Updated Nov 6, 2025 • ~8 min read
The Council chambers felt colder than last time.
Or maybe that was just Sage, still shaken from the magical backlash, still feeling the phantom weight of Thorne’s arms around her.
He stood beside her now in the witness area, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Close enough that she could feel his magic humming against hers, restless and protective.
Both families filled the seats again. But this time, the anger had been replaced by something worse.
Fear.
“Four deaths in three weeks,” Councilor Vance said heavily. “Thomas Mitchell. Catherine Thorne. Marcus Mitchell. Jonathan Thorne. And now—” He paused. “Elena Thorne. Died this morning at sunrise.”
A sob broke out from the Thorne section. Sage glanced over and saw an older woman being comforted by family members, her grief raw and terrible.
Thorne’s jaw was tight, his hands fisted at his sides.
Sage did something she never thought she’d do: she reached out and touched his hand.
Just briefly. Just enough to say I’m sorry.
He looked at her, surprise flickering across his face. Then his expression softened, and he gave a small nod.
“Sage Mitchell and Thorne Blackwood,” the Councilor continued, “please present your findings.”
They stepped forward together.
Sage had never spoken in front of the Council before. Her mouth went dry. But then Thorne’s hand brushed hers again—deliberate this time, steadying—and she found her voice.
“We traced the curse signature using personal items from two of the victims,” she began. “What we found is… troubling.”
“The curse isn’t just dark magic,” Thorne added. “It’s ancient. Older than either of our covens. And it’s semi-sentient.”
Murmurs rippled through the chamber.
“Explain,” Councilor Vance demanded.
Sage took a breath. “Normal curses are like spells—they follow parameters set by the caster. But this one is alive. It thinks. It adapts. When I tried to trace it, it attacked me directly.”
“It drained her magic,” Thorne said, his voice hard. “Tried to corrupt her from the inside. If I hadn’t severed the connection, it would’ve killed her.”
Elder Mitchell stood. “My granddaughter was attacked? Why wasn’t I informed?”
“Because it happened two hours ago,” Sage said. “And I’m fine.”
“You nearly died,” Thorne corrected flatly.
“But I didn’t.”
They glared at each other.
Several Council members looked between them with raised eyebrows.
Councilor Vance cleared his throat. “What else did you discover?”
“The curse was cast in a blood ritual,” Sage continued. “We saw fragments of the casting. Someone used significant amounts of blood magic—which means they had access to blood from both our families.”
“That’s impossible,” the elegant Thorne woman—Thorne’s aunt, Sage realized—said sharply. “We would never willingly give blood to a Mitchell.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Elder Mitchell replied coldly.
“It wasn’t willingly,” Thorne said. “Someone stole from both covens. Hair, blood, personal items. Probably over an extended period.”
“We need to investigate coven security,” Sage added. “Find out who had access to both families’ private spaces.”
“That’s a very short list,” Councilor Vance said grimly. “Only Council members and neutral parties approved for inter-coven negotiations would have that kind of access.”
The chamber went very quiet.
“You think it’s someone on the Council?” someone asked.
“We’re not ruling anything out,” Thorne said.
Councilor Vance looked like he’d aged ten years. “We’ll investigate internally. In the meantime, you two need to focus on finding a way to break the curse. How much time do we have?”
Sage and Thorne exchanged a look.
“Originally, based on the pattern, we estimated six weeks total,” Sage said carefully. “But the deaths are accelerating. The first three were spaced a week apart. This one was only four days after the last.”
She pulled out her notes, did the math again even though she’d checked it five times already.
“If the acceleration continues,” she said, her voice steady despite the dread in her stomach, “we have four weeks. Maybe less.”
The chamber erupted in chaos.
Families shouting, Council members trying to restore order, magic crackling in the air as tempers flared.
Sage stood frozen, watching nearly a hundred witches realize they might be dead in a month.
Thorne’s hand found hers. Not briefly this time—he laced their fingers together, holding tight.
The touch grounded her.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said quietly, just for her. “We will.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I know. But I believe it anyway.”
The honesty wards weren’t active in the Council chambers. He could’ve lied, could’ve said what she needed to hear.
But he didn’t.
He believed they could save everyone.
And somehow, that made Sage believe it too.
The meeting lasted another two hours. Families demanding answers the Council couldn’t give. Security protocols being implemented. Emergency sessions scheduled weekly instead of monthly.
By the time they were released, Sage was exhausted.
Thorne drove them back to the cabin in tense silence. The forest roads were dark, lit only by his headlights and the half-moon overhead.
“Your family looked at me like I was poisoning you,” Thorne said finally.
Sage glanced at him. “Your family looked at me like I was the curse.”
“They’re scared.”
“So are mine.”
“Scared people do stupid things.”
“Like what?”
Thorne’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Like decide it’s better to die than work with the enemy. I heard my uncle Marcus talking after the meeting. He thinks the Council is using the curse as an excuse to force our families together. That there’s some other solution we’re not seeing.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why would the Council kill witches to force cooperation?”
“I know. But logic doesn’t matter when people are terrified.” He shot her a look. “Your grandmother was talking to your uncles. They didn’t look happy.”
Sage’s stomach sank. “You think they’re going to try to stop us?”
“I think they’re going to try to solve this their own way. Which means not trusting anything a Thorne says or does.”
“Even if that gets people killed.”
“Especially then. Because dying with honor matters more to some people than living with compromise.”
They pulled up to the cabin. Neither moved to get out.
“We can’t let them stop us,” Sage said.
“Agreed. Which means we work faster. Smarter.”
“Four weeks.”
“Four weeks,” Thorne confirmed. “Twenty-eight days to break an ancient, semi-sentient curse that’s killed five people and is getting stronger.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds impossible.”
“Good thing we don’t believe in impossible.”
Sage looked at him—really looked at him. At the exhaustion in his eyes, the determination in the set of his jaw, the way he was still gripping the steering wheel like it was the only thing holding him together.
“You’re scared too,” she said quietly.
The honesty wards inside the cabin wouldn’t let him lie. But out here, he could.
He didn’t.
“Terrified,” Thorne admitted. “I keep thinking about my cousins. The kids in my coven. My aunt who’s already lost her daughter. If we fail…” He stopped, swallowed hard. “Yeah. I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
They sat in the darkness, sharing fear and determination in equal measure.
“We should get inside,” Thorne said eventually. “Eat something. Sleep. Start fresh tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
But neither of them moved.
“Thank you,” Sage said. “For earlier. When the curse attacked me.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“I do, though. You didn’t hesitate. You just… saved me.”
Thorne turned to look at her fully. “I told you. Partners protect each other.”
“Is that what we are? Partners?”
“What else would we be?”
The question hung between them, heavy with implication.
Friends, Sage thought. Maybe we’re becoming friends.
Or something more dangerous than that.
But she didn’t say it out loud. Didn’t want to examine what it meant that Thorne Blackwood—enemy, Thorne, supposed to be hated—felt more like safety than anyone had in years.
They went inside together, shoulders brushing in the doorway.
Thorne made pasta while Sage updated her research notes. They ate in companionable silence, both too tired for conversation.
“I’m going to bed,” Sage said finally, rinsing her dish. “Early start tomorrow?”
“Early start,” Thorne agreed.
She headed for her room, but stopped at the hallway entrance.
“Thorne?”
He looked up from where he was banking the fire.
“We’re going to save them,” Sage said. “All of them.”
She waited for him to question it, to demand how she could know.
Instead, he just smiled—small and tired but real.
“Yeah,” he said. “We are.”
Sage went to bed with those words warming her chest.
Four weeks.
Twenty-eight days.
And a partner who believed in her as much as she was starting to believe in him.
They could do this.
They had to.
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