The witchfire under Glint's feet had gone the color of cold ash. Glint was a jar goblin, smoke-skinned, silver-eyed, born to guard a witch and hoard the shiny things that fell from one's shelves. But Glint had no witch. No keeper meant no fire to feed the blue flame it stood on, and now that flame flickered like a dying coal. Glint needed a keeper before the light went out for good. So Glint hunted the one thing it trusted: shine. Rain fell hard that evening. Through a crooked window, Glint spotted it — a tiny silver bell on a sill, glowing with warmth it recognized at once. Witch-warmth. Glint climbed the wet sill, curled its fingers, and reached. The bell was tied to a thread. DING. A woman looked up from a steaming mug. Short hair, red and silver, a dozen rings, a skeleton key on a chain at her throat. Her eyes shifted between blue and gray as she studied the goblin stuck halfway through her window. She did not scream. She did not reach for a broom. She raised one eyebrow and sipped her coffee. "That bell cost me a very annoying afternoon," she said. "Put it back." Glint froze. The witch's whole cottage pulsed with the warmth Glint's fire starved for — herbs, candles, half-finished spells, a hundred jars. Glint's dying flame sputtered toward her like a plant toward sun. Slowly, Glint set the bell down. Then it pointed out the window, blaming some other goblin that did not exist. "Mm," the witch said. "Sure." She should have shooed it off. Instead she glanced down. Her brow pulled tight. "Your feet are wrong," she said. "That fire's nearly out." She knew fire and threshold and lost things. She knew a creature about to go dark. Glint shook. The ash-light guttered to a single spark. It had found warmth at last and had no strength left to claim it. The witch set down her mug. She crossed the room, crouched, and held out one ringed hand — not grabbing, just offering. "Come on, then," she said. "I live alone. I could use something that steals my snacks." Glint looked at the open hand. A keeper chose a goblin, and a goblin swore itself to a keeper. No one had ever chosen Glint. The last spark trembled. Glint climbed down from the sill and set one small foot in her palm. The skeleton key at her throat warmed. The thread of her wards hummed. Something passed between them, quiet as a lock turning. Beneath Glint's feet the flame caught — not ash now, but deep bright blue, fed by her warmth and her claim. "Meagan," she said. "Keeper of the Crooked Key." She almost smiled. "And you're a mess." Glint unfurled to its full small height, fierce and glowing, and stood between Meagan and the dark window. The fire would not gutter again. Glint had a keeper. Now Glint had to prove worth keeping.

Three nights had passed since Glint set its foot in Meagan's palm. Glint slept in a cracked stone lantern on the sill, a weathered old thing with a skull carved under its roof and green moss in its seams. A candle stub burned inside it, and Glint curled there each night, warm and watchful. This night, something woke Glint. Not a sound. A smell. Witch-warmth, close and wrong, creeping at the glass. Glint's silver eyes snapped open. The blue fire under its feet flared bright. Beyond the window, a shape pressed against the dark. It pulsed with the same warmth Meagan's whole cottage carried. But this warmth came from outside the wards, uninvited. Glint's job was simple. Guard the keeper. Anything with magic that crept to her window was a threat until proven otherwise. Glint climbed from the lantern and bared its small teeth. Meagan slept in the next room. Glint would not wake her. A guardian handled threats itself. It curled its fingers into claws and crept up the sill, fire trailing blue behind each step. The shape fluttered. Wings. Glint lunged and caught it between both hands, ready to crush. Then it felt the thing beat soft against its palms. Small. Trembling. A moth, broad as Glint's two hands, wings gray with silver dust. The dust was the warmth. Witch-magic clung to it like pollen, gathered from some spell-garden far off. Glint held the moth to the candlelight and stared. Not a threat. A lost thing. Its wings were torn at one edge. It had flown to the only warm window it could find. Glint knew that hunger. Three nights ago, Glint had been the thing at the glass, dying, drawn to warmth it had no right to claim. Glint eased its grip. The moth sat in its cupped hands, wings opening and closing. Glint could kill it. A guardian cleared threats. But this was no threat, and Glint had almost broken it from fear instead of judgment. Glint made a choice. It carried the moth to the lantern and set it inside, near the candle. The moth crawled close to the flame and went still, soaking the heat. Glint settled on the sill to watch it, fire steady and blue. Behind Glint, a door creaked. Meagan stood in the dark, a candle in her ringed hand. She looked at the moth in the lantern, then at Glint guarding it. "You caught something," she said. "And you kept it alive." Glint looked up at her. It had learned the thing between friend and foe is a choice, not a claw. Meagan crouched and studied the moth's torn wing. "That dust isn't from my garden," she said. Her brow pulled tight. "Someone else is working witch-magic close by. Someone I don't know." Glint's fire sharpened. The threat was not the moth. The threat was whoever had sent it.