Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~8 min read
Hazel spent the next morning in Meadow’s cottage, surrounded by ancient grimoires.
“You’re looking for something specific,” Meadow observed, handing her another leather-bound book. “Want to tell me what?”
“Information about familiars. The binding that creates them. The rules that govern them.”
Meadow’s eyebrows rose. “Ah. So he finally told you.”
“You knew?” Hazel looked up sharply. “About the rule against familiars falling in love?”
“Every witch knows. It’s fundamental familiar magic.” Meadow sat across from her. “It’s also why most witches treat their familiars as servants. Keeps the relationship clean. Professional. Safe.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It’s practical. Familiars are powerful protectors precisely because they’re not compromised by emotion. The moment love enters the equation, they become vulnerable. Human.” Meadow studied her. “Orion told you he’s already breaking the rule, didn’t he?”
Hazel nodded, her throat tight.
“And he’s terrified that loving you will make him useless to protect you.”
“Yes.”
“He’s not wrong,” Meadow said gently. “If Orion loses his familiar powers—his immortality, his enhanced strength, his magic sensing—he becomes a very skilled but ultimately mortal fighter. Against someone like Mara, that’s not enough.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Just accept that we can’t be together? Let him leave?”
“Those are your options, yes.”
“No.” Hazel pulled another grimoire toward her. “There has to be another way. Magic always has loopholes. Always has exceptions.”
“Not this magic. The binding that creates familiars is ancient. Older than modern witchcraft. It was designed specifically to prevent emotional compromise.”
“Then I’ll find who designed it and make them change it.”
Meadow smiled sadly. “Hazel, sweetheart. The coven that created familiar magic died out centuries ago. Their binding spells are self-sustaining. No one alive knows how to modify them.”
“Then I’ll learn.”
“That’s—” Meadow paused. Looked at her more carefully. “You’re serious.”
“Completely.”
“Hazel, even if you could find the original binding magic—and that’s a massive if—unraveling it could kill Orion. Familiar bindings are woven into their life force. Remove the binding, you might remove the life.”
“I’m not trying to remove it. I’m trying to modify it.”
“That’s even more dangerous. Binding magic isn’t flexible. It’s absolute.”
Hazel met her eyes. “My magic is different. You said so yourself. Unprecedented. Powerful in ways previous witches in my bloodline weren’t. If anyone could modify an ancient binding—”
“It would be you,” Meadow finished quietly. “Yes. Possibly. But Hazel, the risk—”
“I know the risk. But Orion has spent three hundred years serving, sacrificing, suffering alone because of this binding. If there’s even a chance I can free him from that—” Her voice broke. “I have to try.”
Meadow was quiet for a long moment. Then she stood, moving to a locked cabinet in the corner. She pulled out a key from around her neck and opened it, revealing a single very old, very delicate book.
“This,” she said, carrying it over carefully, “is the only text I know that discusses the original familiar binding. It’s written in Old Gaelic and ancient magical notation. Most of it I can’t even translate.”
Hazel opened it with trembling hands. The pages were yellowed, the ink faded. But she could feel power thrumming from the words—old magic, woven deep.
“What am I looking for?”
“The binding’s structure. How it’s anchored. Where the prohibition against love is written into the magic.” Meadow sat beside her. “If you can find that, maybe—maybe—you can find a way to alter it without destroying the binding entirely.”
They worked for hours. Meadow translated what she could. Hazel studied the magical notation, trying to understand the symbols and patterns.
It was like learning a new language while simultaneously solving a puzzle designed to be unsolvable.
But slowly, patterns emerged.
The familiar binding was a triple weave: immortality, power, and servitude. Each strand reinforced the others. The prohibition against love was woven into all three—a failsafe that unraveled the entire binding if triggered.
“It’s elegant,” Hazel murmured, tracing a particularly complex diagram. “Cruel, but elegant.”
“The witches who designed it wanted absolute loyalty. Absolute objectivity.” Meadow pointed to a passage. “This section explains their reasoning. They’d seen familiars become compromised by attachment. Seen witches die because their protector prioritized emotion over duty. So they made it impossible. Love triggers the binding’s dissolution. The familiar loses everything and reverts to mortal.”
“What if—” Hazel stopped, an idea forming. “What if the binding could be restructured? Not removed, but changed. So that love doesn’t trigger dissolution—it triggers evolution.”
Meadow frowned. “Evolution?”
“The binding assumes love makes familiars weaker. Compromised. But what if it makes them stronger?” Hazel’s mind was racing now. “Our bond—mine and Orion’s—it’s unprecedented. Deeper than normal familiar bonds. And my magic gets stronger when I’m protecting him. When I’m connected to him emotionally.”
“You’re suggesting love could enhance the binding rather than break it.”
“Why not? Magic responds to emotion. Everyone knows that. Fear makes magic chaotic. Anger makes it destructive. Why wouldn’t love make it stronger?”
“Because the binding was designed before modern magical theory. The witches who created it saw emotion as weakness.”
“They were wrong.”
Meadow laughed softly. “Maybe. But convincing three-hundred-year-old binding magic of that is another matter.”
“I have to try.” Hazel looked up from the grimoire. “Can I borrow this? Study it more?”
“On one condition.”
“What?”
“Don’t try to modify the binding until you’ve mastered the theory. Half-knowledge is more dangerous than none. If you attempt this unprepared, you could kill Orion. Or yourself. Or both.”
“I understand.”
“And Hazel?” Meadow’s expression turned serious. “There’s something else you should know. Even if you succeed in restructuring the binding—even if you can make love strengthen rather than break it—Orion still has to choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Whether to accept the change. Familiar bindings require consent. He’d have to willingly let you alter his magic. And given how deeply he believes his duty is to protect you at any cost—” Meadow paused. “He might refuse. Might prefer to keep the current binding and leave rather than risk your safety with untested magic.”
Hazel’s heart sank. Because Meadow was right.
Orion would absolutely refuse if he thought there was any risk to her.
“Then I’ll have to convince him,” she said quietly.
“Good luck. Three hundred years of conditioning isn’t easy to overcome.”
Hazel took the grimoire home, hiding it in her room before Orion could see. He was outside reinforcing wards, giving her space after last night’s conversation.
Through the bond, she could feel his determination. His resolve to maintain distance. To protect her by not loving her.
Except he already loved her. She knew it. He knew it.
The binding just hadn’t triggered yet because he was fighting it so hard.
But it would trigger eventually. And when it did, he’d lose his powers. Become vulnerable. And he’d leave—convinced that being near her while mortal would endanger her.
Unless she could find another way.
That night, she dreamed of the familiar binding. Saw it in her mind as threads of silver light, woven tight and ancient. Saw the strand of prohibition pulsing with cold magic—waiting to unravel the moment Orion’s control broke.
In the dream, she reached out and touched it. And the prohibition recognized her as a threat.
She woke gasping.
Orion was at her door instantly, still in human form. “What’s wrong?”
“Bad dream.” She sat up, heart racing. “I’m okay.”
He scanned the room for threats. “You sure?”
“Yes. Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.” He lingered in the doorway, backlit by hallway light. “Hazel—about last night—”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I wasn’t going to. I was going to say—” He stopped. Started again. “I was going to say that I meant it. Every word. And I’m sorry if the truth hurts, but it’s the only truth I have.”
“I know.”
“I’ll leave when Mara is defeated. You’ll be safe, trained, powerful. You won’t need me anymore.”
“And if I want you anyway?”
His hands clenched on the doorframe. “Then I’ll want you back. From wherever I am. For however long I exist. But Hazel—wanting isn’t enough. It never has been.”
He left before she could respond.
Hazel lay back down, staring at the ceiling.
*Wanting isn’t enough.*
Maybe not.
But love combined with magic?
That might be.
She just had to figure out how to restructure an ancient binding, master magic she barely understood, and convince the most stubborn familiar in existence to let her try.
Simple.
She pulled out the grimoire and started reading again.
Somewhere in these pages was the key to keeping Orion. To giving him the choice he’d never had—to love without losing himself.
She would find it.
Even if it took all night.
Even if it took forever.
Because he’d spent three hundred years protecting witches who never saw him as more than a tool.
And she’d be damned if she let him spend the rest of eternity alone.
Reader Reactions