Chapter 1: The Summoning Gone Wrong
The last petal of dried monkshood settled onto the moss-agate slab with a soft, final click. Anna Moreau brushed a strand of platinum hair from her eyes, leaving a smudge of crushed iris root on her temple. She surveyed the summoning circle etched into her cottage’s wide-plank floor—a precise lattice of hawthorn ash and salt, glittering in the late afternoon light filtering through diamond-paned windows. Every glyph was correct. Every intention, clear. She needed a familiar. The empty chair by the roaring hearth, the second cup on the mantel that never got used, the silence that stretched longer than the forest shadows—it all throbbed like a hollow tooth.
Her cottage smelled of oak beams warmed by sun, damp earth from the potted herbs on every shelf, and the faint, clean scent of brewing chamomile and lightning. It was a good silence, usually. A productive one. Today, it felt like a presence waiting to be filled.
“Right then,” she murmured to a dusty hedgehog skull on the windowsill. “No more talking to inanimate objects. Well. No more only talking to inanimate objects.”
She took a deep breath, the air tasting of rosemary and possibility. With a flourish of her hand, she lit the candles at the four cardinal points. The flames leapt, unwavering. The air tightened.
Her voice, low and sure, wove the ancient words into the sun-dappled space. They were words of binding, of loyalty, of gentle, wild companionship. She asked for a spirit attuned to the heart of her forest, a keen-eyed partner, a friend. The circle began to hum, a vibration she felt in her bones. The herbs within it shimmered, their essences rising in visible threads of silver and deep green. A smile touched her lips. It was working. She could almost feel the soft weight of a creature, the flicker of a new consciousness brushing her own.
The hum became a shriek.
The cottage lights flared and died. The hearth-fire guttered as if snuffed by a giant’s hand. Pressure slammed down, buckling the oak beams overhead with a groan. The carefully drawn lines of the circle erupted in a cascade of white sparks, and the air in the center didn’t just part—it shattered.
With a sound like tearing canvas and breaking glass, a form crashed through the emptiness and landed face-first on her hardwood floor with a sickening thud.
Anna stumbled back, her chair toppling over. “What—”
The form groaned. It was tall, wrapped in fabric that was fine but now torn and smudged. A suit. A man’s suit. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, his head hanging between his shoulders as he drew in ragged, desperate breaths.
He lifted his head.
His eyes, dark and intense, locked onto hers. They were flooded with a fury so hot it seemed to steam in the sudden chill. His hair, long and neatly styled, was disheveled, a strand stuck to his damp forehead. He scanned the room—the hanging herbs, the glowing crystals, the overturned chair, her—with a look of utter, profound revulsion.
He spoke, his voice a rasp of anger and confusion, the words sharp and foreign.
They meant nothing to her. The rhythm was all wrong. Not a melodic Fae tongue, nor the guttural growl of a forest spirit. This was something else entirely.
He staggered to his feet, wincing as he put weight on one leg. He glared at her, straightening his torn jacket with a frantic, offended dignity. He snapped another sentence at her, gesturing wildly at the cracked ceiling beams and the scorch mark now marring her floor.
“I…” Anna started, her mind racing. A man. She’d summoned a man. From… where? The energy signature was all wrong, jagged and metallic, not organic at all. “I think there’s been a mistake.”
He clearly didn’t understand. His tirade continued, his tone shifting from fury to sharp, analytical demand. He was cataloging her space, his intelligent eyes darting to her books, her equipment, the summoning remnants. He wasn’t just angry; he was calculating.
“Right. Okay. Stop talking,” Anna said, holding up her hands. She needed to understand him. Now.
She spun to her nearest shelf, grabbing a vial of clear sky-water and a pinch of cobweb-silk understanding. She didn’t have time for elegance. She spat a single syllable of power into the cup of her hand, mixed the components with her thumb, and flicked the resulting dewdrop towards him.
It struck his forehead.
He flinched, swiping at it. “What was that? Some primitive solvent?”
The words were still in that strange, melodic language… but now she understood them. And he, she realized from the shock dawning on his face, understood her.
“A translation pulse. Now we can argue properly,” Anna said, crossing her arms. “Who are you, and why are you in my cottage?”
He stared at her, his anger momentarily displaced by sheer, dazzling intellect. He was dissecting the magic she’d just used. She could see it in his eyes. “A forced linguistic overlay. Impressively direct, if crude.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “I am Satoshi Ito. And I was in my laboratory at Tokyo University, calibrating a teleportation matrix, when your… your whatever that was latched onto my spellwork and yanked.”
“Tokyo…” Anna breathed. The word felt heavy, a place of concrete and neon, not moss and stone. A continent away. A world away. “I was summoning a familiar.”
Satoshi barked a laugh, sharp and humorless. “A familiar. You used a resonant harmonic capable of interdirectional spatial folding to summon a pet?”
“I didn’t aim for you! Your signal was… loud. It bled into my circle. You must have been working on something big.”
“I was testing a focused jump across my lab! Ten meters! Not a transcontinental joyride into a… a thyme-scented broom closet!” He gestured at her hanging herbs.
“It’s mugwort, actually,” she said dryly. “And it’s a home. You’ve broken my ceiling.”
“I’ve broken—” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “The interference pattern was catastrophic. Do you have any idea of the energy differential? The temporal shear? I could have been splinched across two realities!”
Anna’s defensiveness hardened into genuine worry. Splinching was bad. “You seem… mostly intact. Apart from your suit.”
“This is irreplaceable wool!” he snapped, but the heat was fading from his voice, replaced by a dawning, horrified fascination. He was looking at her again, not as an annoyance, but as a phenomenon. “Your magic. It’s not structured. It’s… instinctive. Like weather.”
“And yours is a spreadsheet,” she shot back, but her curiosity was piqued too. “You think in grids and frequencies. I felt it. It’s all numbers and wires.”
“It’s precision,” he corrected, but without malice. He took a tentative step, testing his ankle. “You pulled me through a theoretical wormhole with the magical equivalent of a wish and a prayer.”
“And a very precise circle,” she insisted, though her cheeks flushed. She looked at the scorched floor, the shattered salt line. “Until it wasn’t.”
A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the crackle of the returning hearth-fire. The forest outside her window hummed its evening song. Satoshi Ito, professor of teleportation magic, stood in the center of her ruined summoning circle, a man completely, utterly out of place. He was a stark, angular line against the cottage’s soft curves, a foreign equation written on her parchment life.
He let out a long, controlled breath. “I need to get back.” He said
“I have lectures. Work. Someone is going to notice I’m not in my lab,” he said, the words tight. He was trying to reassert control, mapping his exit strategy on a mental grid that this place kept erasing.
Anna held up her hands, palms out. “Okay, okay. I can fix this. I can definitely get you back.” She took a breath, forcing calm into her voice. “I can teleport you.”
Satoshi’s intense brown eyes narrowed. “You can teleport.”
“Yes. Long range. It’s very easy for witches, as long as I can find a proper lay line that leads from…” She trailed off, wincing slightly. “Okay, so this is gonna sound like a shock to you, but you’re actually in a forest. On an island. Called Newfoundland. In Canada.”
He blinked. Once. Twice. “I’m in Canada.”
“Yeah. In a forest. An enchanted forest that’s actually a veil between our reality and the Faye world.” The words tumbled out faster, spurred by his blank stare. “Newfoundland and Ireland are very closely connected. Magically, I mean. A lot of the settlers here came from Ireland, and they brought the… look, the point is, the lay lines here are strong.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t need a history lesson.”
“I know!” she snapped, then immediately flushed. “I know this isn’t about history. I’m trying to give you context.” She shouted the last word, then pressed her fingers to her lips. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. I’m very flustered. Let me get my spell book and we can fix this. I swear.”
She turned and practically sprinted for a steep, wooden staircase tucked beside the hearth that led up to a sleeping loft. Her footsteps thumped heavily on the narrow stairs.
Satoshi was left alone in the middle of the small living room. He didn’t know what to do. He stood there, the residual magical energy from the botched summoning—and from Anna herself—crackling against his skin like static. He began to slowly turn, taking in her space.
It was small, but fiercely organized. The furniture was pushed to the sides to make room for the now-scorched circle: a deep, comfortable-looking sofa piled with knitted blankets, a low table holding a half-drunk cup of tea and a geology magazine. A potbellied stove sat in the corner, cold now beside the raging hearth. Underneath the loft was an alcove, a desk area that was a masterpiece of ordered chaos. Herbs hung in precise bunches from the beams above it. Jars of powders and dried things were labeled in a neat, looping script. He saw scales, a mortar and pestle, bundles of feathers.
And on the desk, a sleek, modern laptop, its power light a steady green.
He stared. She had electricity. Of course she did. But the hum he felt underfoot wasn't from a generator. It was deeper, older. He closed his eyes, extending his senses past the smell of rosemary and woodsmoke, past the visual clutter.
There. A current. A deep, thrumming line of raw terrestrial power running directly beneath the cottage’s foundation. She wasn't just drawing from it for her spells. She was tapping it. Channeling it. He could feel it in the walls, in the very air—a seamless integration of ancient magic and modern convenience. Only a witch of significant, instinctive power could do that without vaporizing the circuitry. Is she a High Witch? he wondered, the academic term feeling inadequate. His world categorized; hers simply was.
A clatter from above made him open his eyes. Anna came clattering back down the stairs, one hand clutching a massive, leather-bound book to her chest, the other gripping the railing. She missed the last step, stumbling forward with a gasp before righting herself.
“I got it,” she announced, a little breathlessly. She thumped the book onto the low table, sending her teacup rattling. The cover was worn smooth, embossed with symbols that seemed to shift if you didn't look directly at them. She opened it, pages fluttering to a section marked with a braided ribbon of silver and green thread.
Satoshi approached, his earlier fury muted by a burgeoning, professional fascination. He looked from the ancient book to the glowing laptop and back again. “You use a lay line to power your cottage.”
She glanced up, surprised. “You can feel that?”
“It’s a measurable energy field. Your tapping point is remarkably stable. The harmonic feedback alone should have caused localized poltergeist phenomena, or at the very least, constant electrical surges.”
Anna stared at him. “It… just works,” she said, as if that explained everything. She pointed to a intricate, hand-drawn map on the page before her. It showed the island of Newfoundland, but overlaid with a luminous, web-like network of glowing lines. “We’re here.” She tapped a spot near the center where several lines converged. “This is a major node. The problem is, the strongest lines here don’t go east to west, across oceans. They go north-south, and deep. They connect to older places. To send you back to Japan, I’d need to find a connecting line, or bridge you to a node with a trans-oceanic flow.”
She looked up at him, her emerald eyes wide and earnest. “I can do it. But I need to calibrate it to you. To your… signature. That’s what got tangled in my circle. Your spellwork has a flavor. I need to find a line that matches it, or this will just happen again, backwards. Or sideways.”
“Sideways,” he repeated flatly.
“You could end up in the Faye realm. Or embedded in a mountainside. Or in 1923.” She shrugged. “Teleportation without an address is imprecise.”
“I am aware,” he said, his voice dry. He watched her, this woman who talked of mountainsides and fairy worlds with the same practicality as one might discuss a bus schedule. His anger was gone, replaced by a profound and unsettling curiosity. “What do you need from me?”
Anna met his gaze. “A drop of blood.”
He stared at her. “You need a drop of blood?”
“Yes.” She was already rummaging in a small wooden box on the table, pulling out a pristine, silver lancet. “Your magic is in your blood. Judging by your… magical core, the structure I can see pulsing through your veins… you are your magic. It’s locked inside of you. You need to channel it to cast it.” She looked up, met his incredulous gaze. “I’m a witch. My magic comes from the elements. My core isn’t always full. It’s always kind of half-empty, and in order for me to fill it, I need to ground myself in the earth. Use rituals, talismans, stuff like that.”
She shifted, tucking a strand of silver hair behind her ear. “Witches, in my opinion, are powerful spellcasters. I mean—” She adjusted her hair again, a nervous gesture. “It’s not like I’m saying witches are better than mages. I’m just saying that…” She caught his expression—a mix of academic offense and profound confusion. “Nevermind. I’ll just leave that train of thought where it was. You look offended.”
“I look perplexed,” he corrected, his voice tight. “You’re describing magic as a… a reservoir. A battery to be recharged from external sources. That’s a fundamentally animistic, pre-modern conception. Magecraft is about refinement of the internal aether, the cultivation of personal will into a reproducible, mathematical force. It doesn’t come from anywhere. It is.”
Anna held up the lancet. “And yet, here you are. In my pre-modern cottage. Ripped from your reproducible, mathematical force by my animistic battery. Do you want to argue theory, or do you want to go home?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He extended his hand, fingers stiff. “Make it quick.”
She took his hand, turning it palm-up. His skin was warm, his fingers long, the nails perfectly trimmed. A scholar’s hand. She positioned the lancet at the tip of his index finger. “This will prick.”
“I am aware of the mechanism of a lancet.”
She pressed. A perfect, crimson bead welled up. Before it could fall, she touched the tip of a clear quartz point to it. The blood wicked into the stone, turning it a faint, cloudy pink. Immediately, the air around Satoshi seemed to sharp, a subtle, metallic hum emanating from the crystal.
“Fascinating,” he murmured, watching as the quartz began to pulse with a soft, internal light synchronized with his heartbeat. “A sympathetic resonance.”
“A signature,” Anna said, setting the crystal carefully on the map. “Now I just have to find a lay line that matches this… frequency.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Depends on how loud your signature is. It’s pretty loud.” She looked from the glowing quartz to his face. “I guess before we get started, I should tell you my name. My name is Anastasia Moreau.”
As she said her name, the final syllable hanging in the air between them, she felt it. A distinct, soft pulse deep in her chest, right behind her sternum. She reached up, her fingers pressing against the soft wool of her sweater. It was warm. Her core, that ever-half-empty well, was warm. Not with borrowed power, but with a new, steady, internal glow.
She looked up at her summoned man.
Satoshi had gone very still, his hand pressed against his own chest, his dark eyes wide with disbelief. He had felt it too. The same synchronizing pulse. The same inexplicable warmth flooding a system he’d spent decades treating as a closed circuit.
They stared at each other across the low table, the charged silence broken only by the crackle of the hearth.
“Oh,” Anna whispered.
“Shit,” Satoshi finished, the word exhaled on a breath of pure, academic dread.
The quartz point on the map flared, then shattered into a fine, pink dust.
The quartz point on the map flared, then shattered into a fine, pink dust.
Anna stared at the sparkling residue on the parchment. The map itself was now inert, just ink and paper. The hum in the air had dropped to a low, persistent thrum that seemed centered in her own ribs. She pressed a hand to her sternum again. The warmth wasn’t just heat; it was a presence, a faint, echoing pulse that wasn’t her own.
She looked at Satoshi. He was still as a statue, his eyes distant, focused inward. His fingers were splayed over his own chest.
“That’s… never happened before,” Anna said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He didn’t respond for a long moment. His sharp features were etched with concentration, then with dawning, clinical horror. “There’s a feedback loop,” he said, his voice hollow. “A sustained, low-grade energy exchange. It’s anchored. I can’t… sever it.” He finally looked at her, his dark eyes wide. “It formed a bond. With you. And it sealed…” He trailed off, his academic brain catching up to the visceral truth. “It sealed when you introduced your name.”
The bottom dropped out of Anna’s stomach. “Oh, no.”
“Explain.”
She swallowed, the reality crashing down with the weight of a falling tree. “Yeah. That’s… that’s part of the contract. When you summon a familiar, you introduce yourself. You state the boundaries of the bond. The terms.” Her words came out in a rushed, horrified whisper. “But we never did that. I was so flustered, I just… I gave you my name. I forgot about the ritual closure. I just said my name.”
Satoshi blinked slowly, processing. His voice was dangerously calm. “I’m your familiar now?”
She just kind of looked at him. Her mind was a storm of panic and absurdity. This man, in his torn designer suit, with his grids and frequencies, his profound irritation and his terrifying intellect… was magically bound to her. As her familiar. A creature of companionship and service. Her partner in craft.
“It… it would appear so,” she managed.
He let out a sharp, incredulous breath that was almost a laugh. “Appear so.” He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “A bidirectional, semi-permanent thaumic link. I can feel your heartbeat. I can feel the damn lay line through your skin.” He took a step toward her, and it wasn’t aggressive, it was desperate. “Undo it.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You made it!”
“By accident! It’s a soul-bond, Satoshi! You don’t just undo it with a counterspell! It’s like un-stitching your own shadow!” Her own fear was making her voice rise. “The ritual is complete. The terms are just… default. No boundaries. Full resonance.”
“Full resonance.” He repeated the words as if tasting poison. He closed his eyes, focusing. “You’re tired. Not just now. A deep, habitual tiredness in your bones. From the constant channeling.”
Anna flushed. “Stop that.”
“And you can feel my… irritation. My calculation. My desire to be literally anywhere else.” He opened his eyes. “Can’t you?”
She could. It was a sour, metallic pressure at the back of her own thoughts, distinct from her own panic. She nodded mutely.
For a full minute, the only sound was the pop of the hearth and the distant call of an owl outside. The cottage, her sanctuary, felt alien. He was a splinter in its warmth.
Satoshi walked over to the empty chair by the fire—the chair she’d kept for a familiar—and sat down heavily. He didn’t look like a spirit of the forest. He looked like a corporate executive who had just been told his multi-million yen project had been canceled. He stared into the flames.
“The energy is stable,” he said finally, his tone shifting back to analytical. “The bond is not degrading. It’s self-sustaining, drawing ambient energy from this… node.” He looked at her. “This is a problem of staggering proportions.”
“I’m so sorry,” Anna said, and she meant it. The words were utterly inadequate.
He waved a dismissive hand, already moving past apology. “Regret is not data. We need data. If we cannot sever it, we must understand its parameters. Its limits. Its purpose.” He met her gaze, and the furious professor was back, riding over the top of the horrified man. “You wanted a familiar. What, precisely, does that entail?”
Anna wrapped her arms around herself. “A partner. A helper. A creature that shares a magical and spiritual connection with the witch. They… amplify power. Offer insight. Provide companionship.” She winced at the last one.
“A permanent roommate,” he stated flatly.
“It’s not supposed to be a person!”
“Yet here we are.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “This ‘amplification.’ Is it active or passive?”
“Mostly passive. It’s a synergy. My magic becomes more focused, more potent. Their… your… inherent abilities are heightened. And we can… share energy. In a pinch.”
“I see.” He stood up abruptly and walked to the window, looking out at the darkening woods. “And my return to Tokyo?”
Her heart sank further. “I don’t know. A familiar’s bond is usually territorial. Tied to the witch’s place of power. This cottage. This forest.” She joined him at the window, staring at their faint reflections in the glass—his tall, angular form next to her softer one. A pair of trapped ghosts. “If you go too far… it would hurt. Both of us. The bond would strain. It might… break something. In us.”
He was silent for so long she thought he might have stopped breathing. Then he spoke, his voice low and resigned. “So I am, effectively, a prisoner. Of your cottage. And your ritual error.”
“We both are,” she whispered.