bars. “The mark you wear,” he said, flitting his eyes to her wrist. “Is it a gift?” he asked, voice lower now. “Or a leash?”

Dana didn’t answer.

He studied her. “You don’t know, do you?”

She forced herself to hold his gaze. “Why are you here?”

He gave a slow shrug. “Needed shelter, I did. I was weak.” He rolled his shoulders, wincing slightly, as if even that movement pained him. “Too long on the high road. Too little to keep me going.”

Dana’s pulse quickened.

He smiled, lips thin and cold. “But luck brought me here. And now—well.” His eyes moved to hers, and lingered. “There’s strength in you. Enough to draw from. Maybe even enough to feed.”

Dana tried to back away more, but there was nowhere else for her to go. The air between them felt heavier now, thick with something she didn’t have a name for.

“But not yet,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Not quite. Still figuring it out aren’t you? You haven’t tapped all of the way in.”

Dana swallowed thickly. 

He pressed a hand to the bars, watching her as though weighing something. “Still. You shine, girl. That’s rare these days.” His smile deepened. “And rare things are… hard to resist.”

Dana’s stomach turned, as if a nest of snakes had come alive inside her, shifting and curling with unease.

At that moment, the raven appeared in the window, her wings stirring a gust of air as she landed lightly on the iron grate. Her feathers gleamed in the late afternoon sun, blue-black with a silken sheen. Tied to her leg was a small cloth parcel, bulging slightly.

Dana stepped toward her, but froze halfway.

The man in the opposite cell stood at the bars between them, too close, his gaze fixed not on her—but on the bird. His nostrils flared.

He hadn’t moved during the raven’s arrival, hadn’t spoken. But something in him had shifted. He stood straighter now. Head tilted. Breathing deeper.

The raven gave a low, almost reptilian click deep in her throat. Not a sound of fear—but unease.

She studied the man. “What is he?” she asked Dana. 

“I don’t know,” Dana replied. 

The raven ruffled her feathers. 

“Be quick,” she instructed sharply, without taking her eyes off the man. “There’s a wrongness in him. Like rot under stone.”

Dana nodded. She stepped to the grate, untied the parcel, and unfolded it. Inside were three things: a sprig of ironwort, brittle and fragrant; a pinch of bone ash folded into waxed paper; and a small, unused iron key, the bow smooth and unmarked.

She exhaled shakily.

“Are we planning a prison break?” the man finally spoke, watching her closely. “With your familiar?”

Dana looked up sharply.

“What fun,” he said, smiling with too many teeth. 

“Hurry,” the Raven said. “You need to get away from him.”

Dana swallowed, pulse quickening. She gathered the ingredients into her palm and closed her eyes. Reached inward. Downward. Let her awareness sink, like roots into soil. But it was difficult. She could feel the man staring at her hungrily, and something in him pulled uncomfortably at something in her. 

“I can’t,” Dana said. “He’s–” 

The raven hopped down off the sill of the window and opened her wings, swooping down to fly at the man on the other side of the bars, causing him to jump back. 

Dana felt suddenly lighter, and she could feel herself ground to the earth as her magic stirred. Slowly, then with sudden clarity. It gathered like a tide behind her ribs. Her skin felt too thin to contain it.

She gasped—but she didn’t stop. Not now. She held the ingredients tight and opened her eyes.

A sharp intake of breath echoed across the cell.

The man had gone still.

His eyes were on her now, no longer casual or amused.

Hungry.

“You shine, witch,” he said, voice low and shuddering with need. 

The raven let out a dry, metallic trill—something between a warning and a curse.

“Work fast,” she told Dana. “Whatever he is—he’s waking up.”

The key in Dana’s hand turned hot once more—and then the spell completed.

She gasped, her knees buckling slightly as the magic drained through her fingertips like spilled water. 

Something was pulling at her.

A thread of her power was unraveling, vanishing into the air—and she wasn’t the one directing it.

She staggered, catching herself on the cold stone wall.

Across from her, the man’s posture had changed entirely. No longer feigning casualness, no more sardonic smile.

He was breathing deeply now, like someone inhaling the scent of fresh bread after a famine. His pupils had dilated. His fingers curled around the bars.

“Dana,” the Raven said sharply, voice loud and urgent in her mind. “He’s feeding on you.”

Dana swayed, heart thudding wildly. Her limbs felt leaden. The hand still clutching the key trembled violently.

“What is he?” she asked the bird weakly.

“I don’t know.” The Raven’s voice was tight with alarm. “I’ve never felt something like this. Not mage. Not witch. Not familiar. Just—wrong.”

She fluttered hard, agitated.

Dana tried to move—but her legs wouldn’t respond properly. Her knees gave a wobble, and she had to grip the wall again just to keep from sinking to the floor. Her vision blurred around the edges.

She could feel it now, not just as a tug on her magic, but as a sickness behind her sternum. Like something was eating its way through her.

“I can’t—” she started.

“Listen to me,” the Raven said sharply. “I must go tell my companions what is happening. You must use the key. On this cell first. Then on the heavy door just there. It leads into an old clerk’s office. There’s a passage at the back. A hidden stairwell. Follow it down.”

Dana’s vision swam. She could hardly hear.

“Fox will be waiting at the bottom. But you have to move.”

The Raven launched herself from the windowsill, her wings kicking up dust as she vanished into the sky.

Dana was alone.

The man gave a long, slow exhale. His eyes had glazed over and he looked as though he was in his cups.

“Your magic,” he murmured, swaying a bit on his feet. “It’s beautiful.”

Dana clenched her jaw.

Every motion was a war. But she lifted the key with shaking fingers and turned toward the lock.

She stumbled into the bars of her cell, the metal biting into her shoulder.

The weight of her own body felt doubled.

She reached the keyhole. Fumbled once. Twice.

The metal clinked uselessly.

The man was swaying on his feet. “Oh,” he breathed. “Such a shine…”

She hissed through her teeth. Forced herself to steady the key. It grew warm in her hand again, gave a jolt of vibration and—

Click.

The bolt gave way.

Dana fell forward into the outer chamber.

She felt a thin, steady pull at her spine, as if the air behind her had grown greedy.

She didn’t dare look back.

Dana lurched to the door of the old clerk’s office, barely able to lift the key in her trembling hand. Her vision swam; the corridor tilted. She braced her weight against the frame, fingers fumbling for the lock. The key scraped against iron, missed the hole entirely, slipped from her grip—she caught it just before it hit the floor. Gritting her teeth, she tried again. Her arm felt like it belonged to someone else. She forced the key into place. It didn’t want to turn.

She thought of what the raven had told her: out her cell, into the old clerk’s office. Find the passage that leads to the stairs. Fox would be waiting at the bottom. 

Fox. She thought to call out to him, fumbling toward the bond with shaking, splintered will.

The mark on her wrist began to grow warm. She looked down. The mark was glowing, the key in her hand growing hot and then—

The key turned and the lock gave with a heavy clunk, echoing down the corridor like a warning bell. Dana gasped in relief, shouldered the thick wooden door open, and all but collapsed into the room beyond.

The air inside was stale, the light dim and dust-choked. Cobwebs trailed like curtains from the corners, and the scent of old ink, mildew, and something long-forgotten clung to every surface. Her eyes swept past shelves stacked with crumbling ledgers and shattered jars, toward the far wall where the raven had said the passage would be.

She lurched forward, letting the door fall shut behind her with a solid thud. Her hand fumbled for the latch—and found it. With the last of her strength, she dropped the bar into place. The iron bolt slid home with a satisfying scrape.

Instantly, she felt the change.

Something unseen withdrew its claws from her spine. She sagged, reeling, but whole. The invisible pull on her magic stopped. Her breath returned in small, shallow gasps. Her legs, still trembling, could hold her up again. Not well. But enough.

Behind her, in the chamber she had just fled, the man let out a cry of rage. It was wordless at first—a sound more animal than human, like the screech of an owl. Then came the words, sharp and furious, echoing through the stone walls.

"Help! Escape! Your prisoner has escaped!"

Dana froze.

Boots thundered on the stairs. Voices called out. The Constable. The guards.

Panic surged through her, rattling her already shaky nerves.

Turning from the door, she scanned the room, eyes still fogged with weariness. The window was grimy but the day’s dying light illuminated something. There. At the back wall—a shadowed recess, barely visible in the gloom. She stumbled toward it, crashing into the desk on the way, sending scrolls flying. Her fingers touched the wall. Wood.

Boards.

The passage the raven had spoken of.

But it was sealed.

She let out a soft sound, halfway between a sob and a curse. Pressed her palms to the boards. They were old. Dry and weak.

She braced herself. Pulled.

The first board resisted, groaning against the nails that held it. She gritted her teeth and yanked. It tore free with a sharp crack, sending a puff of dust into her face. She staggered back a step, coughing, the board slipping from her fingers and clattering to the floor. She reached for the next, her grip unsteady. Her hands trembled, slick with sweat and weakness from the spell—and from whatever he’d drained out of her. Still, she pulled.

Another board. Then a third.

Behind her, the thick wooden door rattled. A voice shouted for keys. Someone else banged against it.

She turned to the gap she’d made—narrow, but maybe wide enough. She dropped to her knees, dress snagging on a jagged nail. It held fast. She cursed and jerked forward, the fabric tearing in a sudden rip up the side of her skirt.

She scrambled through.

The boards scraped her back. One caught at her braid. She ducked and twisted, and finally, finally, she fell forward onto stone.

A stairwell. Narrow. Curving.

The air was cooler here, and damp. Dana paused for a breath, Then another. Then she pressed her hand to the wall, steadying herself, and began to descend. Every step was a guess. It was dark in the passage, illuminated only by arrow slits cut into the thick walls emitting a weak, evanescent light.  Every turn might hide another figure. But the voices behind her were muffled now, fading.

She descended, her breath rasped in her chest. Her feet were clumsy on the stone, slipping more than once. But she didn’t stop.

The stair turned ever downwards.

And then she saw a faint glow.

She reached the scullery which was empty and dusty. Its once-used shelves sagged beneath forgotten kettles and cracked bowls. She unlatched the back door and shoved, its hinges creaking with disuse.

She pushed through.

The alley was quiet. Narrow. Lined in cobblestones slick with evening mist.The sky had turned the color of bruised violets. The sun, a sliver above the rooftops, was slipping away.

And then—

Movement just at the edge of her vision, a flash of autumn fur, then the wet popping sound of bones reshaping and—

Arms caught her.

Warm. Strong. Human. 

Fox.

He gasped as she collapsed into him, her body giving out completely now that it could. Her head dropped to his shoulder, breath shuddering.

He cradled her close, murmuring something she couldn’t hear.

Darkness folded in.

Drifting and filled with the relief of reunion, she let it take her.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (40/?)

Fox paced just inside the treeline, his mood dark and restless. His limbs twitched with the need to move, to act, to do something .

The boy needs to calm himself, the Overseer thought, watching from beneath his tall hat. Before he does something stupid.

Before he could speak, the Raven dropped soundlessly onto his shoulder.

“A moment ago,” she said, her voice like flint, “I felt a dark call wash over me.” Her beak tilted toward the village.

“Aye,” the Overseer replied. “As did I.”

“Did your spell not hold?”

The Overseer looked to the cord tied around Fox’s neck, the smooth stone with his etching upon it bouncing against Fox’s chest as he trotted back and forth. 

“Nay ,” he said. “ It holds.” 

The Raven clucked her beak. “We must work quickly, then.” 

The Overseer sighed, ran a hand over his face. “Yes ,” he said. “ We must.”

He straightened and raised his voice. “Friends—gather now.”

The moth fluttered down to his other shoulder. The viper uncoiled herself from a patch of moss near his boot. Fox stilled, his pacing cut short. He turned toward the Overseer, eyes wide and pleading.

***

“I…am Dana,” she responded silently, eyelids fluttering in surprise. She ought to have kept her name to herself—but the shock of hearing the creature in her mind coupled with its friendly tone, had briefly disarmed her usual caution.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the moth said. 

“What…are you?” Dana asked, finding it jarring to converse with anyone other than Fox in her head. 

“I am a familiar ,” the moth answered politely. “Like your Fox.”

Dana inhaled in surprise. 

“I have traveled with him these last days, ” the moth went on. “He is eager to get back to you.” 

Dana was eager for that as well. 

“Is he…traveling with another witch? Or mage, perhaps?” 

“Nay, ” said the moth. “He travels only with a group of familiars who set out to help him. And you.” 

Dana blinked. “The raven. The man.” 

“Yes, ” said the moth. “ You ran.”

“I have been running,” Dana said sharply, her wonderment wearing off. “You hid yourselves. We were afraid.”

“The time for explanations wasn’t then. And it isn’t now.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” she asked. 

“You don’t,” the moth said patiently. “But you bear the new mark of the bonded, as he does.” 

Dana looked down at the inside of her wrist. At the four curling lines. She touched it and could feel Fox on the other end, waiting, safe. What else could she do but accept this creature’s help? 

“I didn’t know I could speak to other witch’s familiars, ” Dana said. “I’ve barely figured out how to speak to my own.” 

“Oh, ” the moth said kindly. “ You can’t. Unless they have been freed. Like me.” 

“Freed?”  she asked, thinking of Fox, a queer feeling in her gut.

“That is a discussion for another time, my dear,” the moth said. “ We must work quickly.”

Dana looked to the sky outside the window. It would be hours still before Fox was a human again. 

“Is it…are they planning to do something to me?” Dana asked, swallowing thickly. The constable had been adamant that she must speak to the magistrate before she was able to clear her name. She wondered if there were various townspeople outside the jail with pitchforks and torches. If Nessa was out there drumming up the villagers into a frenzy, calling for her to be burned at the stake. 

She listened, but the town outside the window seemed quiet. 

“Not yet, ” the moth said. “ But time is of the essence. Fox says that you are only just coming into your power. What can you do? Have you any magic that might help you to leave this place? Any proficiencies in mechanical magic? Or perhaps you can magick the guards to sleep?” 

At this the moth flapped its wings several times. 

“I’m afraid not, ” Dana said. “But I have made friends with the local apothecary and his wife. He is a hedge mage. Perhaps he can help?”

The moth fluttered up into the air. 

“Let us see!” it said in her head. 

And then it was gone. 

***

The moment the moth returned—wings dull with fatigue, voice urgent in the Overseer’s mind.

“She is in the village, ” Moth said. “In the tower. She is safe for now—but afraid.”

The Overseer’s jaw tightened. “Let us go.”

He turned sharply and raised his staff, crystal gleaming faintly in the daylight. “Raven, Viper—come. Moth, guide us.”

The moth settled silently onto his shoulder. The viper, already curled around his wrist, flicked her tongue once in reply. Above, the raven lifted from the bough of a bare-limbed tree and circled high overhead.

Fox, who had been pacing just within the trees like a caged flame, stopped short. His ears swiveled. He turned those strange, human eyes toward the Overseer, defiant and taut with strain.

“I know what you’re going to say,” the Overseer began.

Fox growled low and took a step forward.

“You’ll draw attention,” the Overseer warned. “A fox in the market square—”

“Try and stop me,” Fox snapped, the words a rough bark of sound.

The Overseer let out a weary breath. “Very well. Stay to the alleys. Move like shadow. And for her sake—do not let yourself be seen.”

Fox dipped his head, once. Agreement.

Together, the strange procession moved toward the village. The moth clung lightly to the Overseer’s shoulder, silent and watchful as they made their way through the small back streets of the village, avoiding people where they could. The viper’s cool weight shifted with each step, coiled tight about his wrist. The raven flew above the rooftops, silent in the sky. And Fox moved in swift, fluid bursts through shadow and hedge, sticking to narrow lanes and slinking beneath carts and rails.

They reached the back entrance of the apothecary in minutes. The Overseer rapped twice, then once again—measured and soft, the sound of a man who had come for reason, not confrontation.

Fox darted up from the shadows just as the door creaked open.

It was Silas who stood there. His eyes narrowed at the tall man before him—grey robes, tall hat, staff glowing faintly, a moth resting on one shoulder. Then they dropped, widening slightly, at the sight of the fox at his heels.

“Stranger,” Silas said cautiously. “Can I help you?”

The Overseer inclined his head. “I’ve come regarding your guest.”

Silas tensed. His hand still rested on the edge of the door, keeping it half-closed.

“You offered her aid, and we have come to do the same,” the Overseer said. “I know what she is. And what you are.”

Silence stretched. Then Silas stepped back and opened the door.

“Come in.”

The interior of the apothecary was cool and dusky, thick with the smell of dried lavender, aged wood, and brine. Glass jars lined every shelf, some labeled, some not. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling beams. A mortar scraped faintly on the worktable.

Maren looked up as they entered. She straightened, eyes narrowing as she took in the man in grey. Then her gaze dropped to the fox at his feet.

Her mouth parted in surprise.

Fox met her gaze with gold-bright eyes.

“He’s hers,” the Overseer said simply. “And he has refused to be left behind.”

Maren nodded, looking at him closely. “She’s been anxious for you.” 

Fox’s fur rippled. 

Silas stepped forward, his gaze shifting as the raven hopped in behind the Overseer and flew up to perch on a beam overhead. From the Overseer’s wrist, the snake uncurled and popped her head out of his sleeve. Both Silas and Maren looked on in surprise and a little awe. 

“I am called the Overseer,” he continued, voice calm but firm. “And I come not to accuse, but to ask for your help. She is being held in the tower of the old council hall, yes? We need to get her out.”

Silas glanced to Maren, then shut the door behind them. It took him a moment to collect himself before he spoke.

“Yes,” he said. “They hold people in the old council tower. This village does not have a jail or dungeon. How do you know this?”

The Overseer nodded at the moth on his shoulder, who fluttered its wings. “My familiar spoke with her.”

“You’re a mage?” Silas asked, intrigued. 

“No,” the Overseer said simply. A look of confusion crossed Silas’s face, but before he could speak, his wife did. 

“She’s safe?” Maren asked quickly, caring less about the odd retinue before her and more about the girl who had been taken by the constable earlier that morning.

The Overseer hesitated. “For now. But fear will spread. It always does. We have little time.”

He didn’t speak of the real reason time was slipping through their fingers—the dark call. He needed to get Dana and Fox far from this place before the Dark Mage answered it. His witch had been a seer, her visions tangled and fragile as cobweb, but one truth had come through: fate was a fine, complicated weave. And he would do everything in his power to guide its thread toward salvation. Everything now rested on the shoulders of those two young lovers—the last hope of a dying world.

Silas frowned. “She’ll be in the upper cells. Iron bars. Only one way in—guarded.”

“I’ll get her out,” Fox growled, stepping forward. “Just point me to the door.”

The Overseer held up a hand to still him. “We must be wise about this.”

He turned to Silas. “How strong is her magic? Does she have the strength to escape on her own? Could she shrink herself, take another form, slip through the bars or window?”

Silas shook his head. “No. She’s growing stronger, yes—but her magic isn’t grounded yet, at least not well. She’s managed small spells. A healing, a few charms. Nothing more.”

Fox let out a frustrated huff, ears twitching back.

Then Silas paused. “There might be another way,” he said slowly. “There’s a clerk’s office just inside the tower door. I worked there as a boy—ran messages up and down. Behind the clerk’s desk, there’s a servants’ stair. Narrow. Forgotten. It leads to a scullery at the base of the tower. The back door opens onto the alley behind the shops.”

The Overseer’s eyes sharpened. “Could she use it?”

“If she can get through the lock on her cell. And the one to the clerk’s office, yes.”

“Could we get her a key?” Maren asked.

The raven gave a soft caw from the windowsill. “I could fly it to her.”

Silas was already shaking his head. “The keys are with the constable and the guards. There’s no way to get them without alerting them.”

Maren stepped forward, brow furrowed. “Then make them sick. Enough that they have to leave their posts. I can bring them a tincture.”

Silas hesitated. “Maren—”

“They’ll suspect us anyway,” she said. “This way we might actually help her.”

“You’d both be implicated,” the Overseer said gently. “When she’s gone.”

Silas fell silent. Then the Overseer spoke again. “Where is her grimoire?”

Silas gestured to the back of the shop. “Still on the altar. Where she left it.”

The Overseer crossed to the book, opened it, and paged through until he found what he was looking for. Two spells, both shimmering faintly upon the page. 

“She did not write these.”

“I believe they were written for her,” Silas said softly. “I myself am not powerful enough to see them.”

Tension drained from the Overseer’s face, replaced by resolve. He tore a page clean from the book.

Fox let out a furious growl. “That’s hers.”

“She’ll have it back,” the Overseer said firmly. “And it may be her only chance.”

He turned to the raven and opened the back door a crack so that the bird could slip out of it. “Take it to her. Land at the window. Tell her to look closely—and tell her to ground herself.”

The raven gave a soft click of assent, took the page gently in her talons, and lifted into the sky.

***

The flap of wings against iron startled her from her thoughts.

Dana looked up just as the raven landed lightly on the narrow window grate, a small strip of parchment rolled up and clutched in its talons. The bird’s dark eyes glittered as she tilted her head.

“I am a friend of the moth and of the fox. Take this,” came the raven’s words in her mind, the voice scratchy and high, where the moth’s had been low. “ It’s from your grimoire.”

The last time she’d seen Fox, they’d been trying to outrun this very creature, convinced it meant them harm. Now, she was relying on its kindness to save her. How strange. What—she wondered—had Fox been up to since they were separated? She was dying to hear his story.

Dana rose and gently pulled on the strip, fingers trembling slightly. She unrolled it—then frowned.

“This is… just a page about root uses. From the chapter on poultices.”

“Look again,” said the raven. “But this time, ground yourself first.”

Dana inhaled, then exhaled slowly. She placed her hand over her chest. Closed her eyes. Reached—gently—for the root of herself. The place her power lived.

When she opened her eyes again, the parchment shimmered faintly.

The letters began to shift.

Words surfaced from the page like ink rising through paper:

A Spell to Release a LockGather these: ironwort, bone ash, an old key—unused or broken will do.Speak the words aloud, holding the elements in hand. Let the key feel your breath. Let the lock remember motion.

Dana stared, wonder spreading across her face.

And then—a sound.

A sniff. Loud. Close.

She turned.

In the other cell, the man had stirred.

The Raven let out a low, almost reptilian trill.

“A curious creature,” she said warily.

Dana tore her eyes from him.

“What do you need to cast this spell?” the Raven asked.

Dana read off the ingredients in her mind.

The Raven gave a single nod, turned on the iron grate, and launched into the sky without another word.

As her wings vanished from view, the man in the other cell sat up, his wiry frame unfolding slowly.

He turned, his stringy, dark hair falling in front of an angular face. One she recognized.

A sharp pang struck Dana’s chest—like a breath yanked from her lungs.

He rubbed his eyes. Blinked.

Then his gaze found hers.

A slow smile crept across his face.

“Ah,” he said, voice curling like smoke. “Isn’t this interesting.”

He shifted, settling against the stone wall with deliberate ease.

“Last I saw you, your husband ,” he said the word in a mocking tone, “was just out of sight in the treeline. Is he now just outside the door?” he asked, his grin widening.

Dana’s throat went dry.

She knew him. The eyes. The voice.

The man from the woods. 

I got a blade, too, he’d said to her then. Want to see it?

Her hand drifted to where Bite usually hung, but there was no reassuring steel to grab onto, nothing between her and this blackguard but air and iron bars that, for the first time, didn’t seem nearly thick enough. 

Run out of her home and followed by she knew not what, that was still the first time she’d felt truly hunted.

Until now.

Behind bars or not—he was far too close.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (39/?)

“They’ve accused me of being a witch” she’d said, and he had felt the fear in her voice. 

Fox’s reaction was instant. His ears flattened, a vicious growl ripping through his throat. Though his hind leg still ached, he crouched low, ready to hurl himself at the crowd surging around Dana. 

But then—crack—the Overseer’s staff struck the ground nearby.

Fox turned sharply, snarling, teeth bared. The Overseer didn’t flinch. He kept his gaze fixed on the melee at the edge of town.

“Don’t do it, son,” he said evenly. “It will only hurt.”

And Fox knew, with a sick twist in his gut, that he was right.

He couldn’t reach her. Not now. Not like this.

She’d been accused—again—and it had to be that foul-smelling knave from her village, the one with the smug voice and eager eyes. And if Fox rushed in now, even if he could do something in this form, it would only confirm what they feared—that she was unnatural. A witch with a beast at her side.

No. He had to stay back until nightfall. 

Even if it killed him. 

“Fox!” Her voice rang in his head, clear and desperate.

He closed his eyes. The mark on his leg tingled with heat.

He sent the only thought he could hold steady long enough to give her:

“Hold fast, love. I’m coming.”

***

The constable’s grip tightened around her upper arm—not cruel, but firm enough to mean don’t run . Not that she could have. Not with half the market watching. Not with Nessa’s cry still ringing in her ears.

Fox was gone from view, but his voice still echoed in her thoughts—clear and certain: “Hold fast, love. I’m coming.”

Hold fast. 

Love. 

She tried to answer. Fox?

But the word never made it out. Her thoughts stretched outward, but her words did not, reaching blindly along the bond between them.

It thrummed in her blood, a quiet, golden thread of calm amid the storm.

But no words came. And none came back.

Maybe I have to see him, she thought. Maybe the bond only works when our eyes meet.

She didn’t know. There was so much she didn’t know.

Her heart pounded in her throat as the constable led her from the square, boots striking uneven stone. She felt the pressure of every stare, every whispered word, like needles beneath her skin. Someone tossed a clump of dried yarrow in her path. Old superstition. Protection against curses. Dana stepped over it without flinching.

They passed more shops, townspeople drifting out to watch the spectacle. On past the blacksmith’s, the tavern, and then the apothecary shop, with its green door, a spray of lavender drying in the windowsill.

Just as they were passing, the door burst open and her heart lurched in her chest. 

“Stop!” Maren’s voice cracked across the lane like a whip.

She and Silas rushed into the street, Maren still in her apron, her cheeks flushed with fury. Silas followed, slower but no less intense, sleeves rolled to the elbows, hands ink-smudged and stained from tincture work.

“She’s done nothing wrong,” Maren said, planting herself in the constable’s path.

Bless her, Dana thought. Maren had no idea what she’d done or hadn’t done, but she was determined to defend her no matter what. 

“She’s frightened half the town,” he replied, trying to steer Dana around the woman. “There was a flash, a cry of witchcraft, and now we have half a dozen folk demanding answers.”

Silas’s eyes flicked to Dana’s. She saw the calculation there. The anger. But also the caution. He couldn’t push too hard, not here. Not in front of the watching crowd.

“Let us speak for her,” Silas said, taking a tone lower than his wife’s. “Please.”

Dana’s mouth was dry. She looked at Maren, then at Silas, her eyes wide.

The constable shook his head. “She can speak for herself. When the magistrate comes.”

“The magistrate!” Maren cried. “But that’s likely not to be for another week! Maybe two!”

The constable sighed heavily. “We’ll keep her comfortable Maren, you know that.” 

“But–” 

He marched on before Maren could finish her thought, pulling Dana onward, past the apothecary. Dana twisted for one last look at her friends—Maren’s eyes were fierce, her hands balled into fists at her sides. Silas looked furious in a way she hadn’t yet seen.

And then the jail came into view.

She had expected something harsh. Ugly. A stockade of rough timber or a squat stone cell with rusted bars.

Instead, it was strange. Beautiful, even. A tall building set into the side of a hill, with an arched entryway carved from warm red stone. Ivy climbed the façade like veins. One round tower rose from the back, capped with copper gone green with age. Windows spiraled up the turret—long and narrow, latticed in iron shaped like twisting vines.

It looked like it should house a bell or a scholar. Not prisoners.

Inside, it smelled of cool stone and rainwater. Lanterns cast amber light across the walls, and the floors were swept clean. A man behind a worn wooden desk looked up as they entered.

“This is your jail?” Dana asked. 

The constable shrugged. “Used to be a council archive,” he said. 

The constable turned from her and addressed the clerk. 

“Top cell,” he said. “The tower.”

The clerk hesitated. “You want her with the other prisoner?”

“There will be bars between them,” the constable said. “And he’s asleep. Likely he’ll leave the moment he wakes up.”

Dana’s stomach twisted. Being housed with another prisoner gave her an uncomfortable, creeping feeling. 

She said nothing as they crossed the tiled floor and mounted a narrow spiral staircase that wound up the inside of the tower. She counted the steps to steady her nerves. At the top, a rounded door with an iron latch. The constable opened it.

The room beyond was circular, lined in ancient brick, but split cleanly down the center by a set of iron bars. Two cells, side by side, mirrored each other like halves of a coin. Each had its own narrow bench built into the curved outer wall, worn smooth by time and use. Above, on Dana’s side, a single arched window let in light and air, its opening framed with a delicate grate of twisted iron—more ornamental than secure. A faint breeze threaded through it, stirring dust motes in the quiet air.

Just inside the chamber, to the right of the main entrance, stood a narrow door tucked into the curve of the wall. It was squat and iron-banded, fitted with a small eye-slit and a heavy bolt. It looked thick enough to stop a battering ram and hadn’t been opened in some time.

And in the corner, slumped against the curve of the wall—

A man.

His back was to her. Dark hair, tangled and curling at the nape. Broad shoulders hunched. His arms rested limp at his sides. One leg stretched out; the other bent.

He didn’t move.

“Been like that since last night,” the constable muttered. “Barely spoken.”

Dana’s throat tightened.

“What did he do?” she asked.

The constable shrugged. “Came down from the high road. Said he needed shelter. Collapsed on the clerk’s desk. Couldn’t give a name.”

Dana stepped slowly into the room.

The door closed behind her with a deep final click.

For a long time, she didn’t move. Just stood, listening—to the wind at the window, to the faint shift of the man’s breath.

Then she lowered herself to the bench. The honey jar was still in her hands.

She set it down gently beside her.

The stone walls glowed gold with the sun of high noon. 

The man didn’t stir.

Outside the window, the air shifted again. A hush. A soft flutter. The room was so quiet it grabbed her attention. 

Dana looked up.

A pale moth had landed on the grate, two black eyes upon its wings which shimmered like vellum veined in silver. It tilted its body toward her—watchful. Still.

She watched it as it seemed to survey the room and then crawled closer to where she sat, fluttering down to land gently next to her on the bench.

And then—softly, clearly—it spoke.

“Good afternoon,” said the moth, its voice coming from the place in her head which she thought solely reserved for Fox. “You must be Dana.”

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (38/?)

That night, Dana dreamed of a great tree.

It stood alone in the center of a wide, windswept field. Its roots burrowed deep into the dark soil, and its branches stretched high and bare into a sky the color of ash. The bark was smooth and pale as bone. Not a single leaf clung to it.

All around, the field whispered with the sound of air sweeping over brittle grass. The wind was constant, but carried no birdsong, no scent of green or bloom. Nothing grew but the tree—and even it looked starved of life.

She approached it slowly, her feet bare against the cold earth. Beneath her touch, the trunk was warm. Faintly pulsing. As though a heart still beat inside it.

And then she saw: a single bud.

Tiny. Tucked high in the crook of a branch, like a secret. It trembled.

She watched as it unfurled—not green, not gold, but a strange and shifting shade between them, like light and shadow trying to become one. The petals opened. A bloom unlike any she had ever seen.

But before she could reach for it, the wind rose—and from the far end of the field came a figure.

A fox, padding silently toward the tree with quiet purpose. 

He looked up at the bloom. So did she.

And as they watched, the sky began to darken—not with storm, but with a heavy pall that felt something like forgetting . The air went still.

And the flower began to wilt.

Dana turned to call out—to stop whatever was happening—but her voice made no sound. Her mouth moved. Nothing came.

The fox lifted its gaze to hers. Its eyes weren’t gold. Weren’t brown. They were storm-colored. Sad. Knowing.

They had arrived too late.

No one else would come.

She woke with her hand pressed to her chest, fingers curled like she had tried to catch something. Something small. Something vanishing.

And yet—Fox felt closer. Like they were two distant points on a map folded in on each other.

She exhaled softly into the quiet dawn. Her heart settled into peace. Into knowing. 

This had been her last sleep without him. 

***

Dana sat cross-legged on the rug in the back room of the apothecary shop, a small ceramic pot cradled in her hands. Inside, a tincture-in-progress swirled with coppery-red flecks of herb suspended in water and alcohol. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried—again—to stir the mixture without touching the spoon. It wobbled once, rotated a quarter turn, then clattered against the rim and stilled. The scent of safflower and camomile threaded up threw the air, taunting her.

Silas watched from his stool near the shelf of cloudy glass bottles, arms folded loosely across his chest. “You’re strong,” he said. “That’s plain. But you haven’t learned to control it yet. And without control, strength isn’t worth much.”

Dana exhaled sharply. “You said this one was easy.”

“For someone with a steady mind,” Silas replied, not unkindly. “Yours is… preoccupied.”

And it was. She sighed out her irritation. Silas wasn’t the one making the process difficult today, she was.

Fox was close. She could feel the pull of him growing stronger, like the invisible tension between two magnets just before they snap together. He was so close she felt as though she could reach out and touch him, and the thought that they would be reunited by nightfall—an assuredness that reached down to her bones—had her distracted to the point of missing half of what Silas had said during their lesson and reciting the wrong words to the incantation twice before he gently took the spoon from the bowl in front of her.

“Let us take a short break,” he said with a knowing smile. 

Dana rose from the floor, wiping dust from her hands. She bent down to retrieve the bowl she’d been practicing on, and nearly upended it when she tried to set it down. Her hands were shaky, anticipation rolling through her and fraying her every nerve. 

When the bell above the shop door clattered softly in the quiet air, she nearly jumped off the ground. 

A moment later, Maren slipped into the back room, a woven basket balanced against her hip. 

She smiled when she saw Dana and set the basket heavily on a bare bit of table. 

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said, breathlessly. “I thought you two might be hungry.”

Silas walked forward and leaned down to press a soft buss to his wife’s cheek. “As ever,” he said, “your timing is exquisite.”

Maren beamed and reached into her basket. 

“I’ve brought bread,” she said, narrating the items as she lifted them out of the basket. “Apple jam, cheese, pickled leeks, small beer, and–” she reached into the basket as if to pull out the last item with a flourish. “Clover honey, to help bind what you cast.” 

But a puzzled look came over her as she tipped her face forward to peer into the basket. 

“Blast,” she said with a frustrated huff. “I’ve forgotten the damned honey.”

Silas smiled at his beloved. “We’ll sup just fine without it,” he said. 

“Nonsense,” Maren said. “The honey was the whole point of my trip! If you can’t bind with oarweed , my mother used to say, clover honey is next best. How is the girl to connect with her power without all the help we can give her?” 

She said this to Silas with her fists pressed into her hips and her chin jutted forward.

Silas held up his hands in surrender. 

“I’ll just nip out to Madge’s stall and buy a new jar,” she said, reaching into the pockets on the front of her apron. She turned once again to Silas and held out a hand. “I’ve no coin,” she said briskly. 

The apothecary was patting down his own pockets when Dana stepped forward. 

“I’ll go,” she said with a smile. 

“Nonsense,” Maren said, distractedly, still searching her pockets. “You’re the guest.”

Dana put a hand on the woman’s arm. “I could use the air,” she said. “Truly.” 

Sitting around and waiting for Fox was becoming a physically untenable concept. She needed to get out and do something. Move. Time had slowed to a honied drip, and anything she could do to hurry it along was a welcome distraction. 

Maren looked from Dana to her husband. 

“She’s been having trouble focusing,” he said delicately. 

Maren leaned back on her heels, narrowing her eyes shrewdly. “Ah,” she said. She turned to Dana. “Madge’s stall is just down the road,” she said. “Near the wall by the blacksmith’s.”

Dana turned and bustled out of the shop without another word, stepping into the sunlight with a coin tucked in her palm and purpose in her stride. The day had warmed while they worked, and the light fell in gilt shafts between the clustered buildings. Market voices carried on the breeze—the sound almost comforting. The scent of baking bread and woodsmoke lingered in the air, mingling with the ever-present brine from the distant sea.

She made her way down the lane, sidestepping a group of boys chasing one another with willow switches and dodging a mule cart turning slowly toward the square.

Fox was close. She felt it in every step. Her skin tingled, her thoughts scattered. She passed a vendor selling carved toys and nearly tripped on the uneven cobbles, grinning foolishly to herself. Soon. By nightfall. She could hardly bear the weight of it.

The stall came into view at the end of the lane—Madge’s place, unmistakable with its scalloped awning and the looping bundles of beeswax candles strung from its edges. Dana waited behind an old man inspecting jars of elderflower syrup, fingers tapping restlessly against her thigh. When it was her turn, she stepped forward and asked for clover honey. Madge didn’t ask questions. Just handed her the jar, wrapped it in a bit of cloth, and held out a hand for payment.

Dana passed over the coin without hesitation, though her purse was lighter than she liked. She’d need work soon. Rat-catching, perhaps. There was always need for that. She’d seen the telltale nibblings on grain sacks outside the millhouse. Perhaps she and Fox could stay in this village for a while and she could learn more from Silas before they headed north.

She turned, honey in hand, her mind already slipping back to the apothecary and the simple, strange joy of Silas and Maren’s company—and Fox, always Fox—

When she walked straight into someone.

She gasped, stumbling slightly, and looked up.

Her breath caught. The world seemed to jar out of rhythm. She staggered back a half-step, heart lurching. A sick twist of instinct curled in her gut, a sudden pulse of dread blooming beneath her ribs. The warmth of the day vanished in an instant, replaced by the echo of shame and outrage she’d thought she’d moved past since being forced to leave her village. 

Alexander.

His face, just as she remembered. Pale eyes, smug mouth, a flush of startled recognition overtaking his features.

“Dana?” he said, blinking in surprise. “Gods, it is you—”

A dozen emotions surged up in her at once: fear, fury, disbelief. Her throat closed. And all she could think to do was get away from him as quickly as she could. 

She stepped sharply around him.

He trotted after her, eager. “Wait—wait! Don’t go. I’ve been looking for you. I have good news.”

What could he possibly have to tell her? And how was he here ? He hadn’t left the county in all of his twenty three years, Dana knew this for a fact. If he’d been looking for her, no good could come of it. Of that she was certain. 

“I don’t care,” she snapped, not stopping. If she hadn’t left Bite and her other things in the back room of the apothecary shop, she would have drawn the blade on the man and threatened to run him through. 

“I’m sorry!” he called out, still hustling to try to stay by her side. “For what I said about you. For what I–” He had to dodge around a donkey that pulled on its lead and swayed its rump out into the lane like the stern of an anchored boat. If Dana had had a carrot, she would have tossed it to the blessed creature. 

Alex swerved back around toward her side. “But it’s safe for you now,” he went on, voice too loud, attracting attention. “Back home. I’ve spoken to everyone. They understand—”

She whirled. “It was only unsafe because of you !” she hissed, more words getting caught in her throat. 

She had never been timid or shy, but she hadn’t stood up for herself in the village like she should have. She’d been too overcome with grief over losing Mildred, and not confident enough in herself at the time to have called Alexander to the carpet and pointed out that he was only trying to ruin her life because she refused to be in his. Because she had said no to him—and he couldn’t stomach being refused. Because it bruised his pride to see her thrive without him, to see her choose solitude and work and wildness over him. Because deep down, he’d known she was better than him, and he hated her for it. 

She wanted to shout it all now—to finally give voice to everything she hadn’t said. She wasn’t the woman who’d fled his village in fear. She was stronger now, surer. And the words burned in her throat, begging to be unleashed.

But this was not the time or place to be having this conversation. Not here. Not now. She turned again, walking faster, but he kept pace, still talking, still pleading.

People were watching them. Two strangers arguing in the square. Of course they were curious.

“I don’t want your news, Alexander,” she hissed. “I don’t want anything from you. That place isn’t my home anymore. You saw to that.”

He reached for her arm, and she yanked it back violently. Magic surged hot and bright beneath her skin, flaring to her fingertips before she crushed it back down. She could not let it show. Not here. Not with these eyes on her.

She broke into a half-run toward the end of the lane, toward the thinner edge of the village, where the woods pushed a field close and the crowd thinned. 

He followed.

“I’ve met your uncle,” he called. “You’ve come into an inheritance.”

That stopped her cold.

She turned.

“What uncle?” Her voice was low, icy. “I don’t have an uncle.”

What game was he playing at here?

“I’ll show you,” he said, his voice brightening with confidence. “He gave me a token. Proof.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a stone. Smooth. Round. Pale gray.

Like hers. Like the one Fox had carried when they leapt the falls.

Her hand shot out and seized his wrist.

“Where,” she said, each word like a strike of iron, “did you get that?”

If he had done something to Fox, if he had—

But as her eyes fell to the stone, a flicker of disconcert twisted in her gut. There was no mark on it. No etching. This may be a stone like hers, but it wasn’t the one she’d carried. 

A small wash of relief went through her—he hadn’t gotten this stone from Fox. But whoever he had gotten it from—

And then it happened.

A burst of green light—searing, bright—flashed from the stone in Alexander’s hand.

Dana stumbled back, arm raised to shield her eyes. The air buzzed, static and sharp. She could hear shouting, the scrape of boots.

And then it was gone. Dana gazed at the stone in surprise, Alexander’s face a mirror of her own. You could have heard a pin drop in the silence, as even the animals seemed to be holding their breath, wondering at what had just occurred. 

It had felt, for the moment of that flash, like the stone had called out for someone, even though it had not made a sound. 

And then the silence was broken by—

“WITCH!”

Dana’s head snapped toward the voice. There, just beyond the path, stood Nessa. Her face was white as chalk, her finger extended in shaking accusation.

“WITCH! ” she screamed again, louder this time.

Dana’s heart dropped into her stomach.

The light. The townsfolk. The magic she had barely contained. Had she made the stone flash? She hadn’t felt anything, but—

Alexander staggered back, nearly dropping the stone.

“What in the name of—?” he muttered, staring at the thing in his hand like it had bitten him. The last traces of the green light still shimmered faintly across his palm, leaving behind no heat, no mark—only questions.

“WITCH!” Nessa shrieked again, her voice high and reedy with hysteria. She stood stock-still as though rooted to the path, but her arm trembled in the air, still pointing at Dana.

Dana took a half-step back, the jar of honey still clutched in her hands. Her ears rang. Her breath came too fast.

Alexander blinked at her. Then at Nessa. Then back again.

“No, no, she’s not—” he started, though even he sounded unconvinced. “That wasn’t her. I don’t think that was her.” He looked down at the stone again, his brow furrowing.

“Did you not see it? The light?” Nessa hissed, eyes flashing now with fury. 

“I did,” he admitted, bewildered, “but–” He floundered, looking at Dana and then back at the stone in his hand. 

“Perhaps you’re a witch as well,” Nessa said, and Alexander’s eyes went wide with fright. He took a step back from Dana, his defense of her ending where his own accusation began. 

A low murmur was starting behind them. The market was never truly quiet, but now the tone had changed. Dana could feel it—like the shift in air before a summer storm. People were turning toward them. Peering down the lane. Drawn by the shouting, the strange light.

A farmer’s wife with flour on her apron. A boy carrying a pail of turnips. The blacksmith’s apprentice. One by one, they slowed, stood still, watching.

“What’s happened?” someone asked.

“I saw a flash.”

“There was shouting.”

“Is she all right?”

“No,” Nessa snapped, her voice rising. “She’s not. We’re not. She’s brought witchcraft into this village.”

“That's enough,” Dana said, though her voice wavered. She didn’t shout. Didn’t beg. Just stood there, jaw tight, trying not to let the fear show.

Alexander ran a hand through his hair, looking more panicked by the second. He stared at the stone sitting in his palm and swallowed thickly. 

A small crowd had gathered now—fifteen, maybe twenty people. Some were whispering. Some staring openly. All of them circling a little closer, eyes flicking between Dana and the woman still frozen with her arm outstretched.

Dana took another step back. Her mind was already racing. She’d been careful. She hadn’t cast a spell. She hadn’t even drawn on her magic. But it didn’t matter. The light had come. It may not have been her magic, but it had been magic all the same. 

A hush fell.

Then a new voice spoke. Calm. Measured and firm.

“Is there a problem here?”

The circle of onlookers parted slightly as a man stepped forward. He was broad-shouldered and grim in appearance, with a worn leather vest and a constable’s badge pinned to the front. His hand rested casually on the truncheon at his belt. His gaze swept the gathered faces before settling on Dana.

Nessa didn’t hesitate. “That one,” she said, “lit up like the dawn. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Dana lifted her chin. “It wasn’t me.”

“I saw a flash,” the blacksmith’s apprentice offered, uncertain. “Green, like… like a mage-lantern.”

“But did you see her cast it?” the constable asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

There was a short silence.

“No,” someone muttered.

“She didn’t say anything. No words,” someone else added.

“I—I don’t know,” said another. “She was just holding something.”

The constable turned back to Dana. “What were you holding?”

She glanced at the honey jar in her hand, still perfectly intact. Then at Alexander.

“It was him,” she said. “He pulled out a stone. And then the light came.”

All eyes turned to Alexander.

“It’s not mine—” he stammered, holding the stone up as if in proof or apology.

“Where’d you get it?” the constable asked.

Alexander hesitated. “I… someone gave it to me. A man. He said it was hers.”

“Liar,” Dana said through her teeth. Her magic thrummed dangerously, begging to be used, kept barely in check.

The constable exhaled through his nose. “Don’t much care where it came from,” he said. “But I do care about disturbances. Light like that, shouting in the streets, folk frightened…” He looked around the crowd, at the still-pointing Nessa, at the wary villagers.

Then he reached forward and clamped a hand on Dana’s arm.

“Best come with me, miss,” he said. “We’ll sort it out proper.”

Dana jerked away, but his grip was solid. She could feel the magic sparking under her skin like wildfire under a dry thatch roof.

Alexander took a step back, distancing himself from her. If she ever saw him again, she would flay him.

“I haven’t done anything,” she hissed as she was pulled tightly to the lawman’s side. 

“Then you can say as much in the hall,” the constable said flatly.

The crowd surged slightly as they moved, voices rising behind her. Some curious. Some suspicious. A few fearful. Dana felt herself swept forward, like a leaf in a rising stream, the constable steering her toward the village square.

She turned her head once, just once—

—and saw him.

Russet fur at the edge of the trees. A pair of golden eyes, wide and stricken.

Fox.

Here.

And even while she was being pulled away from him, she thrilled as she heard his voice– his voice –clear and bright in her mind: “Dana!” he said. “What’s happening?”

“They’ve accused me of being a witch, ” she said to him in her head, urgent and quick. “Alexander, a man from my village is here and he–” 

She cut herself off as she was jostled from her other side and then craned her neck to catch one more glimpse of him standing on the forest’s edge before she was pulled around a corner.  She saw him take one step forward, his ears up and alert. 

“Fox!” she called out in her mind. 

Then his voice in her head again; calm, strong. “Hold fast, love, ” he said. “ I’m coming.”

[slippinmickeys]

“I just don’t want you to think you have to hide anything from me.” “I’m fine. I can handle it.”

[slippinmickeys]

Help. What are some lines from my fics that you like best? You’ll find out why soon.

[slippinmickeys]

Familiar (37/?)

After the dishes were stacked and the cider had been drunk, Maren handed Dana a bundle of folded linens.

“I know you’d told Silas you’d stay above the shop. But you’re welcome here. And you’re welcome to stay longer than a night,” she said, her tone light but reassuring.

Dana hesitated. “I had been planning to stay there, yes.”

Maren snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s damp up there and the window sticks. You’re staying here tonight. You need a real bed and a door that locks.”

“She’s not wrong about the window,” Silas added, pouring the last of the cider.

Dana smiled slowly. “Thank you. That… actually sounds wonderful.”

“Good,” Maren said briskly. “Then it’s settled.”

“You know that’ll make things worse with—” Silas started.

“Shhh” Maren pressed, looking at Silas like he’d just vented the most untenable bit of gossip.

Maren looked at Dana with a steadying nod. “Nessa,” she said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. “She lives next door,” she said.

Dana huffed a laugh.

Maren handed her the bundle and nodded toward the stairs. “Go on up. I’ll bring a candle.”

***

The guest room was small but clean, with a quilted bedspread and the faint smell of lavender lingering in the corners. A single window overlooked the garden, the marigolds below catching the last threads of light.

Maren lit a small bedside candle and set it down.

“However long you stay,” she said softly, “you’re safe here.”

Dana met her eyes. “Thank you.”

And then, for the first time in weeks, she climbed into a real bed beneath a whole roof—free of the prying eyes of a proprietor, and let herself rest.

***

Dana woke just before dawn.

The world outside was still hushed and blue, the sky just beginning to pale at the edges. Somewhere nearby, a rooster was just finding his voice. The cottage was warm around her, the linens soft and unfamiliar.

But it wasn’t the morning that stirred her.

It was the bond.

She could feel him again—Fox—not just as a presence or tug at her chest, but as something clearer. Sharper. Human. She didn’t know how, but in that liminal moment between sleep and waking, she felt it as surely as breath.

He was a man now. Somewhere out there at the edge of dawn.

And that was the shape she most missed him in.

Dana slipped from the bed and padded downstairs doing her best not to wake Maren or Silas. She eased the side door open and stepped barefoot into the chill of morning.

The garden was quiet, silvered with dew and edged in early autumn fog. The rosemary stood stiff, heavy with moisture, and the few remaining calendula blooms hung low and sleepy. The ground cooled her feet instantly, but she didn’t mind.

She moved toward a withered sprig of thyme, its leaves curled at the edges, color gone to gray.

There had been that spell in Silas’s book. A simple charm, one meant to nourish and mend. She didn’t need the pages now—she could recall the words. Dana knelt beside the plant, her breath misting in the morning air.

She pressed her palm gently to the soil and whispered the spell, letting the words slip past her lips like steam from a cup of tea. Her chest filled with warmth—light and slow—and that warmth passed through her arm, into her fingertips, into the earth.

The thyme stirred.

Not much—but enough. The gray receded slightly. The stems lifted. Color returned at the tips.

Dana smiled, a quiet bloom of satisfaction in her chest. 

Then, from behind her, came a shuffle of loose stones. 

She turned sharply, tensing. Just beyond the garden fence stood the same woman from the day before in the apothecary shop—gray hair scraped back, green shawl pulled tight, eyes sharp beneath her furrowed brow.

“I know what you are,” the woman said flatly.

Conjurer! Witch! The words hurtled through her memory and with them came a hot, breathless rush that left her heart pounding.

Had the woman seen? No—she couldn’t have. The spell was already done.

“Leave here. We don’t want you.”

Dana straightened slowly, brushing her damp palms on the hem of her dress. The fog coiled between them like smoke. Her heartbeat thundered, but she kept her voice steady. The last thing she wanted was to raise the woman’s ire any more than it already would, to people like that, it would only prove the woman right.

She jutted her chin. “I’ll be gone soon enough.”

The woman tilted her head, gaze narrowing. “Best if it’s sooner. Nothing good comes of people like you staying too long. You start to rot things from the inside.”

People like you. 

Dana didn’t answer, her fists clenched at her sides. It would not do to acknowledge the woman’s fears or accusations.

Then the cottage door creaked open behind her.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Maren muttered, stepping out in her dressing gown, a basket of chicken feed in one hand. “Do you lie in wait for people, Nessa, or do you just skulk by instinct?”

Nessa drew herself up. “I was just taking the path to—”

“To nowhere,” Maren snapped. “You don’t pass this way unless you mean to. Now get.”

“I’ll speak to the headman about this,” Nessa said, chin jutting.

“You do that. And I’ll speak to him about the time you left spoiled preserves in the festival booth.” Maren took a step closer. “Go on, now.”

Nessa gave Dana one last look—less fear now, more fury—and turned with a flounce, stalking away down the footpath between the gardens.

Dana stood blinking.

Maren sighed. “Sorry you had to deal with that. She’s all suspicion and vinegar. Thinks anyone who doesn’t bake pies is a threat.”

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” Dana murmured.

“She’s the trouble,” Maren said briskly. “You’re the guest.”

A moment passed, then another soft creak as the back door opened again. Silas emerged with three mugs in his hands.

“She was here again?” he asked, handing one to Maren and one to Dana.

Maren took a long drink. “She was.”

Silas turned to Dana, nodding toward the thyme. “That was you?”

She nodded. “I remembered the charm. From your book.”

He smiled. “That’s good work. Precise. You’ve a gentle hand for it.”

Dana flushed, but the warmth felt good.

“I shouldn’t have tried out here. In the open.” 

“No,” he said, “probably not.” He gave her a reassuring smile and looked at her carefully. “The power in you. It’s waking fast. I’d like to help you, while you’re here. Before you go north of the veil.”

She met his eyes. “I would like that,” she said. “Behind closed doors?”

Silas chuckled, pleased. 

Maren bumped her shoulder gently. “Come in. I’ve got porridge on the stove and cream that needs using up.”

Dana smiled faintly. She could still feel Fox—faint, but steady, like a fire behind a wall.

Closer now.

She followed them both inside.

***

“He’s asking for the truth, even if he doesn’t realize it,” the moth said. “Why don’t you tell him? You help familiars. That is your purpose. He is a familiar. So help him.”

The Overseer continued walking on as if he hadn’t heard. Eventually, he spoke. 

“That’s not all he is.”

The moth shifted, displeased. “No. He is more than a familiar. He is also a man—a man with a past he doesn’t remember. So I’ll ask: which part of him is asking for the truth?”

“Both, I think,” the Overseer admitted.

“And yet you withhold it.”

“He’s not ready for the truth. Neither is she.”

“Were any of us?” Moth asked, and the Overseer kicked a stone in irritation at the humble truth of its words. 

“When you flew with them in Highmere, ” the Overseer said, slightly defensive. “Did you see the blade she carried? Did you see the marks upon it?”

The moth fluttered its wings. 

The Overseer stood taller. “The truth has been with them all the while. When they are ready, they will see it.”