Page 8

SYLVIE

T he winding path to Hazel Fairweather's cottage seemed longer than Sylvie remembered.

Or maybe it was just the weight of the violet band around her wrist dragging her steps.

Two days of failed counter-spells, ruined candles, and the occasional electric shock whenever Nicholas crossed her mind had pushed her to seek help from the one person in town who might understand what had happened.

Not that her aunt hadn't, Sylvie just was hoping that there were other answers than… romance.

Hazel's home looked like it had grown rather than been built. A structure of living wood and stone nestled into the hillside, with windows that caught the late afternoon sun like amber eyes. Sylvie hesitated at the vine-covered gate, then straightened her shoulders and pushed it open.

"I was wondering when you'd show up." Hazel's voice reached her before Sylvie had even knocked.

The dryad-seer stood in the doorway, her skin the warm brown of oak bark with subtle green undertones.

Flowering vines wound through her silver-streaked hair, tiny blue blossoms opening and closing as if breathing.

"I need your help," Sylvie said, holding up her wrist with the binding band.

Hazel's eyes—deep as forest pools—fixed on the violet glow. "Yes, I imagine you do. Come in, child."

The inside of Hazel's cottage was a riot of living things: potted plants that turned to follow their movement, shelves of crystals that hummed with stored energy, and everywhere the smell of earth and growing things.

"Tea?" Hazel asked, already moving to the hearth where a copper kettle steamed.

"No thanks. I just need to know how to break this spell." Sylvie remained standing, too restless to sit. "I've tried everything—cleansing rituals, counter-spells, even a binding dissolvent that nearly ate through my skin."

"And yet it remains." Hazel poured herself a cup of something that smelled of moss and moonlight. "Because you're going about it all wrong."

"I didn't come here for riddles."

"No, you came for a quick solution to a complex problem." Hazel took a slow sip from her cup. "Show me your hands."

Reluctantly, Sylvie held them out. Hazel's fingers were cool and slightly rough as they closed around Sylvie's, like bark smoothed by years of rain and wind.

"Mmm. Just as I thought." The dryad-seer's eyes unfocused slightly, looking at something beyond the physical. "The spell hasn't bound you against your will, Sylvie Sage. It's revealed what was already there."

"That's impossible."

"Is it? Magic rarely creates what doesn't exist. It reveals, transforms, enhances—but create from nothing?" Hazel shook her head. "Beyond even the Originals' power."

Sylvie pulled her hands away. "You're saying that I'm somehow destined to be with Nicholas Whitmore? The man who's dated half the women in town and probably forgotten most of their names?"

"I'm saying the spell recognized a potential, a compatibility that runs deeper than your opinions about his dating history." Hazel set her cup down. "It's mimicked what we call a fated mate bond. The kind shifters sometimes experience."

"Then it's artificial. False." Relief flooded through Sylvie. "We just need to reverse engineer it."

"Not so simple." Hazel's smile turned knowing. "The bond wouldn't have formed if the potential wasn't there. And undoing it now will require the one thing you're most afraid to give."

"Which is?"

"Emotional truth."

Sylvie's hands clenched into fists. "That's not how magic works. Spells have components, methodologies, counterbalancing forces. They don't require—" she struggled for words, "—feelings."

"Don't they? Your spellwork is candle-based, responsive to emotions. When the shifter came into your shop, what were you feeling?"

The memory flashed unbidden: Nicholas leaning against her counter, amber eyes crinkling at the corners as he flashed that infuriating smile. The leap in her pulse she'd dismissed as annoyance.

"That doesn't mean anything," Sylvie insisted. "Magic shouldn't dictate love. It shouldn't force people together who have no business being together."

"Force? No." Hazel moved to a shelf and selected a small wooden box. "But magic can illuminate paths we're too stubborn to see. The band connects you now, but the potential was always there."

"This is ridiculous. I've barely spoken ten words to the man before this happened.

" Sylvie paced across the worn floorboards of Hazel's cottage, the scent of herbs and old magic thick in the air.

Her fingers trembled slightly, and she tucked them into the folds of her maxi skirt to hide the reaction.

Every nerve in her body felt raw, exposed, as though Nicholas had somehow peeled back her carefully constructed layers without even trying.

"Sometimes ten words are enough when souls recognize each other.

" Hazel opened the intricately carved wooden box with reverent hands, revealing a small, clear crystal that seemed to pulse with its own inner light.

Tiny facets caught the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, sending prismatic rainbows dancing across the walls. "Hold this. Tell me what you feel."

Sylvie took the crystal between reluctant fingers, expecting nothing but cool stone against her skin.

Instead, warmth flooded her palm like liquid sunshine, radiating up her arm and into her chest. With the heat came flashes of sensation so vivid they stole her breath—Nicholas's deep, rich laugh that seemed to rumble from somewhere primal, the intoxicating scent of pine and musk that clung to his skin, the surprising way his amber eyes softened when he thought no one was looking at the sanctuary, gentleness replacing his usual cocky demeanor as he tended to an injured fox kit.

She dropped the crystal like it had burned her, backing away until her spine hit the bookshelf behind her. Dried herbs swayed above her head from the impact. "What was that?" Her voice came out hoarse, almost unrecognizable to her own ears.

"Truth," Hazel said simply, her bark-textured hand darting out with surprising speed to catch the crystal before it hit the floor.

She cradled it like something precious, the flowering vines in her hair seeming to bend toward it.

"The bond shows you what could be, not what must be.

The potential for connection, for understanding.

It's up to you both to decide what to do with that knowledge, whether to nurture it or let it wither. "

"I didn't ask for this." Anger rose in Sylvie's chest, hot and fierce as the flames of her most powerful spells.

She could feel the candles throughout Hazel's cottage flickering higher in response to her emotions, shadows dancing wildly across the walls.

Her fingertips tingled with unspent magic.

"I don't want magic deciding who I should love.

I've spent my entire life learning to control my power, not surrender to it. "

"Magic isn't deciding anything. It's merely reflecting what's already in your heart." Hazel's voice softened to the gentle rustling of leaves. "The question is, are you brave enough to look?"