Married life settled into a routine that surprised me with its unexpected warmth.
Like discovering a fire burning in a house I'd thought was abandoned.
The women from the shelter treated me like family now—not the twisted, conditional version of family I'd known in the coven, but something entirely foreign and precious.
"Wren, dear, come sit with us," Mrs. Patterson called from the common room, patting the worn sofa cushion beside her. "Sarah just got word about that job interview."
I hesitated in the doorway, still unused to being included without having earned it somehow.
"They offered me the position!" Sarah beamed, her face bright with the kind of joy I'd rarely seen in the coven. "Starting Monday at the accounting firm. Full benefits, decent hours so I can still pick up the kids from school."
The women erupted in genuine celebration—Emma clapping her hands, Mrs. Patterson dabbing at her eyes, others offering congratulations that held no undertone of calculation or future obligation.
"We should celebrate," Sister Agnes announced. "I'll make that chocolate cake recipe Wren brought us."
"Oh, you don't need to…" I started, but Emma cut me off.
"Nonsense! You shared your grandmother's recipe with us. It's only right that we use it to celebrate Sarah's good news."
In my mother's house, sharing a family recipe would have been leverage—a gift that came with expectations of future favors.
Here, they wanted to use something I'd given them to honor someone else's happiness, simply because it felt right.
"Besides," Mrs. Patterson added with a conspiratorial whisper, "I saw you looking peaked at breakfast. You've been working too hard helping everyone else settle in. When's the last time someone did something nice for you?"
The question caught me completely off guard.
In the coven, doing something nice meant you wanted something in return. But Mrs. Patterson was looking at me with the kind of maternal concern I'd never experienced—worry that had no agenda behind it.
"I brought you some of that chamomile tea," Emma offered, producing a small wrapped packet from her pocket. "The kind that helps with sleep. You've been tossing and turning—the walls are thin, dear."
She wasn't mentioning my restless nights to shame me or use the information as leverage. She was offering comfort, expecting nothing in return except maybe that I'd sleep better.
That’s… new.
"Thank you," I managed, my throat tight with unfamiliar emotion. "That's very thoughtful."
"That's what family does," Sarah said simply, her hand briefly squeezing my shoulder. "We take care of each other."
This kindness was completely alien to me. Previously affection always had been currency, and every gesture carried hidden meaning and future obligation. Love was leverage, care was manipulation, and vulnerability was weakness to be exploited.
But these women cared about my wellbeing simply because I existed in their orbit, not because I was useful to them or because they wanted something in return.
When Sister Agnes presented me with a small potted plant "to brighten your new home," her weathered hands gentle as she explained its care requirements, something cracked open in my chest that I didn't have a name for.
"It's called a peace lily," she said, adjusting the ceramic pot on our small kitchen windowsill with maternal pride. "They're supposed to bring serenity to a household. I thought you and Father Mikael might appreciate some growing thing to tend together."
"It's perfect," I told her, and meant it more than I should have. "Thank you for thinking of us."
The simple pleasure on her face at my response was worth more than any magical artifact I'd ever coveted.
When old Mrs. Patterson insisted on teaching me her grandmother's soup recipe—"Every new wife needs to know how to make a proper beef stew, dear"—I found myself genuinely invested in learning the precise measurements and techniques she'd been perfecting for sixty years.
"The secret is browning the meat properly first," she explained, guiding my hands as I worked. "Most young people today are too impatient for that step, but it makes all the difference in the flavor."
"I have time," I assured her, surprised by how much I enjoyed the companionable silence of chopping vegetables while she shared stories about her own early marriage. "Teach me everything."
But even as I basked in this unfamiliar warmth, I forced myself to remember why I was here.
Survival. Protection from my family's hunt. Strategic positioning within an organization dedicated to destroying creatures like me.
These people would recoil in horror if they knew what I truly was. Their kindness was conditional on the lie I was living, making it both precious and dangerous. Every moment of genuine affection was also a reminder of how thoroughly I was deceiving them.
But while my heart was warming to these unexpected connections, my strategic mind remained focused on a more pressing problem: Mikael's infuriating boundaries.
Marriage hadn't secured my position the way I'd initially calculated. Yes, we were legally bound, but a marriage in name only offered me none of the real protection I needed.
If Mikael ever discovered what I truly was, his rigid sense of duty would override any obligation he felt toward a wife he'd never actually wanted. An annulment, a quiet dissolution—the Church had ways of making inconvenient marriages disappear.
But a husband who was emotionally devastated by the thought of losing me? A man whose feelings had grown so deep that exposing my nature would tear him apart? That was real insurance.
I needed him not just married to me, but addicted to me. So desperately attached that even learning the truth would make him hesitate before reaching for his silver blade.
During our shared evening meals—one of the few times we were guaranteed to be alone together—I employed every weapon in my considerable arsenal.
"Could you pass the salt?" I asked one evening, deliberately dropping my napkin as he reached across the table.
I bent to retrieve it with fluid grace, the movement giving him a clear view down my blouse as I straightened. When I settled back into my chair, his eyes were fixed resolutely on his plate, jaw tight with visible restraint.
"You're very dedicated to your prayers lately," I observed, cutting my meat with deliberate precision. "Sometimes I hear you in your study until very late at night. The walls in this place aren't exactly thick."
His fork paused halfway to his mouth, and I saw the slight flush that crept up his neck.
"I've been working on some research projects for Father Atticus," he said carefully, not meeting my eyes. "Translation work that requires concentration."
"Hmm." I traced the rim of my water glass with one finger, letting the gesture draw his attention before he could stop himself. "I worry you're not getting enough rest. You seem... tense lately. More than usual. Is it the couch you’re still sleeping on?"
The innocent concern in my voice didn't match the heat in my eyes as I watched him shift uncomfortably in his chair.
"I sleep just fine," he said curtly, but I noticed how his breathing changed when I leaned forward to refill his glass, letting my body brush against his shoulder with apparent casualness.
"Good," I murmured near his ear, my lips almost touching his skin as I lingered just a moment longer than necessary. "Because I'd hate to think that something distracting you from your duties."
The way his hands tightened on his silverware told me everything I needed to know about the effectiveness of my strategy.
But my seduction campaign wasn't the only project occupying my time. In the hours when Mikael was busy with parish duties and I wasn't needed at the shelter, I'd begun studying the Order's texts more systematically than ever before.
The archives were a treasure trove of information once you knew how to read between the lines. And I'd developed quite a talent for extracting useful intelligence from seemingly mundane documents.
One evening I’ve mentioned something… strange.
Several additional mentions of what appeared to be an ancient weapon of some significance. The references were scattered across different time periods and geographic locations, but they all seemed to point toward the same artifact.
Something the Order considered both powerful and dangerous enough to warrant considerable resources tracking down.
"The Sword of Saint Michael," one particularly old document called it, written in the careful Latin of a medieval chronicler. "Lost in the great betrayal, sought by the faithful, feared by the children of darkness."
Another reference, this one from the eighteenth century, mentioned "the blade that burns with holy fire, capable of cleaving the very soul from those who would stand against the divine will."
If there was indeed a weapon capable of threatening witches on the scale these documents suggested, I needed to understand everything about it.
Knowledge, after all, was the most reliable form of power.
And if my mother's patience finally ran out, if my family's hunt intensified beyond what my current protections could handle, I wanted every possible advantage at my disposal.
The peace lily on our windowsill caught the evening light, its white blooms pristine and hopeful against the darkening sky. A symbol of serenity in a household built on lies and strategic manipulation.
But even lies, I was learning, could create something worth protecting.