Updated Nov 6, 2025 • ~9 min read
The safe house was a cabin.
Of course it was a cabin.
Sage stood in the gravel driveway, staring at the rustic wood structure nestled in the forest twenty miles outside the city, and seriously considered getting back in her car and driving away forever.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Thorne’s voice came from behind her.
She turned to find him climbing out of a black truck, looking at the cabin with the same expression she probably wore. Somewhere between horrified and resigned.
“Let me guess,” Sage said. “You were picturing something more…”
“Urban. Modern. With separate wings and thick walls.”
“Same.”
They looked at each other, then back at the cabin.
It was small. Maybe fifteen hundred square feet, if Sage was being generous. Wood siding, a wraparound porch, windows with cheerful green shutters. Smoke curled from the chimney despite it being late spring.
It looked cozy.
Romantic, even.
Sage wanted to set something on fire.
“There has to be a mistake,” Thorne said, pulling out his phone. “The Council wouldn’t—” He stopped, reading something on his screen. His jaw tightened. “According to this, the safe house wards work best in small, enclosed spaces. Something about proximity strengthening the honesty magic.”
“Honesty magic?”
He looked at her, and she didn’t like his expression. “You didn’t read the briefing packet, did you?”
“I skimmed it.”
“Mitchell.”
“I was busy researching actual curse-breaking methods, Blackwood.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “The wards on the safe house prevent violence between us. We physically can’t attack each other while inside.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
“They also prevent lying.”
Sage froze. “What?”
“We can’t lie to each other within the wards. It’s a truth field. Keeps partners from hiding information that might be relevant to breaking the curse.”
“That’s…” Sage’s mind raced through all the things she absolutely did not want to admit to Thorne Blackwood. Starting with the fact that she’d spent the last week dreaming about him. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Agreed. But we don’t have a choice.” He grabbed a duffel bag from his truck. “Six weeks. We can manage six weeks.”
“Right. Six weeks of brutal honesty with my mortal enemy in a cabin the size of a shoebox. What could go wrong?”
Thorne’s lips twitched. Almost like he wanted to smile.
Then his expression went carefully blank, and he headed for the porch.
Sage grabbed her own bags—two suitcases and a box of plants, because she’d rather die than spend six weeks without greenery—and followed.
The inside of the cabin was worse.
Open floor plan. Kitchen flowing into a living room with a stone fireplace and leather couches that looked criminally comfortable. Large windows overlooking the forest. And in the back, a hallway that Sage very much suspected led to exactly two bedrooms.
Please let there be two bedrooms.
“Two bedrooms,” Thorne called from the hallway. “Separated by a bathroom.”
Thank the goddess.
Sage set her plants on the kitchen counter and tried not to notice how the space smelled like cedar and woodsmoke and magic. How the wards pulsed against her skin, welcoming and warm.
How Thorne looked entirely too good standing in the middle of the living room, all dark clothes and sharp edges against the rustic charm.
“We should establish rules,” she said abruptly.
He turned to look at her. “I thought we did that at the coffee shop.”
“That was for working together. This is for living together. Different rules.”
“Okay.” He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. The position made his biceps flex under his black t-shirt. Sage looked away. “What do you suggest?”
“Personal space. We each get our bedroom as private territory. No entering without permission.”
“Agreed.”
“Kitchen and living room are shared. We make a schedule for cooking and cleaning.”
“I cook,” Thorne said. “You clean.”
Sage’s eyebrows shot up. “You cook?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised. I figured you survived on protein shakes and violence.”
His lips definitely twitched that time. “I cook. You?”
“I burn water.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Magic doesn’t make me good at everything, Blackwood. I burn water, I kill houseplants—” She gestured to her box of greenery. “Present company excluded. And I once tried to bake cookies that turned sentient and tried to escape.”
Thorne stared at her. “That’s the most Mitchell thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your family’s earth magic is so strong that even your baking comes alive.”
Sage opened her mouth to argue, then realized he wasn’t mocking her. He looked almost… impressed?
“Well,” she said, off-balance, “your family probably makes shadow cookies that lurk in corners and judge people.”
“Shadow cookies.” Thorne’s expression was carefully neutral, but his eyes were brighter. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“I’m workshopping it.”
This time he definitely smiled. Small, barely there, gone in a second. But real.
Sage’s heart did something complicated.
“I’ll cook,” Thorne said. “You handle the plants and research organization. We’ll split cleaning.”
“Deal.”
They looked at each other, and the air felt charged again. Different than in the coffee shop. More… intimate.
The wards pulsed, and Sage felt them settle into her skin like a second heartbeat.
Active, she realized. The honesty field was active.
“We should test it,” Thorne said, clearly having the same thought.
“Test what?”
“The wards. See if the honesty thing is real.”
Sage’s stomach dropped. “I don’t think that’s—”
“Ask me something,” Thorne said. “Something you know the answer to.”
She hesitated, then: “What’s your favorite color?”
“Green. Like forests right before a storm.” The words came out smooth, automatic. Then Thorne frowned. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Say what?”
“The specific description. I was just going to say green. But the wards…” He looked unsettled. “Ask me something I’d normally lie about.”
Sage thought carefully. “Do you actually hate me?”
The question hung between them.
Thorne’s expression shifted through several emotions too fast to track. Then he said: “No.”
The word sounded surprised. Like it had been pulled from him against his will.
“I want to hate you,” he continued, and now he definitely looked alarmed. “I was raised to hate you. But I don’t. You’re intelligent and dedicated and you clearly love your family, and I respect that. Even if your family is—” He stopped, jaw clenching like he was physically fighting the wards. “This is a nightmare.”
Sage couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t hate her.
She should not feel this relieved about that.
“Your turn,” Thorne said tightly. “Ask me something.”
“Do you think we can break the curse?”
Sage heard herself say: “I don’t know. But I’m terrified we can’t. I’m terrified that in six weeks, everyone I love will be dead, and it’ll be because I wasn’t smart enough or strong enough to stop it.”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Thorne’s expression softened. “You’re one of the most powerful earth witches I’ve ever seen. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. I felt your magic at the coffee shop. It’s…” He stopped, clearly fighting the honesty field again. Then, resigned: “It’s incredible. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Heat flooded Sage’s cheeks.
This was bad.
This was very bad.
“We can’t do this for six weeks,” she said. “We’ll know everything about each other.”
“That’s the point. No secrets means no missed connections in the research.”
“It also means no privacy. No filters. Every thought we have—”
“Won’t be shared unless we speak it out loud,” Thorne interrupted. “The wards don’t read minds. They just prevent lying. We can still choose what to say and what to keep quiet.”
That was slightly better.
Slightly.
“We need boundaries,” Sage said. “Topics that are off-limits.”
“Like what?”
“Like… feelings. Personal thoughts about each other. Attraction—” She stopped, realizing what she’d just implied.
Thorne’s eyes darkened. “Attraction?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Are you attracted to me, Mitchell?”
The wards pulsed.
Sage tried to stop the words. She clamped her mouth shut, bit her tongue, thought about literally anything else.
But the wards were relentless.
“Yes,” she heard herself say.
The cabin went very quiet.
Thorne stared at her. She stared back, mortified.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she added quickly, and the wards let her say it because it was true. “You’re attractive. Objectively. That’s just… biology. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Right,” Thorne said, his voice rough. “Biology.”
“Exactly.”
“For the record,” he said, stepping closer, “I’m attracted to you too.”
Sage’s breath caught.
“Has been since the Council meeting,” Thorne continued, like the words were being dragged out of him. “You stood up in front of everyone, talking about the curse feeding on the feud, and I thought you were the bravest person I’d ever seen. And the most beautiful. And I hated that I thought that.”
“Blackwood—”
“The wards want honesty?” His eyes flashed. “Fine. I think about you constantly. I dream about you. I want to kiss you so badly that it’s actually painful. And I hate it because you’re a Mitchell and I’m a Thorne and this is impossible.”
Sage couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.
Thorne seemed to realize what he’d just said. He stepped back fast, running a hand through his hair.
“We’re not doing this,” he said.
“Agreed.”
“Six weeks. Professional. Focused on the curse.”
“Absolutely.”
“We’ll just… not talk about the attraction.”
“Perfect plan.”
They stood on opposite sides of the living room, the air between them crackling with everything they’d just admitted.
“I’m going to my room,” Thorne said.
“Good idea.”
He grabbed his duffel and disappeared down the hallway.
Sage waited until she heard his door close before sinking onto the couch and putting her face in her hands.
Six weeks.
In a cabin with honesty wards and a man who apparently dreamed about her.
A man she dreamed about too.
This was going to be the longest six weeks of her life.
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