Page 26

Chapter 25

T he streets were still mostly empty when I turned the last corner toward the shop. Pale morning light skimmed over the rooftops, brushing the cobblestones in silver. The air smelled like damp stone and ash, like a fire that had gone out hours ago and left nothing behind but smoke and cold.

I walked slower than I meant to. My legs ached, my body sore in ways that had nothing to do with the walk. I could still feel him—his hands, the weight of his body, the sound of his breath just before sleep. The mark he left.

But I hadn’t let myself think about that. Not yet.

I kept my focus small. One foot in front of the other. The weight of my cloak over my shoulders. The shop just ahead, shuttered and still.

Everything looked the same.

Which was the first sign something was wrong.

Brindle always opened the shutters at sunrise. She said it let the light chase off any lingering mischief. But the windows were still dark, the bolts still drawn.

A flicker of unease coiled low in my stomach.

I fumbled the key from my pocket, fitting it into the lock with cold fingers. The latch stuck for half a second before giving with a soft clack, and the door creaked open onto the dim, quiet shop.

No kettle boiling. No fire crackling in the hearth. No soft voice humming while herbs were sorted or pots stirred.

I stepped inside.

“Maeve?” My voice felt too loud in the quiet, but I couldn’t stop it. “Brindle?”

Nothing. Not at first.

Then—pop. A flicker of golden light, and the sharp scent of juniper and damp earth.

Brindle appeared midair in a shimmer of magic, her wings fluttering in a low hover just beside me. Her expression was unusually serious, her little face tight with worry.

“Not to alarm you, my dear,” she said gently, “but something's wrong.”

The words landed like a stone in my stomach.

“What do you mean?” I asked, already moving toward the stairs. My hands were shaking.

“She woke early,” Brindle said, gliding beside me as I climbed. “She was confused. Said everything felt… heavy. Her aura’s dimming.”

Dim. That word again. I hated how easily it applied to her now. Hated that I understood exactly what Brindle meant.

I pushed the bedroom door open with my shoulder.

Maeve lay curled small and still under the patchwork quilt, her skin flushed high on her cheeks but pale everywhere else. Her curls were damp against her forehead. The compass was clutched tightly to her chest—her fingers bone-white around it—and the needle inside spun in slow, uneven arcs, ticking faintly each time it jumped direction.

“Maeve.” My voice cracked.

She didn’t answer. Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t lift. Her lips parted, shaping soundless words.

I dropped to my knees beside the bed, reaching for her.

“I’m here, love. I’ve got you.” I brushed her hair back, felt the heat radiating from her skin. Her body barely stirred when I slid my arms under her and lifted her against my chest. She felt heavier than she should have, limp and warm and far too still.

Brindle landed beside the bed, her wings no longer flickering with their usual brightness. Her hands moved with practiced precision as she reached for the small rune stone on the side table, the one Sylwen had given us.

She muttered something low under her breath—old words, the kind that hummed in the bones instead of the ears—and the stone flared with a pulse of light, casting a lattice of pale runes across Maeve’s chest before sinking inward, disappearing into her skin.

“It’s holding,” Brindle said quietly. “For now. But she’s slipping, Rowena.”

“Then fix it.” My voice came out sharp.

Brindle didn’t flinch. “This isn’t just magic. It’s blood. Legacy. I can slow it, but I can’t stop what’s inside her.”

I clutched Maeve tighter, my palm spread protectively across her back, her cheek pressed to the hollow of my throat. “There has to be something—some spell, some tonic, some name I haven’t said yet—”

“Don’t act out of fear. Not now.” Brindle placed a hand on my arm, her touch light but steady. “Let's figure this out.”

I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. The ward’s light had already faded. The compass in Maeve’s hands still spun. This wasn’t holding. And the pressure in my chest—the one that had lived there since the day I found Maeve on my doorstep—spiked until I could barely breathe around it.

Help wouldn’t come. Not from the Guild. Not from the Runery. Not from Kazrek. Not from old stories or borrowed spells. This was up to me.

Like it had always been.

I rose to my feet with Maeve still in my arms.

Brindle said something behind me, but it didn’t land. The ringing in my ears had become a hum now—low and steady, like pressure building under my skin.

I carried Maeve downstairs, moving like I was underwater, like every step was slower than it should’ve been. Her weight settled into me, head tucked beneath my chin, breath shallow and uneven. She made a soft sound, not quite a word. A whisper that slipped away before I could catch it.

“It’s alright,” I murmured. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

But I didn’t believe it.

The shop was still dark. The shutters still drawn. I crossed through the front room and into the back, where the desk sat against the wall—my father’s old desk, cluttered with too many drawers and too few answers.

Brindle followed close behind, her wings a nervous flutter. “What are you doing?”

I didn’t answer. Just shifted Maeve against my hip and yanked open the first drawer.

Scraps of paper, a dried inkstone, a broken clasp.

Next drawer—bundles of receipts, a half-empty jar of pigment powder. A spool of wire.

The third stuck. I cursed under my breath, tugged until the wood gave way with a sharp crack. Maeve stirred weakly at the sound. I shushed her and kept digging.

Brindle landed on the edge of the desk, her brow furrowed deep. “She needs time. I can reinforce the rune—give it a stronger anchor. We don’t have to—”

“She doesn’t have time,” I said, too sharp. “We keep saying later. Tomorrow. We keep hoping someone else will fix it—someone with more training, more answers, more… anything.”

I shoved the drawer closed and opened another.

“But no one has,” I said. “Not the Guild. Not Selior. Not Sylwen. All they ever offer are warnings. Wardings. Slowings. Not one of them has given me a way to stop this.”

My fingers closed around the edge of another drawer. I opened it slower this time, bracing for more useless paper, more ink-stained scraps. But there, beneath a folded length of cotton muslin, I saw it. White. Smooth. Cool as bone.

The stone the woman in blue had given me at the Night Market.

I stared at it for a breath too long. Then I picked it up.

Brindle hovered closer. “Rowena—what is that?”

I didn’t answer.

The memory came back too clearly now. The stall at the market. Her slate-gray eyes watching Maeve. That strange, hollow question: Do you bind magic often, ink-maker?

And later, in the alley—the way she'd appeared out of nowhere, the way shadows moved at her feet like they belonged to her.

There are ways to protect her , she’d said.

Not delay. Not dampen. Not "slow the unraveling."

Protect.

She had been the only one to say it plainly. The only one who didn’t flinch from what Maeve was becoming.

I looked down at the stone in my palm. Its surface was cool and unmarred. No glow. No pulse. Just stillness. But it felt alive, somehow—waiting.

Behind me, Brindle landed on the back of a chair, her tone sharpened by alarm. “Rowena, I don’t know what that is, but it reeks of old magic. Not the good kind.”

“She said she could help,” I murmured.

Brindle’s wings snapped open. “And you believed her?”

“I don’t know if I do,” I said, gripping the stone tighter. “But she didn’t offer comfort, or hope. She just looked at me like she knew what I’d do when it came to this.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’d take it,” I said. My voice was steady now. “If there’s a way to carry it for her—I will.”

Brindle went still. “You don’t know what it will cost you.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “Because no one else is offering anything at all—not a cure, not a way forward, not even a choice. She might be the only one who understands what this kind of magic costs—and how to take it on.”

I looked at Maeve again. Her skin flushed. Her breath too thin.

“Rowena, don’t,” Brindle tried again.

I lifted the stone in both hands. The surface was smooth as river-worn glass.

“ When you’re ready to listen ,” the woman had said, “ break this .”

I didn’t hesitate.

I brought the stone down hard against the edge of the desk. A sharp, splintering sound split the quiet, the stone shattering like glass.

Light flared—not golden, not warm. A stark, cold white that spilled across the room like frost creeping over a windowpane. It moved strangely, unnatural in its stillness, illuminating nothing yet casting stark shadows in every direction. Shadows that twisted. Shifted.

Breathed.

Maeve shuddered in my arms, a weak, pained sound catching in her throat.

Brindle cursed, a word laced with magic, her wings flaring as she darted back. “Rowena—damn it—”

The already thin air tightened. The walls of the shop stretched and darkened, as if warped by the pulse of magic spiraling out from the broken stone.

And then she was there.

The Woman in Blue.

Not stepping through the door. Not rising from mist. One moment the room was empty—and the next, she was standing in the space between candlelight and shadow, exactly as though she had always been there. Her hands were folded neatly, her expression serene. Not unkind, but wrong. Too composed. Too knowing.

“You’ve made your choice,” she said, her voice smooth as still water.

Brindle shot forward, wings snapping as she thrust out a hand. Shadows coiled before she made it two feet, snaring her wrists with careful, gentle precision, as if restraining a child.

“Let me go,” Brindle hissed, magic crackling around her.

The woman did not even look at her. Her gaze remained locked on me. On Maeve.

Her throat bobbed as she tilted her head, studying the little girl in my arms as though appraising a delicate sculpture.

“She’s unraveling,” the woman said, her voice almost wistful. “But I can hold her together. I can preserve what matters.”

I clutched Maeve closer, my pulse hammering. “Will she be safe?”

Brindle let out a strangled noise behind me, fighting uselessly against the tendrils of shadow pulling her back.

But the woman only smiled. “Safer than she is now.”

The words lodged in my chest, sharp as stone. I swallowed hard. Maeve felt so fragile against me, her breath so thin, like if I didn’t hold her tight enough, she would slip through my fingers.

And hadn’t that always been my fear?

That she would slip through my grasp, no matter how tightly I held on? That love wasn’t enough to keep her safe?

Brindle's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts, strained and edged with something I’d never heard from her before—fear.

“You don’t know what you’re giving her to,” she said, her magic flaring weakly against the shadowed bindings. “Rowena, don’t do this.”

The Woman in Blue said nothing, merely watched me, patient, waiting.

Maeve stirred in my arms, a small, broken whimper slipping from her lips. Her fingers twitched around the compass, the needle still spinning wildly.

I pressed my forehead to hers, swallowing the thick, aching lump in my throat. I had tried everything. Every path, every hope, and it still led us here. Maeve was slipping, and no one could stop it. Except, maybe, the woman standing before me.

“We’re going to be okay,” I whispered. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a plea.

It was a promise.

I straightened, my grip tightening around Maeve as I faced the woman again.

“Take us,” I said. "If you can help her, take us."

Her smile shifted, just slightly. Not triumphant. But close.

Brindle’s cry was sharp and desperate. The room lurched—not physically, but in a way that sent my stomach twisting, reality itself tilting as the edges of the world blurred.

The floor beneath my feet dissolved into light and shadow, a slow unraveling. My pulse pounded as the sensation of falling overtook me, but I held Maeve close, grounding myself in the weight of her in my arms. The last thing I saw was Brindle still thrashing against the shadows, her wings fighting against the binding with all the fury she had.

And then, just before the world went completely dark, the compass in Maeve’s hand stilled.

The needle, for the first time since she’d touched it, pointed sharply north.

Then, the light swallowed us whole.