Part 1
She woke me before sunrise.
Not gently.
She flickeed my ear.
I groaned and rolled deeper into tje quilt like a worm avoiding sunlight.
"You can't hide from nettle," she said flatly. "Get up. We're going to Brunswick.
I cracked one eye open. The room was damp with memory- the wind. My ribs ached from crying. My magic itched like it hadn't fully retrracted from whereever ot had gone.
"You're joking." I crokaed.
Agatha was already rummaging for her herb pouch. "You'll
Notfeel better with market air."
"I'll feel better with tea and silence."
She tossed a bundled biscuit onto my chest. "You'll get one and not the other. Braids. Cloak. No hexes."
I sat up with all the elegance of a pond toad and blinked toward the morning light. It made the corners of my room glow like it hadn't seen grief, but I could still feel her- the woman- like a flicker behind my thoughts.
"You're not going to talk about it?" I asked, voice low.
"No," she said. "We'll buy radishes."
Part 2
The mist hadn't quite finished its morning shift.
Brunswick looked like someone had painted it with diluted water colours- blue slates, green shutters, and a kind of orange that felt like it had been invented especially to offend Agatha's tastes. The roads were cobbled, uneven and absoultely determined to trip me twice before breakfast.
"Are we always this...suspicious? I asked, dodging a wheelbrrow that smelled vaguely of turnips and regret.
Agatha kept walking. "They've had practice."
We passed a stall selling dried lavender. goat cheese and something that looked like curled dragon fruit but it was defitnetly just a confused beet. A woman behind the stalll blinked at me. Twice. Then reaaranged her jars like I'd offended the cumin.
"I think she's alphabetizing her content." I mutered."
"She's using the old alphabet," Agatha replied. "It has fewer vowels and more subtle gestures."
Everywhere I looked, people were pretending not to stare. Some bowed their heads politely. Some turned sharply into their doorways like they'd just reembered thier laundry from the night before.
One vendor offered Agatha a bag of nettle, then muttured something under his breath- soft, but sharp. My fingers tingled.
Agatha didn'y flinch. She tucked the nettle into her satchel and murmured, "It's better when they speak behind your back. It means they're too afraid to do it your face."
"But nettle, though?" I whispered. "Is this really what we came for?"
"Nettle's reliable." she said. "You're not."
I scoffed. "I'm charmingly chaotic."
"You're soggy and mildly cursed."
"I blame the mist."
We stepped past the fountain, whichv gurgled with theatrical effort. The carvings were faded- but haunting- foxes, birds and a serpant so worn it looked like a noodle with pride. I brushed a finger along one sigil. It pulsed, just faintly.
Agatha stopped cold.
"Don't touch that," she said, voice suddeenly sharp.
"But-"
"It remembers too much."
I retracted my hand.
We were just rounding the butchers lane when the air shifted.
Not just the way fog does when the wind bored.
No- this was a shift made my presence.
Lord Seymor.
He glided into the sqaure like he'd rehearsed the choregraphy. Cloak like midnight, eyes like storm glass and two girls trailing him- older than me, maybe seventeen.
Thier gowns shimmered in a way that felt rehearsed. Their smiles didn't reach their eyes.
Agatha's posture changed. Her fingers twitched toward her satchel again.
Seymor glanced my way and smiled.
"Miss Circe," he said smoothly. "Brunswick suits you more than you realise."
"I diagree," I said plainly. " The air smells like suspicion and goats."
He smiled faintly. "Ah, but suspicion makes one vigilant. And goats? Surprisingly loyal."
"Only when bribed with grain," I muttured.
Agatha gave me a look. The kind that says, I support you but also please don't poke vipers before lunch.
Seymor gestured lightly to the two girls behind him- poised, silent, eyes blank in a way I found deeply wrong. "You see them? My students. Disciplined. Elegant. Useful."
" I see them," I said. "And how quiet they've become."
His smiled twitched. "Quiet is virtue."
"Not when it looks borrowed."
Now his eyes sharpened just slightly. "You haven't reconsidered my offer?"
"Oh, I reconsider daily," I said breezily. "And I keep reaching the same conclusion: no!"
Seymor titled his head, silver embroidery catching the sunlight like promise of something poisonous. "Brilliance is wasted when it burns in private."
"I burn exactly where I choose," I replied. "And I don't need a serpent watching the flames."
Agatha cleared her throat. Her ward shimmered faintly around us.
Seymor didn't reply. Just looked at me long enough to make the chill in my spine hum.
Then he smiled again. Too wide. Too smooth.
"In time," he said. "You'll learn what luxuries come with loyalty."
I held his gaze.
"I've seen what loyalty costs," I whispered. "I'd rather be expensive"
Part 3
Seymor turned to leave, threatrics intact.
But Agatha spoke.
Quietly.
Deiberately.
"You should find someone else to charm, Lord Seymor."
He pasused.
No one called him that outside formal summons. Which made Agatha's feel less like a formality and more like a flare thrown into a dark sea.
He titled his head just slightly. "I thought silence was you prefred language."
"Only when it keeps dangerous men from circling children."
His smile twitched, just a hair. "She's hardly a child anymore."
"She's enough of one that your interest makes the crows restless."
That landed.
The wind stirred between them.
Agatha's fingers drifted toward her satchel, barely grazing the knot stiched into the leather.
"The coven watches her now," she said. "Closely."
Seymor turned more fully, curiousity flickering under his polished facade.
"They're always watching. That's what the coven do."
"No," Agatha said. "This is different. They've stopped watching for mistakes."
She met his gaze squarely.
"They're watching for rivals"
For the first time, Seymor reply immediately His eyes flicked towards me- just a glance- and then he smiled with restrained grace.
He bowed. Barely.
Seymor walked towards the girl edge of the square, the girls shadowing him like reflections borrowed from glass.
Then-
A sharp rustle.
From the rooftops. From the wires. From the gutters of Brunswick's oldest inn.
Crows.
Dozens.
They stirred as if summoned by scent, wings beating against old slate and iron. One by one, they gathered behind Seymor. Some perched on chimenys, others landing on the fountains cracked rim as it were a throne waiting to be claimed.
Agatha saw it first. Her ward pulsed faintly around my shoulders.
Seymor paused.
Only a moment.
He turned just slightly, eyes flicking towards the growing flock- then toward the sky.
A low of thunder echoed across the hills. Just enough to remind.
Brunswick didn't get thunder before noon- not natraully.
The wind tugged at Seymor's cloak.
The girls looked up, lips parted. Thier expessions faltered.
The crows didn't caw.
They watched.
One hop-step closer to him. Another tilt of heads. in perfect synconization.
Agatha leaned towards me.
"Magic notices what pretend not to be."
Seymor adjusted his collar, eyes narrowing- but he didn't speak again.
Part 4
The thunder rumlbed once more- closer now.
Lord Seymor didn't look back, but I saw the tension hitch his shoulders. like his cloak had grown heavier under unseen eyes.
The crows shifted, restless, wings twitching against rooftop slate.
Then the wind twisted.
It didn't howl. It sang.
Low.
Broken.
A chant rose through the alleyways- not from mouths, but from memory. Like something buried in the bricks had remembered its chorus.
"Tera ol'varin..,Mera kelthas..."
It pulsed softly, syallables repeating in disjoined rythmn. Ancient words. A language I didn't know, but felt.
Agatha froze beside me.
"Is that...?" I began.
"Old coven tongue," she whispered. "Very old."
The girls behind Seymor faltered. One stumbled slightly. He stopped and turned- but the chanting didn't stop.
It grew louder.
Not from any one place.
From everywhere.
"Kera vi'elth. Kera vi'elth"
The crows lifted together in a rush, circling high above Seymor's head in spiraled silence.
Then-
A final thunderclap cracked across the sky.
And the chanting ceased.
Abrupt. Like someone closing a book mid-sentence.
Seymor looked up once, a flicker of unease in his expression.
Agatha placed her on my shoulder.
"That," she murmured, "was not for him."
Part 5
We left Brunwick with our satchels full, our silence fuller.
The chanting stopped.
The crows scattered.
But still I felt the way the air had tightend- like the town had exhaled after holding its breath too long.
Agatha didn't speak as we crossed the old stone arch that marked the town's boundary. Her ward shimmered faintly, sealinjg us in quiet.
Then-
Footsteps behind us.
Measured.
Intentional.
Lord Seymor.
He strode across the cobbles like ceremony hadn't quite left him. The two girls trailed a step futrher now- less like ornaments, more like echoes.
"Leaving so soon?" he asked, voice low.
Agatha didn't turn. "You've had enough attention for one morning."
"I didn't come to provoke." he said. "I came for help."
Agatha finally tunred, her gaze sharp. "Since when does a noble ask for help in the street?"
"Since help refuses visit halls." he replied. "There's a matter the coven hasn't addressed. And I believe the girl has the right insight."
His eyes flicked to me.
I felt the pulse in my fingertips before the question left my mouth.
"Why should I help you?"
He hesitated.
Thunder rolled again- louder this time. as if the sky disagreed with his restraint.
"A rift in the wards," he said. "South of the Iron Grove." Bleeding through"
Agatha waited for me to speak.
I didn't rush.
The crows had scattered, but the silence they left behind still echoed in my chest. My magic thrummed- not in warning, not in eagerness.
Just watching.
I looked at Seymor.
At this polished cloak, his silver- threaded lies, the two girls standing behind them like memories carefully combed.
"If you need help," I said calmly, "ask the ones who belong to you."
His smile faltered.
Agatha didn't move. But her ward shifted around us, a breeze of assurance.
"I don't belong to you," I added. "And I never will."
He didn't argue.
Which somehow felt more dangerous than he had.
Thunder rolled again.
The girls looked away.
Agatha turned.
I followed.
We walked from Brunswick without a spell csat or promise made- just quiet footsteps and the road curling homeward like a old song we knew by heart.
Behind us, the mist stretched llong.
And far beyond the wall-
The hooded woman watched.
She didn't follow.
Didn't speak.
But her expression twisted gently in the fog.
Not with anger.
With sorrow.
Like she'd hoped I might choose differntly.
But also-
Like she knew this path was mine to walk alone.