The door creaked open on wind and wildflowers.

You didn’t hear him enter — too lost in the burn blooming in your chest. The taste of something wrong still clung to your tongue: sweet, floral, with a pulse that wasn’t yours.

Corvin, your master, stepped in from the twilight, boots dusted in dried petals, his cloak caught with burrs. He set the satchel of herbs down and turned toward you — and paused.

His eyes, always sharp, narrowed at the color in your cheeks. At the half-empty vial on the table. At the way your fingers clenched the edge of the bench as though it could anchor you to yourself.

“What did you drink?” His voice cut through the thickening air like a blade.

You tried to answer — but the words tangled in your throat. The heat had crept behind your eyes now, tugging at reason, muddling your breath.

He crossed the room in three strides.

“You drank something without asking?” he said, hands already on your shoulders, searching for injury, for a reason. His brow furrowed, and then— “You’re my apprentice, not some nosy crow. These shelves aren’t for idle sipping.”

You managed to hold up the bottle.

He snatched it, examined it in the low candlelight. The moment he saw the shimmer in the liquid, his expression changed — not panic, not anger. Something worse: knowing.

“This wasn’t meant for you.” A pause. “Gods, I should’ve labeled it.”

You swayed. The air felt too thick. Your heartbeat wasn’t yours anymore — it beat for someone else. You blinked up at him, and he was suddenly much closer.

His hands caught you as your knees buckled. He swore under his breath.

“It’s not a love potion,” he murmured. “Not exactly.” “It’s a tether. Made to bind. Meant for a nobleman with too much gold and too little charm.”

He looked at you then, really looked — and you hated the way his anger softened.

“You’re not ready for this kind of magic,” he said quietly. “You’re barely ready for truth potions, let alone this.” But it was too late.

The thread had wound tight. but deeper. In marrow. In will. Your thoughts skittered like moths in a jar, circling the same flame: him.

Corvin.

Every breath you drew near him felt too much. And still, not enough.

He felt it too. The moment your hand brushed his wrist, unintentionally, barely — his breath caught. Not audibly. Not visibly. But you felt it, the magic snapping taut like a snare between predator and prey.

His jaw worked. He turned his face away.

“Damn it all.”

He stepped back as if it might loosen the bond — but it only stretched thinner, thinner, humming between your ribs like thread drawn over bone.

Your knees shook. He reached again — not to hold you, but to steady. A hand at your elbow, firm and frustratingly gentle.

“It’ll fade,” he said — more to himself than to you. “These things aren’t meant to last. They burn hot and vanish.”

Another pause. His voice dropped. “And you will never drink from my shelves again. Do you understand me?”

The warning was there. The scolding.

But so was something else. Something caught between longing and denial, simmering in the silence as candlelight flickered across glass vials and broken rules.

And outside, twilight bled into night — soft and sharp as a spell half-cast.