Cora Fenwick's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The bond with the fox was set, warm and bright. But when Cora tried to draw on it for the deeper ritual, her wand betrayed her. The legendary spirit she now hoped to reach demanded true bonding magic, not the small work of a cracked focus. Cora raised her wand and spoke the first words. A thin spark climbed the wood, then died at the fracture line. Smoke curled from the split. The spell fizzled. She lowered her arm, angry and cold. The fox pressed its glowing head to her knee. Its fur held tiny points of light, like stars scattered over marsh-gray. Cora looked at the crack in her wand and understood. No spirit worth calling would answer through broken wood. She needed a whole focus, or her arc would end here in the mud. She remembered the trapper's crystal, still in her pocket. Rufus had said the lens showed a thing's true nature. Maybe it could show her what her wand needed. She lifted the lens and studied the cracked tip through its flawless facets. Inside the fracture she saw the ghost of an old mossing stone, long since burned out. The wand had held a crystal once. That was its true shape. Cora dug through her satchel. At the bottom, wrapped in cloth, lay a violet crystal she had traded for weeks ago and never used. Through the lens it glowed deep and even, whole all the way down. Not a single flaw. An unbroken piece, shaped like it was made to seat in a wand. Her hands began to shake. She pried the burned stub of the old stone from the fracture. Then she pushed the amethyst into the gap. It slid home with a soft click, filling the crack, binding the split wood tight around it. The wand went warm in her fist. Light ran the length of it, steady, no smoke. Cora raised the healed wand and spoke the first words again. This time the spark did not die. It climbed the wood, met the crystal, and burst into a clean violet glow that lit the reeds around her. The fox lifted its head and stared into the mist, ears sharp, sensing something answer far off in the deep water. Cora lowered the wand, breathing hard. The focus worked now. The deeper magic would channel. She had her tool. But the glow had carried across the swamp, loud and bright as a shout. In the mist she saw two shapes circle back. The tainted hawk. The mud serpent. They had felt her power wake, and they knew her face. They turned toward the light and came for her.