Chapter 2 The Watch Wasn’t Supposed to Work

The heavy iron chimes of Moonvale’s alarm system echoed through the floorboards like a heartbeat, vibrating straight down into my boots. Dust rained from the wooden beams overhead, speckling the glass jars of mandrake root and floating light-globes in my cellar shop.

I stood frozen beside my workbench, clutching my right wrist. Beneath the leather cuff of my sleeve, the freshly burned crescent mark thrummed with a low, sub-zero pulse that felt less like magic and more like an ice cube jammed directly against my radial artery.

Above us, heavy footsteps pounded against the stone floor of the main courtyard, accompanied by the muffled barking of the proctor's guard-hounds.

"Great," I muttered, my voice echoing in the dim greenhouse. "Absolute, top-tier smashing. My very first day running an unlicensed repair business, and I’m about to end up in the academy dungeons."

"Honk," Sir Fluffington agreed solemnly, nudging his orange beak against my knee before aggressively pecking at a loose thread on my skirt.

"Not now, Fluff," I hissed, yanking my sleeve down over the glowing black mark and grabbing a canvas rag to wipe the silver filings off my desk. "If the proctors come down those steps, we are a perfectly legitimate biology study group. You are a research specimen, and I am a dedicated student studying... vegetable fungi."

The trapdoor at the top of the cellar stairs didn't open. Instead, the shadows at the corner of the room shifted.

Rowan Nightshade didn't walk out of the dark so much as he materialized from it, stepping seamlessly into the amber glow of my fairy-lamps. His silver-trimmed coat was immaculate, but his face had lost every shred of its usual haughty composure. His dark eyes were fixed on my right arm with a sharp, terrifying intensity.

"You're still here," I said, dropping my tweezers onto the mahogany desk with a loud clatter. "I thought you ran off to preserve your precious Student Council reputation."

"The upper wards have sealed the main hall," Rowan said, his voice clipped and unnaturally low. He stepped closer, ignoring Sir Fluffington’s warning hiss. "No one is leaving the West Tower until the proctors locate the source of the magical spike." He stopped a foot from my desk, extending his hand. "Show me your arm."

"I beg your pardon?" I folded my arms tightly across my chest. "You bring a volatile, forbidden artifact into my shop, it projects an apocalyptic shadow nightmare onto my wall, burns a mark into my skin, triggers the academy alarms, and your first request is an inspection?"

"Iris," Rowan commanded, the icy edge returning to his tone, though it was frayed by a rare, crackling tension. "The watch was dormant. It has been inert for three centuries. The gears were fused, the core was dead, and the housing was spell-locked by the High Fae Court. It was physically impossible for a human witch’s mending spell to jump-start the memory vault."

"Well, do inform my magic of its physical limitations, mate, because my arm is currently freezing from the inside out!" I snapped back, taking a step toward him. "What was that vision? Who was the silhouette with the staff? And why in the world are you carrying magic that shows Moonvale crumbling into dust?"

Rowan’s jaw clenched so hard a small muscle in his cheek twitched. He reached out, his long, pale fingers hovering just above my sleeve before pausing. For a fraction of a second, the cold mask slipped, revealing a glimpse of raw, isolated panic that caught me completely off guard.

"I don't know who the silhouette was," Rowan admitted, his voice dropping to a whisper that barely carried over the chiming bells above. "The watch belongs to my family's private vault in the Moon Court. I took it because... because it was the only piece of my mother's estate that remained unopened."

I blinked, my irritation faltering. "Your mother's?"

"She vanished ten years ago," he said smoothly, though the slight stiffness in his shoulders betrayed him. "The watch was found at the edge of the Whispering Woods, cracked and dead. The court artificers said the internal spell-work was corrupted beyond recovery. They told me to throw it away." He met my eyes, his dark gaze locking onto mine with an unyielding weight. "You didn't just mend the casing, Iris. You unsealed a Bellweather lock."

My heart gave a heavy, uncomfortable thud against my ribs. "A what?"

"The runes that flared inside the casing weren't Fae," Rowan said, taking my wrist before I could pull away. His fingers were warm against my cold skin as he gently tugged my sleeve back, exposing the black crescent mark. It pulsed softly in the dim light, casting dark, ink-like shadows across my skin. "They were ancient High Mending script. The same script carved into the foundation stones of Moonvale Academy."

"That's impossible," I wheezed, staring down at his hand on my wrist. "My family repairs broken teapots and cracked wands! We don't build academy seals!"

"Your grandmother told you your family repaired teapots," Rowan corrected sharply, his eyes darting from the mark up to my face. "She lied to you, Iris."

Before I could process the sudden, sharp sting of his words, a muffled THUD rattled the trapdoor at the top of the stairs.

"In the name of the Head Proctor!" a boisterous, booming voice shouted from the corridor above. "Unseal this conservatory immediately!"

Rowan didn't flinch, but his grip on my wrist tightened for a brief second before he let go. "The wards are scanning for the resonance of that activation beam. If they search this room and find that mark on your wrist, they won't just confiscate your tools. They will classify you as a living artifact of the Old Wars."

"Right, lovely," I muttered, pulling my sleeve down and frantically looking around my messy workbench. "And I suppose you have a magical vanishing spell for a glowing crescent mark?"

"No," Rowan said, stepping between me and the cellar stairs, drawing a small, silver dagger from his inner coat pocket. "But I can alter the resonance."

He sliced the palm of his left hand without a flinch, letting three drops of glowing, pale-silver Fae blood fall directly onto the mahogany desk where the watch had rested. He pressed his uninjured fingers over the silver blood, tracing a swift, complex ward in the air.

The air in the cellar snapped like a cracked whip. The cold, heavy pressure on my wrist instantly eased, the thrumming dark pulse fading down to a quiet, buried ember beneath my skin.

"What did you just do?" I whispered, staring at his bleeding palm.

"I masked your magical signature with my own," Rowan said coldly, wiping his blade on a silk handkerchief and tucking it away. "When the proctors break through that door, their diagnostic wands will register nothing more than a high-tier Fae Prince conducting an unauthorized, high-level private spell-casting."

I stared at him, genuinely stunned. "You... you're taking the blame for the alarm?"

"I am protecting my mother's watch," Rowan corrected smoothly, turning his back to me as heavy boots began to thunder down the stone steps. "And ensuring my only competent mechanic doesn't end up in an academy cell before she finishes translating the rest of the casing."

He shot me one final, warning glance over his shoulder his dark eyes fierce, guarded, and entirely unreadable.

"Keep your sleeve down, Bellweather," he murmured just as the cellar door burst open. "Our bargain isn't finished."