40°58‘57.7“N 47°29‘11.3“E – Kərimli, Azerbaijan

20.05.2024 – 19.30 UTC +04.00

“Who put you in here?” I asked Ramin. We were sitting facing each other in the kitchen of the cabin, under the light of my warding match.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “and I am not sure how long I am here”

--Do not speak to anyone, I am coming right away, Starling

The whisper echoed in my head. The match’s light dimmed as I lost focus: they tried to bend my will again. I weighed my options, but then I remembered what my premonition was.

RUN

“Grab my hand,” I said. I did not trust this guy, but if anyone had answers it would be him. Plus, I felt pity for him. If he was telling the truth and I abandoned him here, he would be lost again in this hazy aromatic fever dream of “all-is-well” that we were before. I could not stand by it.

Ramin quickly ran next to me and grabbed my arm.

Stay lit only for us I prayed to the match, and its flame changed to green. We started walking slowly. I had never done this with matches. There was a limited number of them, so I was extra cautious with the flame. We passed through the kitchen and reached the door to the garden; we would leave through the back door.

Or rather we would have. The doorbell rang as we tried to reach the door, with a chime that sounded like a bird’s melody. Ramin tied his hands around my arm.

“Hi, it’s us”, a friendly voice sounded from outside, its command passing distorted through the ward I had cast around us. I felt Ramin ready to let go, possibly influenced by the command, but I held on tight to him. At this stage, I was safer if he stayed with me.

We kept walking, in tiny steps, now in the center of the house. We were now closer to the backdoor than the front door, but we both knew that whoever was just ringing that bell had no intention of simply letting us go.

I stopped walking for a moment, hesitating. Perhaps they thought we already left, and it was better to hide inside?

“I guess no one is hOmE,” the distorted voice screamed from the outside.

And as it did, I could see in the back of my eye, one by one, our glasses breaking. The mirror on the wall crumbled shattering in hundreds of pieces and flying around. The wardrobe glass door and the window exploded, with all the pieces piercing through objects in the house. If I were not in lethal danger, I would be in awe of this exposition of what seemed like translucent pyrotechnics: every glass in the house bursting and hurling in all directions.

And quickly the glasses were dyed in blood.

Ramin’s eyes begged me for help, as a big shard of glass was protruding from his shoulder. Blood was quickly oozing out of the wound.

I put my finger in front of his lips. He had to endure this in quiet.

I looked around as the glass dust settled around the house. I was not hurt; my ward should have protected us both, I thought, but for some reason only protected me.

Was I still weakened? It did not matter. I pulled out another match and blew on it, praying my hardest for my Curse to suffice for what was to follow.

Stay lit only for us.

The door unlocked from the outside, and very slowly opened forth.

A man and a woman walked inside the house, both dressed in everyday attire, but wearing the signature bird-like mask. Covering the upper part of the face, a black feathery mask mirrored light in iridizing patterns. They were from Starling’s coven, and under their official guise.

They slowly walked inside the house, while we stood in the middle of the large room, hoping my match’s ward would be enough to leave us unseen. I kept my finger on Ramin’s lips, as he tried to hold on to me.

“There is no one here,” said the man with a familiar voice.

“For our good, I hope she is hidden somewhere,” the woman said “I will check the basement”

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The man did not respond to her, and she simply ran towards the door that Ramin had used not so long ago to fix the power outage I had caused.

The man maintained a concerned pause before he started moving around. Behind the bird mask, you could tell he tried to remain focused. He walked slowly around the room, examining the ravaged furniture. He was wearing a pair of gloves, and he avoided touching or even getting close to most items. I wondered if he knew about the kind of enchantments put through the place to keep me and Ramin under mental restraints.

Ramin grabbed one of the matches from my left hand and held it near my face. I blew on it, as I threw the one that was almost burning out.

Stay lit only for us, I whispered.

We did not have unlimited matches, so I hoped the pair would quickly leave. Ramin was also quickly bleeding out, so it was a matter of who would run out of time first.

The man with the bird mask focused on us. Maybe it was the split second that I took to change matches, but it was unmistakable that he was directly looking at our spot. He took a few steps towards us.

I did not worry. If he could see us he would definitely have acted or called for help. I did wonder what his brain was telling him though: when I was warded like this, people willing to harm me could not locate me, but I was not invisible.

He stopped half a step next to us. I could even hear him breathe – but instinctually both Ramin and I held our breath. The man kneeled to examine the floor near Ramin.

-- Nisÿ, if you are hurt please answer me. We will find a way. Zephyr.

A whisper reached me, but I did not doubt even for a second it was sent by the man right in front of me. I felt anger overwhelming me. That man was Zephyr. Why would Zephyr be hunting for me? What did I do to deserve it?

I could not do anything of course, and I would definitely not answer him.

“Did you find anything?” The woman asked appearing from the door of the basement.

The man stood up looking at his gloved hand.

“Yes. Blood. They are hurt.” He said showing the glistening red on his glove, pointing at the ground right next to Ramin. His wound had resulted in significant blood loss, and I could feel him tremble weakly next to me. Some of the blood had found its way and pooled outside my ward. “They can’t have gone far,” Zephyr said – I was now sure that was him, the more I heard him the better I recognized his voice.

As they walked towards the door, I blew on another match, igniting it with my Curse.

The masked woman turned and looked back, her expressions unclear behind the black feathers.

“Are you sure none of them are not hidden here somehow?” she asked.

Zephyr paused, and I could swear looked right at us.

“Of course not. I would have found her.” He opened the door and exited behind her.

We waited for a few moments before we could breathe again. They were gone. I looked at Ramin, whose color was getting paler by the second.

“You have to pull… the glass out” Ramin said eventually.

“You will bleed out”

“Trust me,” he said grunting in pain “Please do it now”

He turned his back to me, and I could finally see the shard of glass sticking out of his shoulder blade and ripped clothes. I noticed the skin around the wound had taken a coal-like color. As I touched it, it felt like coarse ashes were oozing out of the wound.

I pulled the glass out. The grey powder started shifting, and it seemed like it was quickly cauterizing and healing the wound. The ashes had a mind of their own, and I was fascinated by it. Ramin quickly turned around.

“You are one of them,” I said, and I did not know if what I felt was fear or excitement. I had never seen a Shadow before in my life.

“Not exactly,” he said, but he looked guilty to admit it. Or even ashamed.

I grabbed his hand tight. “You will explain. But first, we need to leave this place.”

We walked for a while through the town. I had my remaining matches at hand, ready to use them if we needed to quickly be warded. The more we walked away from that house, the more this feeling of forced coziness and drowsiness withdrew. And Ramin did not bleed at all anymore – sure our clothes looked a bit roughed up, but that was not a priority. Something else was, and I was surprised to admit it.

“We need to find food immediately,” Ramin said. Alongside the feel of warmth and safety that the house had forced upon us, there must have been some kind of sustenance hex, as it suddenly felt like I had not eaten properly for longer than I should. I wondered if my memories of dinner were even real, or if Ramin and I just pretended to eat.

I quickly agreed and the first diner we found that was half-full, we sat in it. We knew the two Starling-masked Cursed were looking for us, so once we sat at the table and ordered, I asked for a candle from the waitress, who simply brought one without questioning the request.

I lit it and left it in the center of the table. If they were to pass, they would hardly notice us. And Zephyr personally knew that was the case – and that’s why he had whispered at me, hoping I would answer and reveal myself. What I could not piece together was whether he had really detected us in that house and let us go, or simply lied to his partner in crime about my Curses.

“Won’t the waitress find us now? I think the point was to eat eventually,” Ramin joked stopping my lingering thoughts.

“That is not how my ward works.”

“Sure, sure.” We both looked at each other a bit awkwardly.

“So, a shadow and a seer enter a bar,” Ramin tried to joke again.

“It is dinner. And you are not a shadow. At least I can’t sense so.”

“I am a half-blood. I can switch it on and off.”