Dawn broke pale and reluctant, its light barely piercing the soot-stained windows of Esther's shop. The candles had burned down to nubs, leaving only trails of smoke curling like serpents above the table. Horace stirred from his vigil at her feet, stretching languidly, while Morrigan croaked sharply from her perch—uneasy, unsettled.
The card still lay upon the velvet cloth. The Watchers. Esther had turned it face down after the first pull, but its presence lingered like a stain in the air. She could not bring herself to return it to the deck.
With steady hands, she cleared the table, whispering old words of banishment, but the chill did not leave her bones. She knew better: cards never lied.
By midday, the knock came. A single rap upon the shop's oak door, deliberate, unhurried. Esther felt her stomach tighten.
A man stood outside when she opened it. Not the scarred zealot from the fog, but another—tall, cloaked in black, his face hidden beneath the brim of a wide hat. His gloved hand rested upon a silver-tipped cane, though he bore himself like one who did not need its support.
"Esther Harrow," he said, his voice calm, low, commanding. "Daughter of the line of Harrow. Keeper of the forbidden arts."
Her amulet throbbed faintly against her throat. "And who names me so?"
The man inclined his head. "A Watcher."
The word rang through the air like iron upon stone.
Before Esther could summon her wards, he drew back his glove, revealing a sigil burned into the flesh of his palm. A circle enclosing an open eye, its pupil carved so deep it seemed to stare of its own accord.
Horace hissed, his fur lifting like hackles. Morrigan screamed from the rafters, wings flaring.
Esther steadied her breath. "If you come to accuse me, know that I have nothing to fear. My shop is bound by protection, my soul in balance."
The Watcher smiled faintly. "Accuse? No, Mistress Harrow. We have watched you since your cradle. It is not accusation we bring—but warning."
He leaned closer, his shadow spilling long across her threshold. "There is a storm rising. Old bloodlines stirring. Those who wish your death will not strike alone. They move as one. And you, Esther Harrow, are at the center of it."
Esther's heart pounded, but her voice did not falter. "And why should I trust a man who marks his flesh with eyes that see too much?"
His smile widened, cold and cruel. "Because, my dear witch, if you do not, you will not live to see the year's end."
With that, he pressed something into her hand—a coin, heavy and ancient, stamped with the same open-eye sigil.
When she looked up again, he was gone.
Only the fog remained, pressing against the windows like eager fingers.
Esther closed her fist around the coin. It burned in her palm, and when she opened her hand, she saw a trace of the mark upon her own skin—the eye, faint but pulsing, as though it had branded her.
Horace leapt into her lap, tail lashing. Morrigan croaked once, a warning note that cut through the silence.
Esther stared at the mark.
The Watchers had named her.
The hunt had begun.