Morrigan Vex's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Morrigan Vex had spent six weeks preparing this binding, and now a stray fairy was trying to eat it. She sat cross-legged at her work table inside the cottage, six weeks of patience laid out in front of her. A candle burned steady. The cauldron gave off pale green light. Between the potted herbs and the jars of tincture lay the pendant she had built for him — two sigils curled together, one hers, one his. He did not know she existed yet. The chaos thread that would fix that was due to surface tonight. She had counted three convergences pointing to him. She would not miscount again. The last time she rushed a working, she had paid a cost she still would not say out loud. The wisp hovered above the cauldron. Small. Grey-skinned. Wings like stained glass. It had drifted in through an open shutter an hour ago and refused to leave. Every time Morrigan reached for the binding thread, the wisp leaned closer, and her intent slipped sideways. She meant to think of him. She thought of wanting instead. The pendant's sigils blurred at the edges, trying to rewrite themselves around the wisp's shape. She understood what was happening. Desire wisps latched onto spellwork and fed. If she cast now, the binding would find the wisp instead of the man. She would be tied to this thing for the rest of her life. She set the thread down. On the floor beside the table sat a half-built cage, iron ribs and unfinished locks. She had been assembling it for another project. It was not ready. The top hoop was loose. Two of the sigil plates were missing. She stood and walked to the fountain in the corner, where mist rose off the basin and lanterns burned low among the vines. She cupped water in both hands and carried it back. She poured it into the cauldron. The green light went white. The wisp dropped a hand's width, drawn to the change. Morrigan lifted the unfinished cage and brought it down over the cauldron in one movement. The wisp hit the inside of the top hoop. The hoop was loose. It held anyway. She pressed her palm against the frame until the metal warmed under her hand. The wisp beat its wings against the bars and made a sound like a wet bell. She looked at the pendant on the table. The sigils had settled. Her intent was hers again. Outside the cottage window, the dark cracked once — a hairline fracture in the air, wrong-colored, gone before she could count it. The thread had surfaced. Right on time. She had caught the wisp. She had not bound it. The cage would not hold past morning, and the man whose face she had never seen was, somewhere, about to feel a pull he could not explain.