40°58‘57.7“N 47°29‘11.3“E

  K?rimli, Azerbaijan

  20.05.2024 – 18.00 UTC +04.00

  “Who put you in here?” I asked Ramin. The golden light of my warding match was casting weak shadows on Ramin’s face, his expression quickly switching from eyes widening to eyes darting left and right. With each flicker of the match’s flame, a new lucidity dawned on me. I looked around as well: the pointers of the clock on the wall moved faster, the mirror doors of the cutlery vitrines turned dull, and the smell of flowers subsided. And the food on the table; it all disappeared. Only dust crowned the dishes. My brain tried to reconcile its experienced reality with its senses – and it was failing.

  I was sure Ramin was noticing the same details and going through the same migraine.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “and I am not sure how long I have been here.”

  The glass on the window dulled as well, a glamour of luxury being lifted part by part from the Safehouse. I heard the window shutters shuffle and creak as a breeze blew through:

  Do not speak to anyone. I am coming right away; Starling.

  I heard each word of Starling’s whisper, dragging its weight through my mind. They would be right there. Right away. They would be… The match’s light dimmed as I lost focus.

  “Sister, why is there no light?” Ramin asked, clouded by the same confusion. Instinctively, I lit another match.

  “It is the Safehouse. It is bending our will again.”

  Should we wait for Starling? Was she the one who had placed me in there? Was I safer with her or Ramin? I could not decide, and my limbs weighed on my indecisiveness. Then I remembered what my premonition was.

  RUN

  “Grab my hand,” I said. I did not trust that man, not for a second. But if anyone had answers, it would be him. Plus, I felt pity for him. If he was telling the truth and I abandoned him here, he would be lost again in this hazy aromatic fever dream of “all-is-well” that we were before. I could not stand by it. The taint of the hex was still all over me, and it repulsed me. A proof that whatever intent was behind this, it was malicious.

  Ramin did not hesitate. He quickly ran next to me and grabbed my arm.

  Stay lit only for the two of us, I prayed to the match, and its flame changed to a darker golden hue.

  “There was a backdoor through the library,” I said, recalling how the suspicious door had previously beckoned to me.

  “Why not through the main door?” Ramin asked, but I shook my head. If we had been trapped through there, we had to find another way through the hex. Plus: Starling had just warned she was coming, and I was sure that she would never deign to come through the servants’ back door.

  I started walking, but the match’s flame in my hands trembled again. Candles and pyres, yes. But I had never done this with matches. I shook the matchbox with my left hand: fifteen, maybe twenty matches? These should be plenty, right?

  I walked faster. We walked past the open bathroom door.

  “Was it…”

  “No,” I answered, “or maybe it was, and it is now revealing to us.”

  We did not need to step inside the bathroom to notice its decadence: mold was rapidly growing on the floor, consuming it tile by tile, while the bathtub was full of vile mud. The mirror on the wall was turning dull and foggy, except for the letters on it, the warning I had written with my blood now gone, leaving a shade of black behind.

  RUN

  The mirror cracked right through the warning; its glass started to vibrate. I looked back. The same was true for the glass vitrine, the glasses on the kitchen countertop.

  “Run?” Ramin asked.

  “Run!” I said.

  We sprinted past the bedroom with the pomegranate tree. I only saw a glimpse of it: the pillows were torn, with black feathers spilled over everywhere. The pomegranate in the wall painting had turned black and rotten.

  What if we were rotting as well?

  I turned to the corridor leading to the library. We paused, the vibration of glasses from behind us still intensifying and propagating through the air, like miasma. A miasma propagating on the walls as well: the leafless pomegranate tree branches adorning the walls were no longer empty. Painted with rushed strokes and an ink that stained the tapestry, starlings with iridescent plumage were designed perched in every branch.

  The match’s flame went out as a breeze blew in, strong and cold as if born by mountains and ice, and only for a second we were surrounded by blissful darkness. But I had the next match ready, and I lit it with another wish again.

  Stay lit and save us.

  The light came back, and so did more starlings on the wall, all of them staring with red eyes. And another pair of eyes, behind a starling mask, at the end of the corridor. Ramin tied his hands around my arm, holding the match.

  A man wearing the Starling robe and the Starling mask had appeared out of thin air and stood blocking our path to the library.

  He took a step closer, his mask hiding all its features, but the eyes behind, I could not mistake.

  “Zephyr,” I said, under my breath, tempted to shout at him and reveal myself of our invisibility. Ask him for help and explanations.

  The doorbell rang. Its chime sounded like tar strings struck all at once, discordant by intention. Like a distorted bird’s cry.

  “Hi, it's us.” The voice surrounded us. Friendly – and a woman’s voice. It was not Starling, it was someone else. Someone worse, if you asked me.

  Ramin snapped me out of it, and we started running back the other direction. Back past the bedroom and the bathroom, back into the kitchen, where now all glasses shook as if a quake only affected their reality with purpose, while ours was one of confusion.

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  “Will you open the door?” The friendly voice asked from outside the house, its command suggesting we respond, but passing distorted through the ward I had cast around us.

  For the first time, I felt Ramin ready to let go of my arms, influenced by the command, but I held on tight to him.

  “Don’t listen to them,” I said quietly, and I looked back. The man whom I thought was Zephyr had not yet followed us back to the kitchen. I stopped walking for a moment, hesitating.

  “Where do we go?” Ramin asked. I did not know. We were surrounded. Someone was at the front door, and someone was inside the house. Did we take our chances with any of them? Maybe Zephyr?

  “We stay put,” I said and lifted my match. We would stay and hide.

  “I guess no one is hOmE,” the distorted voice screamed through, splitting the air itself.

  And as it did, one by one, everything glass shattered. The mirrors on the cutlery vitrine, the glasses on the table. The mirrors in the bathroom, no doubt. The window glass made the sharpest shards. And it all took flight.

  Like a murmuration of translucent pyrotechnics, looking for a body to slash.

  Ramin and I crouched to avoid the hurling glasses, some of them flying right into us, hurting or slashing us. He was looking at me, scared, but all I could feel was disbelief. They were trying to kill me, the people I worked and lived with for years. The people I fought for. Why?

  I looked back as Zephyr walked into the room. Yes, I was sure it was Zephyr, the way his gray, mutated eyes looked through the mask. They were searching. He was sent because he was my student and he would seek me through my glamours. He would betray me too.

  My disbelief turned into rage, and the match’s light burst bright. Hiding us in its light, but also warding us.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said to Ramin, holding my head high and pushing my light outwards. And then he realized: the glass shards flying past, all dodged us or flew by. As if we were not there. But I was late to find my foothold in this Cursed fight.

  “I am hurt,” Ramin said, his eyes wet. A big shard of glass was protruding from his shoulder. Blood was quickly oozing out of the wound.

  I put my finger in front of his lips. He had to endure this in quiet.

  I looked around as the glass continued flying around, but at least no longer a threat to us.

  I pulled out another match and blew on it, praying my hardest for my Curse to suffice for what was to follow.

  Stay lit only for us.

  The door unlocked from the outside and very slowly opened forth.

  A woman walked inside the house, also wearing the Starling robe and mask. Hers was covering the upper part of the face, a black feathery mask that mirrored light in iridizing patterns.

  She slowly walked inside the house to meet Zephyr across from us, while we stood in the middle of the large room, hoping my match’s ward would be enough to leave us unseen. I kept my finger on Ramin’s lips as he tried to hold on to me.

  “There is no one here,” said the man, his voice confirming his identity. Orxan.

  “For our good, I hope she is hidden somewhere,” the woman said, “I will check the basement.”

  Zephyr did not respond to her, and she simply ran towards the door that Ramin had used not so long ago to fix the power outage I had caused.

  Zephyr maintained a concerned pause before he started moving around. Behind the bird mask, you could tell he tried to remain focused. He walked slowly around the room, examining the ravaged furniture. He was wearing a pair of gloves, and he avoided touching or even getting close to most items. I wondered if he knew about the kind of enchantments put through the place to keep Ramin under mental restraints. If he knew exactly what we had endured.

  Ramin grabbed one of the matches from my left hand and held it near my face. I blew on it as I threw the one that was almost burning out. I nodded in appreciation.

  Stay lit only for us, I whispered.

  We did not have unlimited matches, so I hoped the pair would quickly leave. Ramin was also quickly bleeding out, so it was a matter of who would run out of time first.

  Zephyr turned in our direction, looking somehow intrigued. Maybe it was the split second that I took to change matches, but it was unmistakable that he was directly looking at our spot. He took a few steps towards us.

  I did not worry. If he could see us, he would definitely have acted or called for help. I did wonder what his brain was telling him, though: when I was warded like this, people willing to harm me could not locate me, but I was not invisible. I was unseen.

  He stopped half a step next to us. I could even hear him breathe – and in response, both Ramin and I held our breath. The man kneeled to examine the floor near Ramin.

  Nisy, if you are hurt, please answer me. We will find a way; Zephyr.

  A whisper reached me, but I did not doubt even for a second that it was sent by the man right in front of me. I felt anger overwhelming me. That man was Zephyr. Why would Zephyr be hunting for me? What did I do to deserve it?

  I could not do anything, of course, and I would definitely not answer him.

  “Did you find anything?” The woman appeared from the door of the cellar.

  The man stood up, looking at his gloved hand.

  “Yes. Blood. They are hurt.” He said, showing the glistening red on his glove, pointing at the ground right next to Ramin. His wound had resulted in significant blood loss, and I could feel him tremble weakly next to me. Some of the blood had found its way and pooled outside my ward. “They can’t have gone far,” Zephyr said.

  “D?li dostun olunca a??ll? dü?m?nin olsun. Better to have a wise enemy than a mad friend,” said the woman, who by the Shattering Curse I had already identified as Hokum?.

  “She is not mad,” his voice quavered.

  As they walked to the door, I blew on another match, igniting it with my Curse.

  Hokum? turned and looked back; her expression unclear behind the black feathers.

  “Are you sure none of them are hidden here somehow?” she asked.

  Zephyr paused, and I could swear he looked right at us.

  “Of course not. I would have found Nisy.” He opened the door and exited behind her.

  We waited for a few moments before we could breathe again. They were gone. I looked at Ramin, whose color was getting paler by the second.

  “You have to pull… the hexed glass out,” Ramin said eventually.

  “You will bleed out.”

  “Trust me,” he said, grunting in pain, “please do it now.”

  He turned his back to me, and I could finally see the shard of glass sticking out of his shoulder blade and ripped clothes. I noticed the skin around the wound had taken a coal-like color. As I touched it, it felt like coarse ashes were oozing out of the wound.

  I pulled the glass out. The grey powder started shifting, and it seemed like it was quickly cauterizing and healing the wound. The ashes had a mind of their own, and I was fascinated by them. Ramin quickly turned around.

  “You are one of them,” I said, and I did not know if what I felt was fear or excitement. I had never seen a Shadow up close before in my life.

  “Not exactly,” he said, but he looked guilty to admit it. Or even ashamed.

  I grabbed his hand tight. “You will explain. But first, we need to leave this place.”

  We walked for a while through the town. I had my remaining matches at hand, ready to use them if we needed to quickly be warded. The more we walked away from that house, the more this feeling of forced coziness and drowsiness withdrew. And Ramin did not bleed at all anymore – sure, our clothes looked a bit roughed up, but that was not a priority. Something else was, and I was surprised to admit it.