Updated Apr 13, 2026 • ~16 min read
Chapter 2: The Grumpy Witch
Sage
Sage Thornwood is elbow-deep in a crate of dried herbs when the bell above the shop door chimes for the fifth time in an hour, and she doesn’t bother looking up because if one more person asks her if she sells crystals for manifesting soulmates she’s going to start charging a fee for not hexing them on the spot.
“We’re closed,” she says without lifting her head from the box of mugwort that’s been mislabeled as wormwood—amateur mistake from her supplier, the kind of error that could get someone killed if they’re not careful about ingredients in spellwork—and she makes a mental note to find a new distributor because this is the third time this month she’s had to fix their incompetence.
“The sign says you’re open,” a customer responds—male voice, cheerful, the kind of aggressively friendly tone that makes Sage’s teeth ache—and she finally looks up to glare at whoever is interrupting her very important reorganization.
Tourist, probably. He has that look—too interested, too eager, wearing a leather jacket like he thinks it makes him mysterious instead of just warm. Dark hair that looks like he ran his hands through it instead of combing it, brown eyes that are annoyingly bright with curiosity, and a smile that suggests he’s never met a stranger he couldn’t charm.
Sage hates him immediately.
“Sign’s wrong,” she lies, turning back to her herbs. “Get out.”
There’s a pause, the kind where people usually realize she’s serious and leave, but this particular idiot apparently doesn’t have the sense to recognize dismissal when he hears it.
“I’m looking for Sage Thornwood,” he says, still with that friendly tone, and Sage feels something cold slide down her spine because people who come looking for her specifically are never bringing good news.
“Get out,” she repeats, putting more power behind it this time, letting the wards around the shop hum to life just enough to make the air pressure shift, a warning that anyone with sense would heed.
“I haven’t even said why I’m—”
“Don’t care. Out.”
She means it. Sage has exactly zero interest in whatever this cheerful human wants, because humans who seek out witches either want something they shouldn’t have or are about to bring trouble that Sage has spent five years avoiding, and she’s not in the mood for either option today or any day.
The man takes a step closer instead of leaving, which is either bravery or stupidity—Sage is leaning toward stupidity—and she feels her magic rise in response, defensive and sharp, ready to forcibly remove him if necessary.
“Three witches are missing,” he says, voice quieter now, and Sage goes completely still, her hands frozen over the crate of herbs. “I think you know something.”
The world narrows to a pinpoint, everything else fading except those words—three witches missing—and Sage feels five years of carefully constructed walls crack under the weight of old terror, old grief, the kind of loss that never really heals, just scabs over and waits to be torn open again.
She knows about missing witches. She knows intimately, brutally, what happens when witches disappear without warning, when their magic signature is erased from existence like they never existed at all. She knows because she’s the only survivor of the Thornwood Coven, because she watched her family vanish one by one and couldn’t stop it, couldn’t save them, could barely save herself.
“Who sent you?” she asks, and her voice comes out deadly quiet, the kind of quiet that precedes violence, because if this is some kind of sick joke or if someone is using her trauma to manipulate her, she’s going to make them deeply regret it.
“I’m a curse-breaker,” the man says, and he has the audacity to sound earnest, like he actually thinks that matters. “I want to help.”
“I don’t need human help,” Sage snaps, and she means it, has meant it for five years because humans don’t understand magic, can’t protect against it, and getting them involved only gets them killed—and she has enough blood on her hands without adding some well-meaning idiot to the count.
But even as she says it, even as she puts every ounce of dismissal into her tone, she feels the fear writhing in her chest like a living thing, because three witches missing means it’s happening again, means whatever killed her coven is back, and she can’t—she can’t go through that again, can’t watch more people die while she stands helpless.
The man doesn’t leave. He just stands there in her doorway, looking at her with those annoyingly earnest brown eyes, and Sage wants to scream at him, wants to throw him out with magic and ward the shop so thoroughly that nothing human could ever enter again.
From the back room, Rowan’s voice calls out—bright, cheerful, utterly oblivious to the tension—and Sage’s apprentice appears carrying a box of new inventory, blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing a sweater with a embroidered moon that Sage has told her at least six times is too cheerful for a witch shop.
“Sage, did you want me to—oh!” Rowan stops, noticing the stranger, and her face lights up in a smile that makes Sage want to drag her back into the storage room and remind her that not everyone deserves friendliness. “Hi! Welcome to Thornwood Occult! I’m Rowan, I’m Sage’s apprentice. Can I help you find anything?”
“He’s leaving,” Sage says flatly, but Rowan is already setting down the box and moving forward with the kind of sunshine energy that Sage has tried and failed to dim over the past two years of apprenticeship.
“You need to smile more,” Rowan says to Sage in an undertone that’s not actually quiet enough to be private. “You scare people.”
“Good,” Sage retorts, not bothering to lower her voice. “Less idiots asking if I can make love potions.”
Rowan sighs the long-suffering sigh of someone who’s had this argument before and knows she’s not going to win, and turns her attention back to the stranger with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about her. She’s actually very nice once you get past the… everything.” She gestures vaguely at Sage, who glares.
“I’m not nice. I’m practical. And he’s leaving.”
But the man—the curse-breaker, apparently, though Sage has never heard of a human curse-breaker who’s worth anything—meets her eyes and doesn’t flinch from what he sees there, which is either impressive or foolish or both.
“I’m not leaving,” he says quietly. “Not until you talk to me.”
Sage feels her magic flare, hot and sharp, feels the wards around the shop respond to her anger, crackling with enough energy that the lights flicker and the herbs hanging from the ceiling sway despite there being no wind. She could destroy him. One word, one gesture, and she could make him regret ever walking into her shop.
But beneath the anger, beneath the fear, there’s something else—something that sounds like the voice of her dead coven leader, the woman who raised her, who taught her that power comes with responsibility and that turning away from those in need is a betrayal of everything magic stands for.
Three witches are missing.
Sage closes her eyes, takes a breath that tastes like old grief and new dread, and makes a decision she knows she’s going to regret.
“Fine,” she says, opening her eyes and pinning the curse-breaker with a look that could freeze fire. “You have five minutes. Talk.”
Rowan makes a small noise of surprise—probably because Sage never agrees to help random strangers, never lets anyone past her walls, has spent five years building a reputation as the witch you don’t approach unless you’re desperate or stupid—but Sage ignores her, focusing on the man who’s just successfully pushed past every defense she’s erected.
He steps fully into the shop, and Sage can sense it now, that faint buzz of magic clinging to him—not power, not really, just sensitivity, the trace gift that some humans carry like an echo of magical ancestry. It makes her hate him slightly less, knowing he’s not completely ignorant, but it also makes her more wary because sensitivity without power is dangerous, makes people think they understand magic when they’re really just brushing against its edges.
“Thank you,” he says, and he sounds genuinely grateful, which is annoying because Sage doesn’t want gratitude, doesn’t want connection, doesn’t want anything except for this conversation to be over so she can go back to pretending the world outside her shop doesn’t exist. “I’m Oliver Reyes. I work out of Boston, mostly breaking minor curses—hexes, jinxes, that kind of thing. My partner Daniel does magical research.”
“I don’t care about your credentials,” Sage interrupts, because she doesn’t have patience for preamble. “Tell me about the missing witches.”
Oliver—because apparently they’re on a first-name basis now, though Sage didn’t agree to that—pulls out his phone and swipes through what looks like case files, and Sage’s stomach drops as she sees the photos, the reports, the familiar pattern of disappearance without trace.
“Three witches in four weeks,” Oliver says, voice taking on a professional tone that’s at odds with his earlier friendliness. “First one was in Providence—MELISSA HUNT, 35, hereditary witch, mid-level power. She was leaving her apartment for work and just… never arrived. Her coven searched, found nothing. No body, no sign of struggle, and her magical signature was completely erased.”
Sage’s hands clench into fists, nails digging into her palms hard enough to hurt. Erased magical signature. That’s the detail that confirms her worst fear, the thing that makes this not just a disappearance but a murder, because magic doesn’t just disappear—it has to be taken, drained, consumed.
“Second witch was two weeks later in Cambridge,” Oliver continues, and Sage can see he’s watching her reaction carefully, noting the way she’s gone rigid. “EMMA WILSON, 29, solitary practitioner, specialized in protection magic. Same pattern—vanished between her apartment and her car, no trace, signature erased.”
“And the third?” Sage asks, voice rough, already knowing it’s going to be bad.
“Five days ago, here in Boston. LUCIA SANTOS, 28, part of the Harbor Coven, very powerful. Her girlfriend reported her missing when she didn’t come home. Same pattern.”
Three witches. Three murders. And the same signature as the massacre that took Sage’s entire coven five years ago—not a signature, actually, but the absence of one, the void where magic used to be.
“Why come to me?” Sage asks, even though she knows the answer, can see it in the way Oliver is looking at her with something that might be pity.
“Because the pattern matches what happened to the Thornwood Coven five years ago,” Oliver says quietly, and there it is, the confirmation that he knows about her greatest failure, her deepest trauma. “Same MO—targeted witches, powers drained, no bodies recovered. I think whatever killed your coven is active again.”
Sage wants to hit him. Wants to throw him out. Wants to scream that he has no right to talk about her coven, about her family, about the night she lost everything and barely escaped with her life.
But she can’t, because he’s right.
The rage drains out of her all at once, leaving behind exhaustion so profound it makes her bones ache, and she leans against the counter for support because the alternative is collapsing and she refuses to show weakness in front of this stranger.
“You can’t help,” she says, and it’s not dismissal anymore, just truth. “Whatever took my coven is beyond human ability to fight. Even beyond most witches’ ability. I survived by luck and cowardice, not skill.”
“I don’t believe that,” Oliver says, and the conviction in his voice is almost offensive in its confidence. “I think you survived because you’re powerful enough that whatever entity did this couldn’t take you. And I think it’s coming back to finish the job.”
Sage laughs, a bitter sound without humor. “That’s supposed to make me want your help?”
“I have information,” Oliver says, undeterred. “Research, patterns, historical records that might tell us what we’re dealing with. And I have skills—I might not have power, but I can break curses, unravel magical workings, see things that pure practitioners sometimes miss because they’re too close to it.”
“And you have a death wish, apparently,” Sage mutters, but she’s considering it, hates that she’s considering it, because the truth is she’s been dreading this day for five years, waiting for the entity that killed her coven to return, and facing it alone is terrifying in a way she’ll never admit out loud.
Rowan, who’s been watching this exchange with wide eyes and the kind of fascination usually reserved for soap operas, clears her throat. “Sage. If witches are dying—”
“I know,” Sage snaps, because she does know, knows that turning away makes her complicit, that her coven leader would be ashamed of her for even considering refusing. “I know, Rowan.”
She looks at Oliver Reyes, at this curse-breaker with his trace magic and his earnest eyes and his apparent inability to recognize danger when it’s standing in front of him promising to destroy him, and she makes a decision that she absolutely knows she’s going to regret.
“One week,” she says, voice hard. “You follow my lead, don’t touch anything magical without permission, and shut up when I tell you to. If you become a liability, I’m leaving you behind. Are we clear?”
Oliver grins—actually grins, like she just offered him a gift instead of a conditional, possibly lethal partnership—and holds out his hand. “Crystal clear.”
Sage looks at his outstretched hand like it’s a snake, considers refusing the gesture entirely, but Rowan is watching with an expression that clearly says don’t be rude, and Sage has already agreed to work with him, so refusing a handshake at this point would just be petty.
She takes his hand—his skin is warm, callused in ways that suggest he works with his hands, and there’s that buzz of magic again, faint but present—and shakes once, firm and brief.
“I can work with two of those things,” Oliver says, still grinning, and Sage narrows her eyes because she’s pretty sure he’s referring to the “shut up” condition.
“Then we’re going to have problems,” she says flatly, but she doesn’t take her hand back as quickly as she should, and when she finally does she can still feel the warmth of his touch like a brand.
Rowan is beaming like someone just granted her dearest wish, and Sage shoots her a glare that promises they’re going to have words about appropriate reactions to dangerous situations.
“When do we start?” Oliver asks, already pulling out a notebook like he’s ready to take notes, and Sage feels the weight of responsibility settle over her shoulders like a familiar, unwelcome coat.
“Now,” she says, moving toward the door and flipping the sign to “CLOSED” despite it being the middle of the afternoon. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it properly. Rowan, watch the shop. Oliver, follow me. And try not to touch anything in my apartment—half of it is cursed and I don’t feel like explaining to your partner why I sent you back as a frog.”
She doesn’t wait to see if he’s following, just heads to the back of the shop and up the narrow staircase that leads to her apartment above Thornwood Occult, and she hears his footsteps behind her, steady and certain.
Sage pushes open the door to her personal space—books stacked on every surface, herbs drying in bundles by the windows, protective sigils carved into the doorframe and window sills, the organized chaos of a witch who lives and breathes magic—and tries not to think about the fact that she just invited a stranger into her home for the first time in five years.
“Wow,” Oliver says from behind her, and when she turns to look at him his eyes are wide with what looks like genuine appreciation rather than mockery. “This is incredible.”
“It’s messy,” Sage corrects, but there’s less bite in her voice than usual because this space is hers, is sacred, and having someone recognize it as impressive rather than frightening is… unexpected.
“It’s powerful,” Oliver corrects right back, moving to examine the bookshelf without touching—apparently he actually listened to her warning, which is more than most people do. “I can feel the wards from here. You did all this yourself?”
“Hereditary magic,” Sage says shortly, not wanting to explain that she learned from watching her coven work, that every protection spell she knows was taught by people who are now dead. “It’s in my blood.”
Oliver looks at her then, really looks, and Sage has the uncomfortable sensation of being seen—not just observed, but understood—and she doesn’t like it, doesn’t want this stranger to perceive anything about her beyond surface level antagonism.
“Your coven,” he says quietly. “How many?”
“That’s not your business,” Sage snaps, but her voice cracks slightly on the words, betraying her, and she turns away before he can see her face.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver says, and he sounds like he means it. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t,” Sage interrupts, forcing steel back into her voice. “Don’t apologize, don’t try to connect, don’t attempt sympathy. We’re working together because we have to, not because we’re friends. Keep it professional.”
There’s a pause, and then Oliver says, “Okay. Professional. I can do that.”
But Sage can hear something in his tone—disappointment, maybe, or determination—and she knows instinctively that keeping Oliver Reyes at arm’s length is going to be harder than keeping out most people, because he’s the type who sees walls as invitations to try harder rather than warnings to stay away.
She’s definitely going to regret this.
“Tell me everything you know about the disappearances,” Sage says, pulling out her grimoire—the one her grandmother started and her mother continued and Sage maintains, leather-bound and crackling with old magic. “And don’t leave anything out. Even details that seem irrelevant might matter.”
Oliver settles into the chair across from her—uninvited, but Sage doesn’t comment—and starts talking, and despite her best efforts to maintain emotional distance, Sage finds herself listening not just to the information but to him, to the cadence of his voice and the way he gestures when he’s explaining complex theory and the genuine concern in his eyes when he mentions the missing witches’ families.
It’s annoying. He’s annoying. This whole situation is annoying.
And Sage has the terrible, creeping suspicion that Oliver Reyes is going to become much more than just a temporary partner, whether she wants him to or not.
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