Page 64 of Impawssible Magic

“News travels fast in small towns.” Her smile doesn’t falter. “You know how Mistvale gossip works.”

“I do.” I step around the workbench. Closer to her. Closer to the door. “I also know that you’ve been watching me since I arrived. That you knew about the ward alarm before anyone should have. That you always seem to appear at exactly the right moment with exactly the right amount of concern.”

Iskra’s smile fades. Not disappearing—transforming. Becoming something harder. Colder. More honest.

“You’re smarter than we gave you credit for.”

“We?”

“The Preservers.” She doesn’t bother with pretense anymore. Her posture shifts, shoulders squaring, chin lifting. The helpful neighbor vanishes like mist in sunlight, replaced by something predatory. “We’ve been watching you for years, Leire Firesinger. Since before your first familiar bond. Since before you even knew what you were.”

“And what am I?”

“A threat to everything we’ve built over centuries.” She moves toward me, and I back up, keeping the workbench between us. “Your exile should have been enough. Cut off from your coven, your familiar, your support systems—most witches with mate potential fade. Their magic destabilizes without proper anchoring. They become harmless.” Her eyes narrow. “But you came here. To Mistvale. And now you’re forming something with a tiger shifter, and everything we’ve worked for is at risk.”

“So what now?” I keep my voice steady, though my pulse is racing. “You kill me? In broad daylight, in the middle of my shop?”

Iskra laughs. The sound is wrong—brittle, humorless, nothing like the warm chuckle I remember from her first visit.

“I’m not here to kill you, Leire. I’m here to give you one last chance.” She pulls something from her pocket—a crystal, dark and pulsing with malevolent energy that makes my skin crawl.

“Come with me willingly. Let us complete what we started. A binding—old magic, designed to permanently suppress mate potential. Not exile you from it. Cauterize the possibility entirely.” Her voice drops, silk over steel. “You’ll forget the pull. Forget him. Live a perfectly ordinary life. And I promise your tiger won’t be harmed.”

“My tiger?”

“Aslan Nexis.” The name rolls off her tongue like a curse. “We know about him. We know he’s nearby, thinking he can protect you. But if you force our hand—if you make us take you by force—he’ll die. Slowly. Painfully. And you’ll watch every moment.”

Fear lances through me. Not for myself—for him. The thought of Aslan bleeding out in some dark alley because of me, because I was too stubborn to surrender⁠—

No.

I straighten my spine. Square my shoulders. Meet Iskra’s cold eyes with everything I have.

“You’re wrong about one thing.” I let my magic rise, let it crackle at my fingertips like static before a storm. The crystals around me respond, humming with resonant energy. “He’s not my protector. He’s my partner. And neither of us is going anywhere with you.”

I throw the smoky quartz.

Everything happens at once.

The crystal shatters against Iskra’s hastily raised shield—not a direct hit, but enough to stagger her backward. I’m already moving, grabbing crystals from my workbench, channeling energy into them with desperate efficiency.

Iskra snarls. Her magic lashes out—dark, twisted, nothing like the clean energy I’m used to working with. It slams into my wards and I feel them buckle, feel the shop’s protections straining against power they were never designed to withstand. The display cases rattle. Glass cracks.

The amethyst screams—a sound no one else can hear but that drives into my skull like a spike.

The door explodes inward.

Not Aslan—three Preservers in dark clothing, their faces masked, their movements magically enhanced. They move too fast, too smooth, their edges blurring with speed that isn’t natural. They spread out, cutting off the exits, hemming me in.

“Take her alive.” Iskra’s voice cuts through the chaos. “We need her intact for the binding.”

I throw a charged quartz at the nearest attacker. It detonates on impact, sending him flying into a display of tumbled stones. Another one moves to flank me and I spin, catching her with a burst of raw power that I barely control. The energy is wild, unstable without a familiar anchor, but I channel it anyway—pour everything I have into defense, into survival, into buying time.

The shop is chaos—crystals flying, magic crackling, display cases shattering in the crossfire. Glass and stone scatter across the floor. The selenite by the window explodes in a shower of white fragments. The rose quartz goes flying, and I feel a pang of guilt even as I keep fighting.

A hand closes on my arm. I twist, pull, break free. Throw an elbow into someone’s face and feel cartilage crunch under the impact. Power floods through me, defensive shields crackling around me like a second skin.

His voice. Not in my head exactly—I don’t hear his thoughts—but the pulse of awareness sharpens. The knowledge that he’s coming, that he’s close, that I’m not alone. That pull in my chest, spinning toward him.