Chapter 3 The Secret Shop in the Mist

Sisily’s pov

The carriage ride took three agonizing days, and by the time the wheels ground to a halt, every joint in my body was screaming.

I shoved the wooden door open and stepped out into the damp, freezing mud. The air here didn't taste like the crisp, sweet ozone of the Capital. It tasted like wet slate, rotting leaves, and thick mountain sulfur.

Ewww! 

The fucking Billows. A desolate, fog-chrouded hellhole tucked into the jagged teeth of the northern crags.

I clutched my cloak tightly around my neck. My fingers brushed against the raised, blistered skin of the Sigil of the Leash. 

The tracking mark on my collarbone still throbbed with a low, dull burn, a constant reminder that if I tried to run past the border posts, my heart would explode into ash.

Fuck you, Father.

I looked up at the building in front of me. I’d expected a rotting shack with a caved-in roof, but instead, I stood before a tall, narrow three-story building made of dark cobblestone. A faded wooden sign swung above the iron-trimmed door, painted with the words: Maeve’s Antiquarian Texts & Curiosities.

I dragged my single battered trunk up the stone steps and pushed the door open. A small brass bell chimed overhead.

The smell hit me first—old paper, dried lavender, and beeswax. Books were stacked everywhere, towering from the floorboards to the dark wooden ceiling beams in precarious, crooked pillars.

"Aunt Maeve?" I called out, my voice raspy from disuse.

"In the back, child!" a sharp, brisk voice called out.

I hauled my trunk past a row of dusty histories and stopped dead in my tracks.

Sitting on a brass perch beside the front counter was a bird. A massive, jet-black raven, stiff and unmoving. Its eyes were two shiny beads of polished obsidian. It looked stuffed, like a piece of taxidermy some rich weirdo had left behind.

I leaned in, staring at it. "Well, aren't you a creepy little bastard..."

Suddenly, the bird puffed out its black feathers, violently shook its entire body, and flapped its wings with a loud, sudden SLAP.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" I shrieked, leaping backward so hard my heels caught on a stack of encyclopedias. I went down hard on my hip, scrambling across the floorboards like a terrified cat. “Azreldrum crastizaaa…” my voice raised but I couldn’t finish the spell.

"Girl... you are in some real deep shit now," the raven squawked. Its voice wasn't a bird's croak—it was a smooth rasp that sounded like an old woman who’d smoked three packs of cigars a day. It tilted its head, fixating its glossy black eye on me. "Look at you. Covered in soot, smelling like a burnt oven, and whining on the floor. Pathetic."

I froze on the floor, my jaw hanging open. "What the fucking hell... you talk?"

"I speak, I judge, and I sure as hell don't like messy little warlocks knocking over my master's books," the raven snapped, ruffling its wings again. "Get your chaotic ass up off the floor before I peck those dark circles right off your face."

"Barnaby, leave the poor girl alone," a woman's voice cut in.

A tall woman stepped out from behind an arched velvet curtain. 

Aunt Maeve looked almost nothing like my polished, lifeless mother. Her grey-streaked hair was tied back in a messy knot, held together by a silver stir-stick. She wore a stained leather apron over a dark dress, her sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms covered in old chemical burns.

She took one look at my bruised face, my messy hair, and the dark, glowing red mark peeking over my collarbone.

"Alistair's work, I presume?" Maeve asked, her sharp blue eyes softening just a fraction.

"He branded me," I muttered, pushing myself up from the floor and dusting off my skirts. "Banished me here to rot."

"He's a coward," Maeve said flatly, walking over to press a cool, potion-soaked cloth against my burning collarbone. The sting eased instantly, making me let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. "Your mother is no better. But you won't rot here, Sisily. Not unless you let them win."

Finally… somebody that understands me. Before I could answer, a loud click-clack echoed through the shop.

The clock on the wall struck twelve. Midnight.

Aunt Maeve turned toward the third bookshelf on the left—the one filled with leather volumes on ancient botany. She reached out, grasped a thick, unlabelled spine, and pulled it forward.

A grinding noise echoed under the floorboards. The entire third shelf slid backward two inches, then smoothly swung open like a massive door, revealing a steep stone staircase leading down into the dark earth. My eyes widened.

What in gods name am I looking at? My hands almost slapped my cheeks but I had to act normal.

Warm, purple light streamed up from the cellar, along with the rich, thick scent of crushed dragon-root, moon-dust, and boiling copper.

"A bookstore?" I breathed, staring down the hidden stairs.

"By day," Maeve smiled grimly. "By night, we run the only high-grade, unlicensed potion apothecary in the Northern Crags. Warlocks, rogue mages, black-market lords—they all come here when the Capital's legal shops refuse to brew what they need."

My mouth went dry. "Illegal alchemy..."

"Your mother thinks I'm selling old poetry," Maeve said, turning to grab a leather satchel from the counter. Suddenly, a blue glowing parchment flared on her desk, dissolving into ash. Maeve frowned, her face hardening. "Damn it."

"What is it?" I asked.

"An urgent dispatch from the mountain camps. A rare bloom of Shadow-Lotus has just opened in the upper frost-crags. If I don't harvest it tonight, it will wither, and I'll lose a season's worth of potion bases." She turned to me, grabbing my shoulders with a firm, strong grip. "I have to leave right now. I'll be gone for three days."

"Three days?" My heart did a sudden, panicked flip. "Maeve, I just blew up an examination room! You can't leave me alone in an illegal potion shop!"

"You have your mother's blood, but you have my instincts," Maeve insisted, shoving a bronze key into my palm. "Keep the front door locked. Do not touch the cauldron in the lower cellar. And above all else, Sisily..."

She leaned in, her eyes dead serious. "If a man in a dark cloak arrives tonight asking for the Obsidian Elixir, do not open the door. Do not answer him. The brew isn't finished, and he is not a man you want to disappoint. Do you understand me?"

"Yeah," I swallowed hard, my throat tight. "Don't open the door. Got it."

"Good. Barnaby will watch you." Maeve swept her dark cloak over her shoulders, grabbed her harvesting tools, and vanished out the back door into the swirling fog.

The door clicked shut. Silence settled over the shop, broken only by the steady tick-tock of the grandfather clock.

"Well," Barnaby rasped from his perch, shaking his feathers. "Don't just stand there looking stupid, messy girl. Go check the lock."

"Shut up, bird," I gritted out, walking over to the front door.

I reached out to slide the iron deadbolt into place. But before my fingers could touch the metal, the temperature in the room plummeted. The glass windows frosted over with spiderwebs of blue ice.

Then came the knock. THUD. THUD. THUD.

It was a slow, heavy, iron-like impact that vibrated through the reinforced wood. A wave of suffocating heat leaked through the keyhole, instantly evaporating the frost on the glass.

My breath hitched in my chest. My heart slammed against my ribs.

"Girl..." Barnaby whispered, his smart-ass tone completely gone, his obsidian eyes wide with pure terror. "That ain't a man standing out there... that's a whole damn dragon."

Outside, through the thick fog, a dark, towering shadow blocked out the moonlight. And the heavy knocking started again.