Updated Apr 13, 2026 • ~14 min read
Chapter 7: The Thornwood File
Sage
Sage finds the file by accident—or maybe not by accident, maybe some part of her was looking for a reason to push Oliver away before she gets any more attached, before his optimism and persistence wear down the last of her defenses—and the moment she sees the folder labeled “THORNWOOD COVEN – INVESTIGATIVE NOTES,” something in her chest goes cold and hard and furious.
It’s Tuesday evening, their ninth day of working together, and Oliver stepped out twenty minutes ago to take a call from Daniel, leaving his laptop open on Sage’s dining table next to research they’ve been compiling on historical Collector patterns.
Sage wasn’t snooping. She was reaching for her grimoire and accidentally bumped Oliver’s mouse, waking his screen from sleep mode, and there it was: a folder she doesn’t remember him mentioning, files she didn’t give him permission to access, her trauma cataloged and analyzed without her consent.
Her hands are shaking as she opens the folder—she shouldn’t, she knows she shouldn’t, knows that looking will only make the anger worse—but she can’t stop herself, needs to know exactly how thoroughly Oliver Reyes has violated her trust.
The folder is extensive. Newspaper articles about the Thornwood Coven massacre. Police reports that Sage remembers giving, numb with shock and grief. Witness statements from other covens. Magical authority investigation notes. Photographs of the crime scenes—or what passed for crime scenes when there were no bodies, just empty spaces where witches used to exist.
And at the bottom, a file labeled “SAGE THORNWOOD – PERSONAL HISTORY.”
Sage opens it, feeling something crack in her chest.
It’s all there. Her childhood, her magical training, her relationship with each member of her coven—information that Oliver couldn’t possibly have gotten from public records, which means he dug deeper, asked questions, investigated her like she’s a suspect instead of a partner.
There are notes about her aunt Maria, who taught Sage fire magic and died trying to defend the coven. About her uncle Thomas, who specialized in wards and couldn’t ward against the Collector. About her cousin Elena, who was only sixteen and wanted to be a healer and never got the chance.
Oliver documented all of them. All thirteen deaths. All of Sage’s loss, reduced to bullet points and timeline entries and analytical observations about magical capabilities.
At the bottom of the file, there’s a note in Oliver’s handwriting: “Sage survived because her defensive magic is exceptionally strong – possibly the Collector couldn’t break through her grandmother’s wards, or possibly Sage was deliberately spared as a future target. Need to investigate why she was left alive when others weren’t.”
The anger that floods through Sage is so intense it makes her magic flare, makes the lights in her apartment flicker, makes the protective wards hum with responding fury.
Oliver investigated her survival like it’s suspicious. Like she’s a puzzle to solve instead of a person who barely made it out alive while her entire family was murdered.
She’s still staring at the screen, vision blurring with rage and hurt, when she hears Oliver’s footsteps on the stairs, hears him saying goodbye to Daniel on the phone, hears him open the door with the easy familiarity of someone who’s been welcomed into this space.
Sage doesn’t turn around. Just keeps staring at his laptop, at the file that proves what she already knew, what she should have remembered from the start: you can’t trust people, can’t let them in, because they’ll always betray you, always use you, always turn your pain into their research material.
“Sorry about that, Daniel found something interesting about historical binding methods and—” Oliver stops mid-sentence, and Sage knows he’s seen her expression, knows he’s realized what she’s looking at. “Sage—”
“You looked into my coven’s death,” Sage says, and her voice comes out deadly quiet, the kind of quiet that precedes violence. “You investigated them. Without my permission.”
Oliver goes pale. “I was trying to find patterns—”
“That’s PRIVATE!” Sage spins to face him, and she can see him flinch from whatever he sees in her expression. “Those were my people! My family! You had no right—”
“I’m sorry, I was trying to help—”
“Help?” Sage laughs, and it’s a bitter, broken sound. “You were using me for information. Getting close so I’d trust you, so I’d share details you could add to your fucking investigation files.”
“That’s not—” Oliver takes a step forward, hands raised in placation, but Sage’s magic rises in warning, crackling between them like electricity.
“Don’t,” she snarls. “Don’t come closer. Don’t touch me. Don’t pretend you actually care when you’ve been treating me like a case study this entire time.”
Oliver stops moving, and Sage can see genuine distress in his eyes, but she doesn’t care, can’t care, because caring is what got her into this situation in the first place.
“Sage, please, let me explain—”
“Explain what? How you documented my dead family members? How you analyzed my survival like it’s suspicious?” Sage gestures at his laptop, at the evidence of his betrayal. “You wrote that you needed to investigate why I was left alive. Like maybe I’m complicit. Like maybe I survived because I let the Collector take them.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Oliver says, and he sounds desperate now, pleading. “I was just trying to understand the pattern, trying to figure out what made you different so I could protect you—”
“I don’t need your protection!” Sage shouts, and the lights explode, glass raining down from the ceiling fixtures, plunging them into darkness lit only by the glow of magical wards. “I need people to respect my boundaries! I need partners who don’t go behind my back! I need—”
Her voice cracks, and she hates it, hates showing weakness, hates that Oliver has gotten close enough to hurt her this badly.
“You’re just like everyone else,” she says, quieter now but no less furious. “Using me for information. Acting like you care when really you just want access to what I know, what I’ve survived.”
“That’s not true,” Oliver says, and there’s something raw in his voice that Sage doesn’t want to hear. “I do care—”
“Get out,” Sage interrupts, moving to the door and yanking it open hard enough that the hinges protest. “Get your laptop, get your research, and get out of my apartment.”
“Sage, please—”
“NOW!”
Oliver flinches like she’s hit him, and Sage feels a savage satisfaction at having finally gotten through his relentless optimism, at having found the limit of his persistence.
He moves slowly, gathering his belongings with shaking hands, and Sage stands by the door radiating fury and hurt in equal measure, refusing to look at him because if she looks, she might see regret, might see genuine remorse, and that would make this harder.
Oliver stops at the door, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, and Sage can feel him searching for words, can sense his desperation to fix this.
“I wasn’t using you,” he says quietly. “I care about—”
Sage slams the door in his face, cutting off whatever he was about to say, and throws the deadbolt with more force than necessary.
She stands there in the dark—the regular lights broken, only magical illumination remaining—and listens to Oliver’s footsteps descending the stairs, slow and heavy, and she tells herself the tightness in her chest is anger, just anger, not grief at having lost something she was starting to value.
The silence after he leaves is absolute.
Sage moves through her apartment on autopilot, avoiding the broken glass, relighting the regular lamps with a gesture, trying to ignore how empty the space feels without Oliver’s presence filling it with his ridiculous optimism and his careful note-taking and his coffee that he always brought without being asked.
She shouldn’t miss him. She’s known him for nine days. Nine days isn’t enough time to get attached to someone, isn’t enough time to start relying on their companionship, isn’t enough time to feel betrayed when they prove themselves untrustworthy.
Except it is, apparently, because Sage’s chest aches like she’s lost something important, and she hates it, hates that she let herself care even a little, hates that Oliver Reyes managed to get past defenses that have kept her safe for five years.
Her phone buzzes—text message from Oliver, probably, apology or explanation or plea for her to listen—but Sage ignores it, silences the phone, and throws herself into research with the kind of manic focus that’s less about productivity and more about avoiding her feelings.
The case is still active. Witches are still dying. The Collector is still hunting. Sage doesn’t need Oliver’s help to solve this—she’s powerful enough, smart enough, determined enough to do it alone.
She’s always been alone. Nine days of partnership doesn’t change that.
Except when she reaches for her coffee—triple espresso that Oliver isn’t here to bring her—she finds herself staring at the empty chair across from her table, the space where he sat every night for the past week, and the ache in her chest intensifies.
Rowan shows up around midnight, letting herself in with her key, and stops dead when she sees the broken glass still scattered across the floor and Sage sitting in the dark surrounded by research.
“What happened?” Rowan asks carefully, moving to sit across from Sage in Oliver’s chair, and Sage wants to tell her to sit somewhere else but can’t make herself form the words.
“Oliver’s an asshole,” Sage says flatly. “Investigation is back to being my problem alone.”
“What did he do?”
Sage gestures at her laptop, where she’s pulled up the files Oliver created—she transferred them to her system before he could delete them, needs them for evidence even though looking at them makes her furious all over again.
Rowan reads in silence, her expression shifting from curious to concerned to sympathetic, and when she finishes, she looks at Sage with the kind of gentle understanding that makes Sage’s throat tight.
“He shouldn’t have done this without asking you,” Rowan says quietly.
“No, he shouldn’t have.”
“But Sage… I don’t think he was using you. I think he was trying to understand. There’s a difference.”
“The result is the same,” Sage says coldly. “My trauma, documented without consent. My family’s deaths, analyzed like data points. My survival, questioned like maybe I’m somehow complicit.”
“He didn’t mean it like that,” Rowan says, and Sage wants to scream because why is everyone defending him when he’s the one who violated her trust?
“You don’t know what he meant.”
“I know what I saw when he looked at you,” Rowan says. “He cares about you, Sage. Really cares. The kind of caring that makes you do stupid things because you’re desperate to help.”
“I don’t want his help,” Sage lies.
“Yes, you do,” Rowan says gently. “You’ve been happier this past week than I’ve seen you in years. You looked forward to his visits. You actually smiled sometimes. And I think that scares you more than the Collector does.”
Sage wants to argue, wants to deny it, but the words stick in her throat because Rowan is right, Rowan is always right about emotional things that Sage would rather ignore.
“He betrayed my trust,” Sage says instead, clinging to her anger because anger is safer than hurt.
“He made a mistake,” Rowan counters. “A bad one, yes. But people make mistakes, Sage. That’s what people do. And then they apologize and try to do better.”
“I don’t forgive mistakes that involve my family.”
“Even when the person making the mistake genuinely cares about you?”
Sage doesn’t answer, just stares at her research, at the notes she and Oliver compiled together, at the progress they made as a team.
The truth is, she does want to forgive him. Wants to believe that his investigation was misguided caring rather than manipulation. Wants to call him and tell him to come back and let him explain properly instead of slamming doors in his face.
But wanting and doing are different things, and Sage has spent five years learning to not want things that could hurt her.
“Give him a chance to apologize properly,” Rowan says. “Listen to what he has to say. And then decide if you want to forgive him or not. But don’t make the decision from anger.”
“Anger keeps me safe,” Sage mutters.
“Anger keeps you alone,” Rowan corrects. “There’s a difference.”
It’s almost exactly what Oliver said to her a few nights ago, and Sage hates that they’re both right, hates that isolation might be killing her more slowly than the Collector could.
After Rowan leaves—with strict instructions to actually sleep and promises to check in tomorrow—Sage finally looks at her phone.
Seven missed calls from Oliver. Twelve text messages.
She opens the messages against her better judgment.
Oliver: Sage, I’m so sorry. I should have asked permission before investigating your coven.
Oliver: I wasn’t trying to use you. I was trying to understand what happened so I could protect you from it happening again.
Oliver: That’s not an excuse. I violated your privacy and I understand why you’re angry.
Oliver: Please let me explain properly. Not tonight, I know you need space, but when you’re ready.
Oliver: I care about you. Not because of what you know or what you survived. Because of who you are.
Oliver: I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
Oliver: I’ll give you space but please know I’m here when you’re ready to talk.
The last message, sent twenty minutes ago: I understand if you don’t want to work with me anymore. But please don’t face the Collector alone. Call Morgan, call another witch, call the magical authorities. Just don’t do this by yourself.
Sage reads the messages three times, and something in her chest loosens slightly, because Oliver is genuinely sorry, is respecting her need for space, is more worried about her safety than about whether she forgives him.
That doesn’t make what he did okay. Doesn’t erase the violation of trust. Doesn’t fix the hurt.
But it makes it… complicated.
Sage sets her phone down and stares at her ceiling, surrounded by broken glass she should clean up and research she can’t focus on and emotions she doesn’t want to feel.
She’s spent five years building walls to keep people out, to keep herself safe from loss and betrayal and the kind of hurt that comes from caring about people who can be taken away.
Oliver Reyes climbed those walls in nine days, made her start hoping for partnership and connection and maybe something more, and then proved exactly why she built the walls in the first place.
Except.
Except Rowan is right that people make mistakes. Except Oliver’s apology sounds genuine. Except the research he did, as invasive as it was, was probably driven by the same compulsive need to help that makes him bring her coffee every night and explain things too many times and refuse to give up even when Sage makes it clear she doesn’t want his assistance.
Except she does want his assistance. Wants his company. Wants him.
And that’s the real problem, isn’t it?
Sage closes her eyes and tries to sleep, and fails, because her apartment is too quiet without Oliver’s presence, and her research is too empty without his insights, and her anger is starting to feel less like protection and more like another kind of loss.
By morning, she still hasn’t decided whether to forgive him.
But she’s starting to think that maybe, possibly, she wants to.
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