Updated Apr 13, 2026 • ~13 min read
Chapter 10: The Safe House Kiss
Oliver
Oliver has been living on Sage’s couch for three days, and he’s learning things about her that make his feelings shift from “definitely falling” to “completely gone,” which is terrible timing but also inevitable—like how she’s grumpy in the mornings until she has coffee, how she talks to her plants when she thinks he’s not listening, how she sleeps with protective wards so strong they make Oliver’s head ache if he gets too close to her bedroom door, and how sometimes, late at night when she thinks he’s asleep, she stands by the window and stares out at the darkness like she’s waiting for something terrible to arrive.
It’s eleven PM on Friday, their twelfth day working together, and they’re both exhausted from researching historical entity patterns while trying to predict the Collector’s next move, and Oliver is pretty sure they’re both running on spite and caffeine at this point.
“I think I found something,” Oliver says, staring at his laptop screen with growing excitement mixed with horror. “Daniel sent over records from the Salem witch trials—not the famous ones, the magical investigations that happened alongside them—and there’s a case from 1692 about a witch hunter named NATHANIEL THORNE who was accused of consuming the power of practitioners he killed.”
Sage looks up from the grimoire she’s been cross-referencing, exhaustion evident in every line of her face. “Consuming their power how?”
“The reports say he developed a ritual—supposedly taught to him by something demonic, though that could just be period-appropriate finger-pointing—that allowed him to drain magical energy from dying witches and absorb it into himself. He killed seventeen practitioners before his own coven stopped him.”
“How did they stop him?” Sage asks, moving to read over Oliver’s shoulder, and Oliver is very aware of her proximity, of the scent of her shampoo and the way her hair brushes his arm.
“They didn’t,” Oliver says grimly, scrolling through Daniel’s notes. “The reports say they tried to execute him, but he’d already absorbed enough power to be nearly invulnerable. So they bound him instead, trapped him in a warded cell and left him to die of old age. Except…”
“Except he didn’t die,” Sage finishes, her voice hollow. “He kept draining the witches assigned to maintain his prison, stealing their power to extend his life, until eventually he’d accumulated enough magic to break free.”
“And he’s been doing it ever since,” Oliver says, pulling up the timeline he and Daniel constructed. “Look at this—clusters of witch disappearances every twenty to thirty years, going back almost two hundred years. Always the same MO, always the same pattern of escalation.”
Sage sinks into the chair beside him, staring at the screen with the kind of devastated expression that makes Oliver’s chest ache.
“The Collector is Nathaniel Thorne,” she says quietly. “A witch hunter from 1692 who turned himself into an entity to live forever. He’s been killing witches for two hundred years.”
“And stealing their power,” Oliver confirms. “He’s nearly immortal now—too much accumulated magic for conventional killing methods to work.”
“My coven,” Sage’s voice cracks, and Oliver sees her hands start to shake. “He killed my family for power. Thirteen witches, slaughtered so he could add their magic to his collection and extend his life another few decades.”
“Sage—” Oliver starts, but she’s standing abruptly, pacing to the window, arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold herself together.
“They died screaming,” she says, not looking at him. “I heard them through the wards. My aunt Maria, my uncle Thomas, my cousin Elena who was only sixteen—I heard them scream and I couldn’t help them, couldn’t save them, could only hide like a coward while a two-hundred-year-old monster murdered my entire family for ingredients in his immortality ritual.”
Oliver stands, moving toward her carefully like she’s something that might bolt. “You survived. That’s not cowardice, that’s—”
“That’s luck,” Sage interrupts bitterly. “Or maybe he let me live deliberately, saved me for later like you save the best for last. Either way, thirteen people are dead and I’m alive and I’m going to have to face him again knowing that I barely escaped last time and that was before he’d collected five more years of stolen power.”
“We’ll stop him,” Oliver says, and he knows it sounds like an empty promise but he means it with everything he has. “I promise, Sage. We’ll find a way to stop him.”
Sage laughs, and it’s such a broken sound that Oliver feels it like a physical wound. “You can’t promise that. You’re human, Oliver. You’re kind and optimistic and you care so much about helping people, but you’re human, and Nathaniel Thorne has two hundred years of accumulated witch magic making him effectively immortal. What are we supposed to do against that?”
“Whatever it takes,” Oliver says, and he’s close enough now to touch her, close enough to see the tears she’s trying not to shed. “Sage, look at me.”
She does, finally, and Oliver sees vulnerability in her eyes, the kind she never shows, the kind that tells him she’s terrified and exhausted and so tired of being strong alone.
“We’ll stop him,” Oliver repeats. “Maybe I’m just human, maybe I don’t have real power, but I’m stubborn and I’m resourceful and I care about you, so I’m not giving up until Nathaniel Thorne is actually dead and you’re actually safe.”
“You care about me,” Sage echoes, and it’s not quite a question but not quite a statement either.
“Yes,” Oliver admits, because lying at this point would be pointless. “I care about you. A lot. Possibly more than is wise given that we’re hunting an immortal witch hunter and I’ve known you for less than two weeks.”
Sage stares at him, and Oliver can see her processing this, can see her walls struggling to stay up against the weight of his honesty.
“Oliver,” she says, voice rough. “You can’t—we can’t—”
“I know,” Oliver interrupts gently. “I know you’re scared. I know you’ve lost people. I know trusting someone with your feelings when an immortal entity is hunting you is probably the worst possible timing. But I’m telling you anyway because I think you need to hear it: I care about you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Sage takes a shaky breath, and Oliver watches a tear escape, tracking down her cheek before she can stop it.
“Everyone I care about dies,” she whispers. “The Collector kills them, or fate kills them, or they just leave, and I end up alone. I can’t—if I let myself care about you and you die—”
“Then you’ll grieve,” Oliver says, and he knows it’s not comforting but it’s true. “And it’ll hurt. But Sage, cutting yourself off from caring doesn’t make you safer, it just makes you alone while you wait for something terrible to happen.”
“Better alone than devastated,” Sage says, but she doesn’t sound convinced.
“Is it though?” Oliver asks softly. “Because from where I’m standing, you look pretty devastated already.”
Sage makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob, and Oliver does what he’s wanted to do since the first time he saw her cry—he steps forward and pulls her into his arms, holding her while she breaks down in a way he suspects she hasn’t let herself break in five years.
She’s rigid at first, like she’s forgotten how to accept comfort, but then she softens against him, her face pressed into his shoulder, her hands clutching his shirt, and Oliver holds her while she cries for her coven and her fear and all the loss she’s carried alone.
“We’ll stop him,” Oliver murmurs into her hair. “I promise. We’ll find a way.”
Sage pulls back slightly, just enough to look up at him, and Oliver’s breath catches because she’s so close, and her eyes are red from crying but still the most beautiful green he’s ever seen, and he’s absolutely doomed, has been doomed since the moment she told him to get out of her shop and he decided to stay anyway.
“You can’t promise that,” Sage says again, but this time it sounds less like an accusation and more like a plea.
“Watch me,” Oliver says, and he knows he should let go, should step back, should maintain the professional boundaries they’ve been carefully preserving, but Sage is looking at him like he’s something precious and terrifying in equal measure, and Oliver has never been good at resisting terrible ideas.
He kisses her.
It’s gentle, tentative, giving her every opportunity to pull away or hex him or do any of the hundred things she could do to reject this, but instead—
Instead Sage makes a small sound of surprise and kisses him back.
Oliver’s brain short-circuits because Sage Thornwood is kissing him, actually kissing him, her hands moving from clutching his shirt to sliding into his hair, pulling him closer, and she tastes like coffee and salt from tears and something uniquely her, and Oliver feels like every nerve in his body has come alive.
The kiss deepens, desperate and sweet and tinged with the kind of fear that comes from wanting something you’re not sure you’re allowed to have, and Oliver pours everything he can’t say into it—I care about you, I’m not leaving, you deserve to be loved, please let me try.
When they finally break apart—both needing air, both shocked by what just happened—they’re still standing close enough that Oliver can feel Sage’s breath against his lips, can see the way her pupils have dilated, can count the freckles he never noticed before scattered across her nose.
“That was…” Sage starts, voice rough and wondering.
“Yeah,” Oliver agrees, because words are inadequate for whatever just happened.
They stare at each other, and Oliver can see Sage’s mind racing, can practically hear her thinking through every reason this is a terrible idea, every way this could go wrong, every defense mechanism telling her to push him away.
“We shouldn’t—” she tries again.
“Probably not,” Oliver agrees, but he doesn’t step back, doesn’t let go.
“The timing is terrible. There’s an immortal witch hunter who wants to kill me. You’re human. This is complicated.”
“Extremely complicated,” Oliver confirms, and he can’t help but smile because Sage is listing objections while still standing in his arms, which suggests she’s less certain about those objections than she wants to be.
“I don’t do relationships,” Sage says, and it sounds like a warning. “People I love die. Caring is a liability. I’m fundamentally broken when it comes to trust and emotional vulnerability.”
“Okay,” Oliver says gently. “But you kissed me back.”
Sage opens her mouth to respond, closes it, and something in her expression shifts from defensive to vulnerable.
“I surprised myself too,” she admits quietly.
“Good surprised or bad surprised?”
Sage considers this, and Oliver watches emotions play across her face—fear, longing, confusion, something that might be hope.
“I don’t know yet,” she finally says. “Ask me again when we’re not being hunted by an immortal entity.”
“Deal,” Oliver agrees, and he knows he should let her go now, should step back and give her space to process, but leaving her arms feels impossible so he compromises by loosening his hold while staying close.
“This doesn’t change anything,” Sage says, but it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. “We’re still partners investigating a case. That’s all.”
“If that’s what you need it to be,” Oliver says, because pushing Sage will only make her run.
“It is.”
“Okay.”
They stand there for another moment, neither quite willing to break the connection, and then Sage does step back, putting distance between them with visible effort.
“I should—we should get back to research,” she says, not meeting his eyes. “We have a lead now. Nathaniel Thorne. We can dig into his history, find weaknesses, figure out how to kill something that’s survived for two hundred years.”
“Right,” Oliver agrees, even though what he really wants is to pull Sage back into his arms and kiss her again until she stops being scared. “Research. Good plan.”
They return to their respective workstations—Sage at the dining table, Oliver on the couch—and pretend to focus on their work, but Oliver keeps catching Sage glancing at him when she thinks he’s not looking, touching her lips like she’s trying to remember the feeling of the kiss, and he knows she’s as affected as he is, as terrified and hopeful and confused.
Around two AM, when Oliver’s eyes are crossing from reading historical records, Sage speaks without looking up from her grimoire.
“Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
“That kiss,” she says carefully. “It can’t happen again. Not until this is over. Not while we’re focused on stopping the Collector.”
Oliver’s heart sinks a little, but he understands, can see the logic even if he doesn’t like it.
“Understood,” he says.
“Because I can’t—if I let myself feel things right now, I’ll get distracted, and distraction gets people killed.”
“I get it, Sage.”
She finally looks at him, and Oliver sees conflict in her eyes.
“But after,” she says quietly. “If we survive this. If we actually manage to stop Nathaniel Thorne and I’m not dead or drained of magic or traumatized beyond repair…”
She trails off, and Oliver finishes for her.
“Then we can talk about what this is?”
“Maybe,” Sage says, and it’s the most hopeful maybe Oliver has ever heard.
“I can work with maybe,” he says, grinning despite the exhaustion and fear and weight of knowing they have to somehow kill an immortal witch hunter.
“Don’t get too excited, Reyes. Maybe is not a promise.”
“But it’s not a no,” Oliver points out.
“It’s not a no,” Sage agrees reluctantly, and Oliver sees her fight back a smile.
They return to research, but the atmosphere has changed—charged with something electric and terrifying and full of possibility—and when Oliver eventually falls asleep on the couch with his laptop still open, he dreams of a future where they survive this case and Sage lets herself be happy.
It’s probably foolish to hope for happy endings when an immortal entity is hunting them.
But Oliver has always been foolish when it comes to hope.
And Sage Thornwood, grumpy witch who kissed him like she was drowning and he was air, is absolutely worth being foolish for.
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