21 Aug. 2025

The bags had been stacked by the back door before sunset. Two neat columns of soft-sided luggage and daypacks, with all zippers checked… twice… and ferry tickets, folded into the outer pocket of Ainsley’s mother’s purse, were present and accounted for. The sight of them had been companionable at first, and a reminder of Mrs Grandin’s regimented need… and expectation… that everyone’s life would accede to the fact that, at least as far as this trip was concerned, our days (and most evenings!) would be operating on a tight time schedule.

A week-long celebration of Ainsley's grandparents’ seventy-five years of wedded bliss was well earned and had been meticulously planned to the minute. But now, hours after AngelFyre’s arrival for the sleepover before they all were to leave at o’dark-thirty the next morning, the bags seemed to hold the stillness of a house already half emptied of its people.

By ten, the house had gone into night mode. Lamps were low. Hall doors stayed ajar so no latch would complain. Bare feet landed soundlessly on the runner that softened the old stairs’ middle boards. Somewhere outside, a fox barked once, quick and high, the sound carrying much farther than seemed possible on such a windless night. The echo lingered in the eaves before fading back into the black.

Upstairs, her friend’s room smelled faintly of soap and clean linen — Ainsley’s mother’s doing. It was familial comfort delivered through the simple act of breathing. AngelFyre lay beneath the sheets, watching the spill of warm light from the landing play across her friend’s sleeping face, and her mouth softened into a smile. Ainsley’s breathing rose and fell in an unhurried tide, and the sight pressed at something raw in AngelFyre’s chest.

Not so long ago, in her first life… the life before Hogwarts… AngelFyre shared everything with the trusted friend lying next to her. Now so much of who and what she was had to be shrouded in secret. It did not sit right with AngelFyre. She was still a person of her word, or strove to be, and she recalled clearly the blood oath she, Ainsley, and Kendric had taken at the age of six to tell each other everything. It was undertaken as children, true, but it had been done in earnest. Telling anyone everything… with the exception of Simon… was out of the question these days, and it made her feel a fraud much of the time in the company of her best girlfriend.

Her one consolation was the hope that growing up meant secrets were inevitable on both sides of the equation. Perhaps Ainsley had secrets of her own.

Still, she had told herself she would go along on the trip. Let the week be what it was meant to be… a fun-filled ferry crossing from Mallaig to Skye, meals around a large family table, visits to the Neist Point Lighthouse, and all of it in the sanctuary of people who had known her from the inside out since the age of five, or had until she turned 11½ years old. That was then, this was now. Now they probably did not know but a 1/3 of what went on with her.

Was this a sustainable basis for a friendship? AngelFyre sure hoped so. But heartbreak was not a sustainable foundation to pretend happiness where little resided right now, and she was definitely not the one needed at a 75th wedding celebration. She knew that would dissolve her to tears and there had been enough of those lately. Then the terrible thought danced through her mind—would Simon ever celebrate a 75th wedding anniversary… with Vanessa?

That had crossed her mind probably five million times this day alone, and she sighed heavily before kicking her foot free of the sheets. She stared up at a blank ceiling. Her ceiling at home… and at school… had photos of Simon numbering in the hundreds. She had joined his Lumos! club years ago, but he was always her favorite subject to photograph.

As she lay in bed for two sleepless hours, aching to speak to him through their mark, the raw place in her chest argued, and the argument was persuasive. The staged breakup still rattled in her bones. The unsteady air around Simon and Vanessa’s betrothal left every thought half formed all summer long. Restlessness thrummed under her skin like a fever. A week of pretend-smiling through that would serve no one, least of all her.

She simply did not have the fake-it-until-you-make-it spirit right now.

So, she rose from the edge of the bed without hurry, her bare soles deftly avoiding the creaky floorboards, and crossed to Ainsley's desk by the window. A stationery pad decorated with Highland cows, along with a ballpoint pen that had to be coaxed to write by scribbling a series of concentric circles on the back corner of the note before the ink flowed smoothly, sat to the side. She kept her hand steady, and her resolve even more so, as she penned her note to Ainsley.

Ainz,

I am sorry. I am not in the right space to visit Skye for a whole week. I want to stick close to home right now. Please do not worry about me. I am fine. It is too early to wake anyone, but please have a great time and give my love and congratulations to your grandparents. I will see you when you return and we will talk then.

Love ya,
~AF

She read it over once in the filtered moonlight, folded it on the crease, and then quietly padded downstairs. The kitchen light was off and the refrigerator hummed in the dark. She set the note in front of the tea kettle and the fabric-lined box of tinned teas. The clock above the fridge marked a quarter past midnight. The minute hand ticked in the same cadence as her thoughts.

She wanted to go home and curl up with Hillary and stare at her Simon shrine from the confines of her own bed. She was thinking hard about whether she would contact her boy via the mark once she got home. She was more hesitant to reach out to him since he was currently at Hawthorne Manor, so it was not an easy impulse to give in to as she normally would. More was at risk for him while there, so they had fallen into the pattern of his contacting her.

They spoke each day, but an Eeyore-like dark cloud hovered over them regardless of their best efforts to have it be otherwise. They had spoken a little earlier in the evening after everyone had gone to bed in the Grandin household, but she yearned to speak to him once more. Suddenly it seemed very important to tell him again how much she loved him. There was no white noise crackling in the background of her mind, so she knew he would still be awake. She had learned to listen to these instincts and knew she would reach out to him once home.

Her sweater hung by the back door and she grabbed it, but did not put it on. The long sleeves on her dress would keep any unlikely chill at bay for the six to seven minute walk home. She tossed it over her forearm, and out of habit, checked her wand holster clasp. Godshall was safe and secure. Boots were laced. Her tapestry bag was culled from the rest by the door and was now in hand. She opened and closed the door slowly enough that the latch never found its voice and then AngelFyre stole away into the night.

The late summer air met her like a welcome breath, full of grassy dampness and the hint of earthy minerals on stone cooling after the day. She stepped onto the flagstones and began to walk toward the front of the Grandin property. Behind her, light from the hallway pooled yellow over the doorstep and then stopped, as if unwilling to follow. Ahead were hedgerows and the narrow, pale ribbon of gravel that had always carried her safely to her own door.

She set her pace for haste, wishing to hurry so she could hear Simon that much sooner.

William Wallace Lane turned a shade or three darker than the Grandins’ driveway when she turned left toward home. She had walked this way enough times to know the usual sounds: her own tread; the soft, wind-stirred rasp of branch against branch; Mrs. Kerr’s dog, Diego, giving notice once in a while from two gardens over. Tonight the lane offered only her footsteps.

Then, a second sound, lighter, a faint rustle somewhere behind her and low to the ground. Not the quick scatter of a small shrew, but the deliberate brush of something making space for itself between branches. Likely the fox she heard earlier.

The wind turned in the lane, slipping its primrose perfumed fingers along her cheek. It also brought with it a mixed scent sharp enough to catch in the back of her throat: the hospital clean bite of denatured alcohol, the chalk dry tang of tanning salts, and under them, the faint, iron-sweet ghost of old blood. She knew those notes from her sanctuary’s animal clinic, and from carcasses delivered after hours.

Samael did not announce himself with voice. He let the world announce him with the absence he made in it, likely due to his unsettling aura at work. The absence of sound around him was deafening. The moonlight felt as if it had shifted simply because he had entered it. A twig gave a sharp, brittle snap under his weight… the only warning she would get.

The stone wall of the bridge scuffed her bag as the lane narrowed. After taking five to six steps onto the bridge, a wizened, pale hand clamped hard over her mouth from behind. Cold fingers bit into the hinge of her jaw, forcing her head back. No warning. No time to turn thought into action. No shape in the dark until it was already on her.

Moonlight found the oval flash of spectacles in that instant, and then his breath was in her ear, carrying words bent and warped as if meant for someone else entirely. “Didn’t I tell you, Greta? Didn’t I tell you Adrian would leave her for me?”

The palm that covered her mouth and pinched her nostrils closed was inhumanly cold, barring any chance at calling out Simon’s name. Her eyes had widened in surprise, but before her body could translate alarm into struggle, the sting of a needle pricked the back of her arm—a pinpoint lost in the adrenaline.

The world gave way to black.

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@Simon Kincaid

Reducio

AngelFyre has longstanding permission to godmod Simon.

23 Aug. 2025

She rose toward waking in slow, uneven surges, as if her mind were trying to swim through tar. Only her thoughts moved, sluggish as silt stirred by a slow, deep current. Her limbs were not only heavy but immobile, her body giving no sign of waking... not by choice... but locked under the weight of the drugs.

The air was close and parched, tasting of dust, old stone, and faint grit, as if the walls themselves exhaled the remnants of struggles long settled into silence. Gossamer threads of spider silk clung to her cheek and lips, whisper light yet unyielding, their delicate tension a snare she could not yet unspin. She held still, every muscle taut, the silence pressing in until even her heartbeat felt too loud. Threads she could not yet see were drawing tight.

The Binding Mark was there, but faint, like hearing it through a wall. Not the soft hum of sleep, but a deeper muffling, drug heavy and wrong. AngelFyre tried to follow it, but her thoughts slid sideways.

A voice cut into the haze — low, smooth, deliberate. “Greta… look at her. She is exactly as I imagined.”

Silence.

A pause, as if he were listening.

“Yes… yes, I know. She will not last long, but we’ll take our time.”

The words drifted past her, but something in them snagged. Greta. Simon had told her… something... about a Greta. Think AF! Not real. A name that belonged to no one. A name only one man used.

The thought slipped away before she could hold it.

Footsteps moved somewhere close. Slow. Certain.

Then, with a curl of disdain: “I’d like to see the light leave the eyes — especially when those eyes belong to Salmon’s little soulmate.”

That name also snagged in her mind. Salmon. One of Lilith’s petty “S-names” for Simon... the kind he had told her about and mentioned was always delivered with a haughty sneer. Even through the fog, the insult landed like a cold fingertip pressed to the back of her neck. Her stomach tightened, a faint, queasy twist that had nothing to do with the drug. Lilith’s contempt was here in the room, carried on Samael’s tongue.

Fear now slid cold through the drug fog. A kidnapping would be serious under any circumstance, but this was worse. Adrian had already threatened to harm her to force Simon’s obedience. The fake breakup had only been orchestrated for her safety. If Samael had her now, it meant something had gone wrong for Simon... badly wrong. That thought chilled her more than the morning damp and chains.

“You’re too eager,” Samael muttered to his phantom. “The Bone House is perfect. Quiet walls. No one comes here. She belongs here — quicker to keep her where she ends.” Another pause, then a hiss: “Yes, yes… I heard him, too. A few minutes away still.”

Her pulse beat like the rhythm of a snare drum. Him? Who him? Adrian? She had heard no one, but Samael had. Of course, he heard imaginary people, so what stock could she really put into it?

Her wrists were bound in both rope and chain. The chains, surprisingly, allowed her more movement. It was the ropes that most restricted her. She could feel the rope on her left wrist was frayed in one place... not much, but enough. She let her fingers drift behind her until they found something sharp, a splintered shard of bone. Working by touch, she began to saw at the rope, each movement small but deliberate. The chain bit into her skin, but the rope began to give.

Outside, Simon’s voice tore through the air.

“ANGELFYRE!”

Her breath caught. Relief surged, but with it came a sharper fear. If Simon was here, he was within Samael’s reach. She sawed a little faster and felt rope tendrils detach and loosen.

Samael went still. Greta must have urged him because he snarled. “I'm not so stupid as to kill Adrian’s spawn, Greta, but why is he roaming? That was not the plan.” His boots turned toward the door. “Don’t worry, Greta. I will have my spectacle.”

The hinges groaned. The door scraped over uneven ground. Cool air slid in as Samael slid out, bringing the clean, fresh scent of an approaching dawn and the faint sweetness of grass before the sun touched it.

She then opened her eyes, squinting even against the dim, yet too-bright torchlight.

Arc was in the rafters. His eyes, like blood orange embers, steady and unblinking in the gloom, were fixed on her. She met his gaze, struggling to lift her freed left hand, and snapped her wrist clumsily two times before Godshall finally slid into her palm. She licked her lips and swallowed to get some moisture in her mouth. She was only going to get one, maybe two shots at this. Shaking her head and then gathering her focus, she whispered, “Steelclaw!”

Her magic pulsed down her arm, warming her hand as it streamed out at Arc through her wand. His talons gleamed metallic in the dim light, feathers settling tight to his body.

The door creaked again, but this time there would be no more pretending. Now she turned her head in time to see Samael step back inside, and their eyes met for the first and only time. He moved stealthily towards her, and she saw the murderous glint in his eyes. AngelFyre sucked in a shallow breath but squared her shoulders, masking the fear knotted in her chest, and simply smiled at him, hoping to keep his attention on her.

That confused Samael, cementing him in place. And Arc then dropped like a stone.

The impact cracked the air — a wet, tearing sound followed by the hot, metallic odor of blood. The violence jolted through the fog in her head like cold water. Samael’s screams were blood-curdling. His spectacles flew off on impact, and his fists landed only a couple of blows to Arc’s chest. His hands clawed at his bloodied, empty eye sockets as his screams reverberated through her own bones.

Arc persisted, screeching in triumph as his prey’s boots scraped gravel on flagstones before his body slammed into the door frame, causing the stacked bones to rattle in their niches. He wailed as he stumbled out into the yard, blinded, and threatening death, but Arc had already escaped.

She was not ever keen on hearing Arc dispatch his prey, but this time a grim, fierce satisfaction flared in her chest. AngelFyre saw him safely circling a couple of times in the waning moonlight and hoped that Simon would see him as well.

Outside, chaos widened — wings clashing, cries she could not hear. Later, she would learn Arc had joined Percy, Simon’s owl, in a to the death battle against a raven. A very particular raven… Lilith’s raven.

But then the heavy door pressed back into place, closing her off to the world once again. She struggled to try to stand up, worried that Samael might still be about and figuring to remove her from this mortal coil. Her mind was still foggy, but she noted she still had her wand in her hand. She was trying desperately to remember the incantation for unlocking doors, hoping it might work on the metal shackles, but it was not coming to her.

Then she heard a body slam into the heavy door and she was convinced she would look up to see the raw meat that was once Samael’s face listing towards her in a homicidal rage. She gripped her wand tightly, preparing her wobbly self as best she could for battle. As the hinges groaned and gave way to his weight and power, she heard him scream.

“ANGELFYRE!”

She was still chained by one wrist, her body heavy with the drug, but she was alive. A shadow filled the doorway, breathless, bloodied, eyes wide with horror and relief. And then she knew.

He had found her.

Simon had found her.

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The crash of splintering wood still rang in her ears as the door slammed back against the wall, and Simon was there — framed in jagged torch light and shadow, breath ragged, eyes locking on hers. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to only that look between them.

“I am here, Simon. I am here,” she called out to him, her eyes flicking down to his tattered, blood‑stained shirt before she uttered, “Hold on, love.”

Something in her words just then stirred at the back of her mind, but there was no time to grasp it. He was already moving toward her.

He rushed to her side, his hands swiftly encircling the shackle. The drug fog still clung to her, but she fixed on the ripple of muscle shifting beneath his shirt as he worked — the flex and release of his dhampir strength which she knew as well as her own breath.

“Samael—” her voice caught, disbelief ringing through it, “— he… he was going to kill me.”

The cuff snapped immediately after she told him Samael meant to kill her, and he tossed it angrily to the floor. For a heartbeat she could not move — the weight at her wrist was gone, but the memory of it was still biting into her skin. Relief, when it came, surged so sharply it almost hurt, tangled with the shock that Simon was really here, he was safe, and she was free.

“I know,” he said, voice low and breaking a little, carrying the weight of pain, relief, and everything that had driven him through the dark to reach her. In the same breath, he swept her up, her knees folding easily into the cradle of his arm as he spun them around and headed toward the door. His hold was fierce... unyielding. The scent of perspiration clung to his hair, threaded with the faint, metallic trace of blood.

Without slowing, Simon shouldered open the warped door of the Bone House and carried her out into the night. Across the dark expanse beyond the village, Hawthorne Manor burned... its flames leaping high, licking at the gates of Heaven. The air was thick with smoke, the scent of scorched wood drifting even here.

AngelFyre lifted her head, eyes sweeping the street behind them, guarding their backs while Simon’s focus stayed fixed ahead. In the early‑dawn gloom, every shadow felt like it could hold Samael… or Adrian.

As he carried her forward, the scene unfolded in fragments: villagers spilling into the street in their nightclothes, faces pale in the firelight. Men gripped rough‑hewn tools like weapons, women clutched children to their skirts or pulled shawls tight against the chill. Some crossed themselves and whispered prayers, their eyes wide, as he strode past — staring as if they had never seen anything like the blood‑streaked young man carrying a wand‑armed young woman through their village.

Over Simon’s shoulder, she caught sight of Percy locked in a brutal spiral with a raven. The two wheeled through the air, feathers scattering, until Percy broke formation and hit the ground hard, wings splayed. His screech choked off, and her stomach lurched.

Above him, the raven stayed aloft, banking sharply to meet Arc as he came streaking down from the sky. Steelclaw‑bright talons clashed with blue‑black wings in a flurry of feathers and shrieks. The two birds tangled mid‑air, breaking apart and circling for another pass.

Then the raven reappeared — a shadow with wings — and collided with Arc in a violent burst of motion. It was brief. Arc twisted, struck, and the raven plummeted, limp and still.

Simon never saw any of it. His focus was forward, boots pounding over the rutted road, his dhampir eyes cutting through the shadows for any sign of movement.

Every doorway felt like a mouth ready to open. Every alley a throat that could swallow them whole. The binding mark’s link was now steady — the same silent tether it always was when they were awake — but she did not reach for it. Not while every sense was tuned to danger.

The village fell off in the distance behind them. The air cooled under the canopy, damp earth and crushed leaves rising in her senses. Still, AngelFyre did not relax. Not until the sounds of pursuit — real or imagined — faded into the rustle of leaves.

Her mind reeled with an uncomfortable familiarity. The scene had unfolded as if she were walking through her own memory... the narrow lanes, the firelit sky, Simon running through a medieval village calling out to her in fear and desperation. She recognized it as her first-ever vision, the one with Simon in the Library so many years ago. She saw it so clearly now when it had been nothing but a blur of feelings at the time. What she knew unequivocally then was it had been a warning of danger coming at Simon from his father, and what she knew now was that vision of danger had pointed to this very night... only she had not seen Simon saving her. For the first time, she wondered if her warnings to him had not only changed what was to come… but had actually helped to save him... the both of them... after all.

She squeezed him tightly and said a quick prayer of thanks before shifting in his arms, glancing ahead briefly. Then she glanced up at her love, a silent question in her eyes.

“Clara’s hidden hut.” His reply carried silently to her through the binding mark — unwavering despite the pain he was likley feeling beneath it. “No one from the village knows it’s there.”

He carried them deeper into the forest with the unerring stride of someone who knew exactly where he was going, because he did know. He had been there another time when he had needed saving.

AngelFyre nodded and turned back around. She kept watch because Samael could be anywhere, and until they reached safety, she would guard Simon's back as fiercely as he guarded hers.

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@Simon Kincaid