Page 13 of Moonveil and Magic

I flipped the sign to OPEN with a sharp, satisfying clack.

The day was a whirlwind of the mundane, a grounding ritual that settled my frayed nerves. The morning passed in a blur of ring-ups for the regulars, mostly older ladies hunting for specific knitting patterns or students seeking a quiet pocket of silence away from the city’s roar.

At noon, the Midday Book Club arrived. They were all humans, six women who met once a month to dissect historical fiction and drown their thoughts in an excessive amount of chamomile tea. Sitting with them felt like a soothing balm, their low-stakes gossip about neighbours and local council bickering providing a shield against reality. Looking at their relaxed faces, it was impossible to reconcile their world with mine. They had no idea the floorboards beneath their feet hid an artifact of world-altering power, or that the roof above them was currently electrified with a sting that could stop a heart. To them, I was just Ivy, the girl who knew which tea went best with a Victorian mystery. And for a few hours… I let myself believe it, too.

As the afternoon shadows grew long, the weight of reality returned. I had a meeting with the Circle tonight. I shut the shop two hours early, the CLOSED sign clicking against the glass with a finality that made my stomach flip. Upstairs, I showered and scrubbed the lingering scent of chamomile tea and gossip away until my skin was pink. Tonight, the games were over. I needed to be ready for whatever they were planning to ask of me, because I knew exactly what happened to those who gave the Council the wrong answers—a sanitation sweep.

I’d seen the aftermath of a sweep once, when I was a teenager. It hadn't been a trial, more an erasure. The enforcers had taken the rogue warlock, stripped the magic from his very marrow until he was a hollow, drooling shell of a man, and then they had burned his home to the ground to ‘purify’ the ley lines. Shirl didn't just arrest people; she dismantled them. She was the one who had pioneered the Silence Rite, a spell that took your voice and severed the connection to your craft entirely. If they found the shard—or worse, if they found out what I was—they wouldn't just be looking for a confession. They would be looking to make sure I never drew a breath of magic again.

I pulled on my leather jacket, the weight feeling like a thin layer of armour. My fingers brushed the filigree bracelet, its cool metal a stark contrast to the heat rising in my chest. I was protecting my bookstore, but I was also standing in the path of a juggernaut that had been crushing people like me for centuries.

Coven Tensions and Spiked Hot Chocolates

The late evening air was crisp as I approached the High Circle’s gathering place. My heels clicked against the cobblestones, a lonely sound that felt far too exposed. I’d swapped my date clothes for something more coven-appropriate: dark, flowing, and restrained. I had to be careful tonight. The High Circle could smell a half-truth as easily as a wolf scents blood.

Two of Shirl’s enforcers stood like twin gargoyles at the entrance, their arms crossed over heavy, sigil-etched chest plates. As I walked past, their gazes tracked and searched me, a cold, magical sweep that made the hair on my arms stand up. I kept my chin high, refusing to let them see my pulse thrumming in my throat.

The High Circle’s hall was a tomb of dim light and suffocating history. The air was thick with the scent of cold stone and the bitter, metallic tang of the frankincense they burned to sharpen their psychic senses. It was the smell of judgment, clinging to my skin.

In the centre of the room, Shirl stood at a high, jagged obsidian podium, her shadow stretching long and sharp across the floor. To her right, Muriel was perched behind a long, polished marble bench, her spine perfectly straight, watching me with the detached interest of an entomologist about to pin a butterfly. Above them, tiered in a semi-circle like a grim jury, sat a committee of twelve High-tier witches. Their collective energy was a physical weight, pressing down on the room until it was hard to draw a full breath.

I was late, and in this room, tardiness was treated as a confession.

“Ivy Thornton,” Shirl said, her voice cutting through the static of the room. “Case file 402. This preliminary inquiry into the Ebonvale disturbances will now commence.”

What followed wasn't a conversation. It was a dissection. For over an hour, they picked apart my life with surgical precision, but it seemed like they couldn’t move on from my scavenging activities. Muriel’s voice was like honey-coated glass as she questioned why a witch of my lineage was spending so much time digging through the magical refuse of the city.

“The atmospheric shifts across the city have not gone unnoticed, Ivy,” one of the committee members called out from the darkness of the gallery. “Yet your reports remain blank. Your abilities are under-utilised. A witch with your potential should be serving the Circle, not hiding in a dusty bookstore. We believe it’s time you came in for more frequent 'assessments.' In fact, we expect you to volunteer for Circle duties by the end of the week. It’s for your own protection, of course.”

Protection. It was their favourite word for a leash.

“I can assure you, Sisters,” I said, my voice steady despite the way my stomach was doing a cold, slow flip. “There is nothing concrete to report regarding the atmospheric shifts. I sensed no more than a faint ripple in the currents, no specific threat.”

I paused, lacing my fingers together in front of me in a picture-perfect display of dutiful compliance.

“As for my assessments, I am of course happy to come in whenever requested. And while my shop keeps me busy, I already take great pride in hosting and mentoring our local witchlings. Building up their foundational skills serves our community, but if the Circle requires more of my time, I would be honoured to contribute.”

“A faint ripple?” Muriel loomed forward over her bench, a cold, mocking smile touching her lips. “While you play teacher to witchlings, the primary surge emanated directly from the vicinity of Moonveil. You were seen in the district at the time of the spike, fraternising with a warlock of… questionable standing.”

A prickle crawled down my spine. To them, Lucien was a dangerous rogue. To me, he was a mystery I’d shared a bed with. If these old crones knew what I was really hiding, they’d do more than question me.

“I can assure you, the wards at Moonveil are intact,” I said. “Any other reports are merely rumours.”

Shirl jutted forward, her knuckles white where her clawed hands gripped the edge of the obsidian podium. The movement was sudden, a flash of hidden ferocity that she reigned in just as quickly, leaving her poised and lethal. “Careful, girl,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, serrated edge. “Do not mistake our patience for ignorance. If we find so much as a speck of illicit magic in that shop, or if we find, to our extreme displeasure, that you have lied to this Council, we will perform the Silence Rite. We will strip the magic from your very veins until you are nothing but a memory.”

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the collective, rhythmic nodding of the committee in the gallery above. Their judgment continued after Shirl’s threat, spiralling into another thirty minutes of bureaucratic suffocation. They logged my refusal to co-operate into the official record and formally noted my deteriorating alignment with Council values. By the time I was dismissed, my name felt like a dirty word in their mouths, and the mandatory volunteer hours at the Council’s archives were etched into my schedule like a prison sentence.

I was dismissed not with a goodbye, but with a cold, communal stare that followed me all the way to the heavy iron doors. I was a blade of grass clinging to the foot of their mountain.

Outside the hall, the cool night air felt like a reprieve from a hanging. My lungs felt raw, as if I’d been holding my breath for the entire hour. I turned a corner and pushed into the local café, the bell above the door chiming a welcome that finally cut through the ringing in my ears.

I spotted Aggy, Mia, and Lola immediately in our corner booth, my favourite brand of trouble. This worn velvet booth was our unofficial sanctuary, the place we retreated to when the world became too heavy for any one of us to carry alone. They were each cradling heavy mugs of thick hot chocolate, topped with melting marshmallows and, judging by the mischievous glint in Lola's eye, a very generous splash of peppermint schnapps.

“You look like you’ve been chewed up and spat out by a gargoyle,” Lola murmured, sliding a fourth mug toward me.

“Worse,” I sighed, sinking into the seat “I’ve been interrogated by Shirl and threatened with volunteer work by Muriel.” I took a long, grateful sip. The schnapps hit the back of my throat with a sharp, minty burn that chased away the lingering chill of the Council.

“Volunteer work is just a front,” Mia whispered, hunched over the table, her face pale in the café’s warm yellow light. “If you’re in the archives, they can monitor your frequency 24/7. It’s the precursor to a sanitation sweep. How bad was it really, Ivy?”