Page 41 of Impawssible Magic

“Who are you?”

She doesn’t answer. Just sets the envelope on a crate and walks away, footsteps silent on the damp stone.

My hands shake as I pick it up. The paper is expensive—heavy stock, cream-colored, the kind used for formal invitations. Inside: the Preserver symbol—that same angular pattern from my crystals, from the Registry records—and three words in elegant script.

The Severing holds.

I make it back to the shop on autopilot. My legs carry me through the square, past the fountain, past Grandmother Peach’s sample table (she looks up as I pass, her too-bright eyes tracking my movements with an expression I can’t read), past the selkies and the troll and all the normal people having a normal day.

By the time I reach Whisperwind Charms, I’m shaking so hard, I can barely get the key out of my pocket. My vision is blurry. My chest feels like something is sitting on it—a weight I can’t push off.

Aslan is waiting.

He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. His head lifts the moment I come into view, nostrils flaring. His whole posture sharpens—from relaxed waiting to coiled readiness in the space between heartbeats.

“What happened?” He’s moving before I reach him, hands catching my shoulders, steadying me. “Leire. What happened?”

The concern in his voice undoes me. I tell him everything—words tumbling out in a rush. Shadow appearing. The wrong emptiness in his eyes. Following him into the alley like an idiot. The woman, the envelope, the message.

He takes the envelope. Reads the three words. His jaw goes tight, muscle jumping.

“They’re escalating.”

“No shit.” I laugh, and it comes out cracked. Wrong. “They used him, Aslan. They used Shadow to get to me. My familiar. My—” The word sticks in my throat. My heart.

Aslan crouches in front of me. When did I sit down? I’m on the steps leading up to my apartment, and I don’t remember getting here. His hands are warm on my knees—grounding, solid, real.

“What if he wasn’t acting of his own will?”

I stare at him.

“The way you described him. The flat eyes. The lack of response.” His voice is steady, certain. “That doesn’t sound like a familiar who chose to betray his witch. That sounds like a familiar who’s being controlled.”

Controlled. Not betrayed. Controlled.

“He testified against me. At the coven tribunal⁠—”

“Did you see him say those things? Or did someone tell you he said them?”

I try to remember. The tribunal room with its cold stone walls and colder faces. The elders reading out Shadow’s “testimony” while I stood there with my magic guttering like a candle in a storm. They’d told me Shadow testified. I never actually heard him speak. Never saw him in that room. They’d kept him “separate for his protection.”

Protection from what? From me seeing the truth?

“I didn’t see him.” My voice drops to a whisper. “They said he couldn’t face me.”

“Or they couldn’t risk you seeing his eyes.”

“Oh god.” The tears come. I haven’t cried about Shadow since the first week after the exile, when I ran out of tears and had to start functioning on pure spite instead.

A hand touches my shoulder. Warm. Heavy. Aslan’s hand, resting there with an awkwardness that somehow makes it more comforting. He’s clearly out of his depth with crying women. But he’s trying.

“We don’t know for certain.” His voice is quiet, steady. “But the pattern fits. If the Preservers had access to your old coven...”

“They manufactured the whole thing.” My voice comes out flat, scraped raw. “The betrayal. The exile. All of it.”

“It’s possible.”

“Possible. My whole life imploded because of a lie, and you’re saying it’s possible?”