3. Lorin

Chapter three

Lorin

L orin knew what his next step should be. Stepping out of the car. A task he had done countless times before without a single issue. Lift your hand, pull at the door handle, push the door open, and step out. Easy as breathing.

And yet, Lorin's body refused to even try. Like it had been frozen in place, and he wasn't in control of it anymore.

He stared out the window at the clearing, all decked out for the bonding ceremony, and all he could feel was cold dread settling deep into the pit of his stomach. The beautiful white tent covering half the clearing didn't make him feel any desire to hide under it. The colorful flowers wrapped around it in an ornate arrangement did nothing to erase the darkness surrounding the entire event in his mind.

There were so many people there already.

They were milling around, greeting each other happily, chatting and enjoying the event despite the weather. There was a buzz in the air. Lorin could sense it even from inside the car. A charge. Bonding ceremonies were celebrations.

Nobody else wanted to recoil at the sight of it all the way he did. Nobody else wanted to flee the premises and never be seen again. He had never heard of a witch who was anything but excited about the prospect of finding their familiar.

The idea of your power settling, growing, expanding, the idea of it finding a funnel it could go through to make it easier to control. Witches thought of it as an honor. A cause for immense joy. They rarely thought about the other side of the coin. The darker one. The more sinister one that left so many witches teetering at the brink of life and death just because so much of them was tied to another being. So much of their power depended on that other being staying healthy and close and there.

He wasn't sure he was prepared for it.

"Last I checked, you couldn't teleport through metal, Lorin," his grandmother said from the driver's seat, and he snapped his head around to look at her.

She had her lips pinched tight and her car keys already in hand, ready to go. She was pushing, as she usually did, but there was something around her eyes that made Lorin realize she did understand. At least somewhat.

The lines around her eyes softened slightly, and she stopped fidgeting with the keys in her fingers and took a deep breath before turning toward him. She looked him in the eye, holding his gaze and never blinking, as if making him see he couldn't really escape talking to her.

"I'm doing my best," he said, making her snort despite the understanding she'd allowed him to see just seconds ago.

"I refuse to believe I raised someone whose best is sitting in a car, frozen in fear." She shook her head.

"Yeah, well, not everything you taught me stuck, Grandma," he told her, trying to make his voice harder but failing miserably. It was just as wobbly as he was feeling all over.

"Some things did, though. That annoying stubbornness is all me, much to both my joy and disappointment."

He chuckled at that, deciding to take it as a compliment rather than an insult. Knowing her, she probably meant it to be both.

"What if it's there?" he asked softly, turning his head to look back toward the clearing.

She followed his gaze, silent for what felt like forever before speaking again.

"Then it's there, and there's nothing that will change that."

"You said it won't be," he told her.

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually know everything."

"So we're back to me having zero choice in the matter?" he asked, getting more agitated.

"That was the agreement, Lorin," she said plainly, not rising to the bait. "You do this for me, and I do the unimaginable for you. You agreed to it. I didn't force your hand."

He threw his head against the backrest and closed his eyes. He knew he was being petulant. Acting like the teenager he hadn't been in years. But nothing inside him could come to terms with this.

"I don't know if I can do this." He shook his head and kept his eyes closed.

"Even if you don't come out, the moment the ceremony starts, the magic will still find you," she said. "You're close enough that if it's going to happen, it'll happen either way."

"Great."

"I'd prefer if you didn't let me go out there on my own, having to explain to those harpies why you're sulking in the car."

"I'm not sulking," he said, just to be contrary.

"No, you're an absolute joy at the moment." She snorted and opened her door. "Now come on. The sooner everyone is there, the sooner it'll be over."

She waltzed out, Sjena settling onto her shoulder, her billowy dress dancing around her legs as if brought to life by a spell. It was her special occasion dress, Lorin could tell right away. The lace was richer, the black wasn't faded. There was just…more of it than what she usually had on. She had made an effort for the ceremony, and while he'd tried dressing up too, out of respect, it still didn't quite reach the level she was at.

She snapped him back to reality by snatching her staff from the back seat and slamming the creaky door at him without a second glance. He was to follow. He knew that much.

He cast one more look toward the clearing, wondering if there was even a sliver of a chance of him just hanging on the outskirts of the whole thing and not being seen or talked to by anyone until it was over. But just as the thought crossed his mind, his grandma reached the fenced space in the clearing and virtually every single person turned to look at her, raising their hands in greeting, smiling at her, making space for her to pass.

Lorin was rudely reminded of the fact that, while she was just Grandma to him, she was an elder to most of the others. Respected. Looked up to. Listened to.

He watched her pause next to every person who stopped her, her face folded into a casual look of interest even if her feet were turned away from the person she was talking to. Polite, always. But detached.

She finished a conversation and turned back to the car, giving him a look he knew meant he was to stop dawdling and join her. Her patience was dwindling and his time was up.

He took a deep breath and gripped the door handle, yanking it open before he could talk himself out of it once again.

His gloved hand slipped a little, the handle flying out of his fingers and banging back against the worn-out plastic. It felt like the loudest thing he had ever heard. Like it had drawn the attention of every single human in the vicinity.

He knew that wasn't it though. He knew the eyes glued to him were all solely because of him. Because he wasn't the boy they used to know when he still lived there. He was an adult now. A stranger to them.

And he was someone who very openly didn't want the life they all revered so much.

He was an outcast by his own choice, and as he slowly walked away from the car and toward his grandma, he couldn't help but feel a tiny stab of regret at his choices.

This used to be his home. These used to be the people he knew. He was the one who had walked out on it all. He'd decided it wasn't right for him and cut ties. In their eyes, he'd shunned them.

So the side-eyes and the curled lips weren't shocking to him in the slightest.

They did sting though, and not even the chill pricks of tiny raindrops on his skin were helping.

He crossed the space between the car and the clearing faster than he was comfortable with, but his steps were long and ridiculously drawn out as it was. He pushed the tiny gate in the fence open and stepped inside, expecting something monumental to happen.

Only to be greeted by a squelch of mud under his feet and nothing more than that.

No thunder, no lightning, no turning to dust.

Just open curiosity and mud.

It was both calming and slightly underwhelming. He had built the moment up in his head so much that it felt almost anticlimactic.

"Disappointed?"

Lorin snapped his head to the side and came face to face with a man around his age, maybe a little older. It was hard to judge in witching communities, where the elderly seemed to live for hundreds of years, and herbal products and spells could do wonders for youthful faces. Forty and under was considered young. In any case, Lorin didn't recognize him, pretty sure he was a new addition to the town after Lorin had made his exit.

The man was dressed in a simple beige outfit with a green cardigan thrown over it, the designs of various flowers and herbs woven into the knit like they were really living in it. Lorin wouldn't rule it out as fact.

A hummingbird was flitting around his messy brown hair and the wreath laid within its strands, its wings a beautiful blur of green and blue. Obviously his familiar.

In his hands he held a simple woven basket, full of a kaleidoscope of colors and textures of plants woven into wreaths just like the one on his head. Even the marks on his fingers and nails were floral, intricately tangled around each other like the wreaths he was holding.

"I'll take the silence as a yes."

Lorin flushed at being caught blatantly staring. "Sorry."

"It's fine," the man said, smiling knowingly. "Your wreath already makes a lot of sense."

"My what?"

The guy reached into his basket. The wreath he pulled out seemed to be considerably different from any other in the bunch. Where theirs were a mixture of the standard flowers Lorin could remember seeing as a child, like jasmine for success and sunflower for wisdom, Lorin's seemed to be made up of a mixture of nothing he could name.

There were vibrant purple petals shaped like dolphins mixed around a type of ivy leaf at the base. Hanging around that were pink flowers that would fall over his forehead and hair in the shapes of hearts. And finishing it off was the weirdest bushy plant he had ever seen in a mixture of yellow and orange.

The guy offered the wreath and Lorin took it on instinct, feeling the bushy flowers tickle the skin where his glove met his bare wrist. He stared at the man with wide eyes.

"The delphinium should help with what you're feeling right now. It's the best for a little boost of encouragement."

Lorin looked down, trying to figure out what flower he meant before the words registered. Encouragement. Encouragement for what, exactly? To help him find his familiar?

He tried to pass the wreath back immediately, like the thing had suddenly become toxic.

"Don't worry." the guy laughed, misreading the situation, whether intentionally or not. Lorin wasn't entirely sure from that amused sparkle in his eyes. "I took care of the delphinium myself. It won't cause any irritation when touched."

"The del-whatever-the-name-is isn't the problem," Lorin said, still trying to pass it back.

The guy tilted his head and the hummingbird flitted around to the other side of him in a burst of speed and vibration. "The bleeding hearts then? Or the foxtail? I was surprised by that one. It's never come up before and I had to make a special trip to find some. Didn't have any growing in the greenhouse, and it's the wrong season for them."

"It's not what the wreath is made of!" Lorin burst out, frustrated. He tried to remember his lessons with his grandma in the garden. The meanings that eluded him. "Look, thank you for the thought, but I don't need any help."

An eyebrow winged up. "That isn't what your wreath told me."

"You don't even know me!"

He pointed at the wreath again. "I do."

"Did my grandma put you up to this?"

"Why would she have anything to do with it?" the guy asked, green eyes very clearly confused. "You got in a couple nights ago and as soon as you crossed the border, I knew what I had to make."

Lorin sucked in a breath, his fingers tightening on the wreath in his hands.

The guy gave him a gentle smile and covered Lorin's gloved hand with his own. The floral designs on his fingers wound all the way up, disappearing beneath his cardigan cuff. "All plants are silent, but they can carry our intentions better than anything else. All you have to do is ask them for help. They'll hear you. They're excellent listeners and even better helpers."

Lorin swallowed, unable to find the words to tell him he didn't intend for anything but leaving once this was all over. The guy removed his hand with a final squeeze.

"Have a wonderful ceremony."

"You too," Lorin murmured quietly, escaping as soon as he could.

"Watch that foxtail though," the guy called at his back. "I have a feeling about it."

Lorin paid him no mind, hastening to where his grandma was in the near distance. He came to a stop at her side, slightly too close, but he felt off center and she was his only anchor in this town.

"Took you long enough," she said, but made no move to step away from him. She looked down at the wreath in his hands and made a curious sound in the back of her throat.

"What?" Lorin asked, tightening his grip on it.

"Nothing," she said. "You wouldn't want to know anyway, right?"

"I do want to know if it has something to do with me and all of this." He held his wreath up. "What's this all about?"

"It's just Glenn's way of making people feel settled before the ceremony," she said, vague as ever. "He finds it helps them in their journey. And nobody minds so it's just what he does."

"I don't need help in my journey," he argued, and she threw him a look that would have made braver men cower in fear.

"No, you need a full navigational system, a ship captain, and someone to hold your hand." She looked away with a dismissive flap of her hand.

Lorin clenched his jaw, unable and unwilling to argue with her. He stood to gain a lot by at least pretending to play along with the ceremony, and if holding a weird flower crown made by a weird witch he'd never seen before was the way to get it, then so be it.

"When does this start?" he asked to change the subject, not really enjoying the fact that she was laying the guilt trip on thick enough for him to actually start feeling it.

"It won't be long now." She pointed to the wreath. "Put that on your head."

"Why?" he asked, frowning as he looked around and saw everyone else wearing their wreaths perched on top of their heads.

"Because I told you to."

"I thought it had nothing to do with the ceremony?"

She leaned against her staff, looking as if he'd drained every last atom of energy from her body.

"It has a lot to do with the fact that people are looking at you even more when you're purposefully disengaged from something they cherish," she said, and this time, her voice was serious and clipped. "Your hands are covered, your posture is closed off, and you're holding that wreath as if it'll burn you. I'm going against everything I stand for, promising you what I did. The least you can do is put in some effort."

She turned around, putting her back to him and leaving him alone to navigate the storm of emotions inside him.

He didn't want to disappoint her, but it seemed like that was all he'd been doing for years at this point. He also didn't want to go against himself, but it looked like he had no other choice but to compromise. Temporary participation for the chance of a lifetime of exclusion.

He lifted the wreath and placed it gingerly on top of his head, feeling it sinking between the strands of his hair, the heart-shaped petals brushing against his eyebrows. The sweet scent of the wreath reached his nose, and he inhaled it for a second, hating to admit it actually smelled pretty nice. Fresh and sweet.

He didn't feel any different, much to his great pleasure. The thing on his head was maybe tickling a little bit, but other than that, he felt just as in control and aware of what was going on as he had before he'd put it on. So there were no mind-changing properties there.

Not that anyone had said there were. He was just covering all possible angles. Leaving nothing to chance.

His grandma looked back at him, nodding her reluctant approval before gazing at someone across the clearing.

Lorin followed her gaze, landing on another lady about the same age as his grandma. She couldn't have looked more different if she'd tried though. With cropped dark red hair, the cape around her body a patchwork of every floral clothing item she had ever owned, and knee-high boots covered in mud and grass, she looked like a children's book character, and Lorin remembered her like one, recalling times when she would visit their house.

Her name was Flora, and she had a staff much like his grandma did, but while Grandma's looked almost threatening and foreboding, this woman's looked as if a gaggle of children had had a go at it. It was painted in every color imaginable, little charms dangling off it and stickers plastered to every inch of available surface.

Lorin was about to say something when she raised her hands into the air, the staff pointed to the murky sky.

The entire clearing fell silent.

Even the animals stopped their movements and quieted down.

The only thing that could be heard was raindrops hitting the roof and the sides of the white tent.

It felt like the rain was giving them a space for themselves. Standing between them and whatever else was happening on the outside of that tent. Like they were in their own little bubble where nothing could touch them.

The sound of rain and the sweet scent of the wreath on his head lulled Lorin into something like tranquility. It settled him a little bit. Made him feel like maybe he didn't have to push back as hard as he did.

It also made him open his mind to looking to the future. One that would be exactly what he needed, if he just gave this ceremony a clear shot and fulfilled his end of the deal. He just had to endure for a little bit, and then he'd have the help of a powerful witch looking for a way for him to be free.

He just had to stay present for a little while longer, and he could have everything life had intended him to have.

"We thank the skies for the rain." Flora finally spoke, her staff still pointing up as the rain started coming down harder. "We have not had rain on ceremony day for decades. We truly are being blessed and encouraged to step into a new chapter of our lives cleansed."

Everyone else in the tent looked up toward the roof of it, closing their eyes as they accepted whatever was about to happen to them.

Lorin didn't feel the calm they did. The rain suddenly didn't feel reassuring and settling as it had just moments ago. It was loud in his ears, deafening. Drumming against the sides of his skull.

He had forgotten rain was considered a blessing by witches. Forgotten they'd see it as yet another way to increase the chances of familiar bonds being created. He felt a knot tie itself in the pit of his stomach.

"Rain clears the way," Flora said. "It purifies the path you're meant to take. A path you won't be walking alone. Not now, and not after."

Lorin frowned at the words, feeling the wreath on his head tickling his ears and forehead.

"Turn to your elders. Look to those who walked that path long before it was your turn. Let them lead the way for you. Let them guide you."

Lorin glanced around and saw each witch roughly his age joining hands with an elder witch. They looked lost in thought, glued to the eyes of their elders as they listened to the words they murmured to them.

"Lorin," his grandmother called, and he jerked his gaze to her, finding her turned to him fully, her staff held against her shoulder as she extended her hands toward him.

"What?" he asked. "What are you doing?"

"This is a sacred part of the ceremony. One that isn't talked about until it's your turn to take part."

He stared at her, feeling his entire body tremble. He didn't even know why. He couldn't explain it at all. "What am I…"

"You're to take those gloves off, and take my hands. You'll open your mind and let me guide you to see if your familiar is here."

"But…"

"No buts, Lorin." She shook her head. "You have promised me this. One chance. One true attempt. This is what it means."

"You can't force this," he told her.

"I don't intend to," she snapped, lips pursed in clear offense. He knew what he'd implied was beyond rude. "I would never do anything to tamper with this. It is how the process works."

Her hands were still held out toward him, palms open and waiting for his. He looked around himself one last time, noticing people going through their own rituals with various results.

He saw some cradling animals in their arms, tears streaming down their faces as they embraced the other half of their soul for the first time.

He saw others, tears present as well, but for different reasons. Their familiar wasn't there yet. It wasn't their time yet. They'd go another year alone.

And then Lorin.

Hesitant still. Persisting. Refusing.

"Lorin," his grandmother called again. "Time is running out."

She shook her hands slightly in invitation and he knew he had no way out. Shaking fingers barely cooperating, he pulled his gloves off and stuffed them into his coat pocket before placing his palms on top of hers.

He knew his hands were cold and clammy, soaking up the warmth from hers as she gripped him tight.

"Close your eyes," she said, and he followed her instruction instantly, finding it easier to hide behind his lids than to keep watching what was happening around him. "Seek for what you need."

He needed a way out.

"What you truly need," she said, as if reading his mind. As if she could read his soul. "Allow yourself to look at all the paths in the crossroads you're standing at. Some lead you to where you think you want to be. Others will lead to where you need to be."

He found himself looking around at the very core of who he was, the crossroads she was talking about clear as day in front of him. He was surrounded by a forest. Green and vibrant and alive, it whispered and rustled from all sides, pressing down on him. There was no sky, only paths—so many it made his vision waver and his resolve weaken.

How was he supposed to choose? To know which one to walk along?

He was paralyzed by indecision.

He whipped his head around, watching as each road stretched into the unknown, fog clouding the destinations.

He took a tentative step to the right, following the closest one to him. It appeared the shortest. The safest.

"Seek acceptance, Lorin." He heard his grandmother's voice echo inside his head. "Seek resolution of your conflicts and inner peace."

He shook his head stubbornly and continued along the path he had chosen before he felt a coldness slither through him, like icy tentacles. It made him feel numb. Detached. It was what he had wanted all along—safety in numbness—but now it scared him.

Something inside of him was screaming out.

He rushed back as fast as he could, collapsing on his knees and trying to breathe. If not there, then where was he supposed to go? He looked helplessly between the roads untried.

They all looked the same. Empty and dark. Unfamiliar and unwelcoming.

And then a flicker of something bright at the corner of his vision.

A butterfly flap of movement down the road just behind him. At the end of it. Something amber and warm and soothing.

He felt a tug inside his stomach. A pull like someone had a hook in him. He got back to his feet and walked that way, following the feeling.

The voice inside his head was screaming at him not to do it. That it meant going against everything he thought he wanted. That he'd be trapped. Bonded.

But the feeling in his chest quieted everything else. Something soft and teasing. Mischievous as it called him forward. Familiar in a way nothing else had ever felt.

He walked faster, and the movement at the end of the road got clearer, the fog dissipating as the amber glow burned like sunlight. There was something waiting for him there. Something rushing to meet him halfway. Something that felt so much like a part of him he had no idea how he'd spent nearly three decades disconnected from it.

He broke into a sprint.

The road got narrower.

The thing got closer, taking shape. Something small and graceful. Fluid strokes of movement from an artist's pen.

Lorin's head got louder and louder until it reached a crescendo and then…everything went completely silent.

The world stopped moving.

His insides settled.

He felt whole.

He gasped and his eyes snapped open to reality.

He was sprawled on the floor of the tent, his grandma standing above him with tears in her eyes and a triumphant smile on her face.

And there was a tail flicking him in the face as something soft and damp burrowed its way inside the flap of his coat.

Kit

Kit buried himself against the witch's chest, burrowing deeper like he could crawl straight inside him and curl up and rest.

Finally safe. Finally whole. Finally with his mate.

The exhaustion of years had fallen on his tiny body, the electricity of their connection still lighting him up and making him vibrate. He pawed at the invisible barrier that kept his human side locked away from the animal one. He tried ripping it apart, fueled by adrenaline and the magic of finding his mate. He tried looking for cracks in it, a place to burst through and pull the fox back to allow the man out.

But there was nothing. The fox remained stubbornly at the forefront, the human side suppressed and caged. He couldn't do it. He still wasn't fixed.

He made a whining whimper in the back of his throat, pressing his ears flat to his head as he sought comfort and grounding.

Why wasn't the witch holding him?

He snuffled up toward the witch's armpit, gathering the smell underneath the artificial layering humans used, soothing himself with his mate's scent.

His tail flicked once in delight, eyes closing as he dug his snout deeper, making the witch flinch. He felt hands on him then, trying to pull him away, and he wiggled away from them viciously, barely resisting the urge to bare his sharp teeth and snap backward. This was his witch. His mate. No one was taking him from Kit now he finally had him.

Only…then he realized that the hands on him weren't pulling …they were pushing.

Pushing him away.

Kit could barely believe it, digging his claws into the material under them and finding purchase. The witch must be confused, something else must be happening. All he knew was that he didn't want to go, and he refused to go.

There were people everywhere. Eyes and hands and scents and voices.

Kit hadn't been this close to anyone in forever, and it made him twitch nervously. No. He wanted to stay curled up with his mate. His mate should gather him up and take him away where it was quiet and safe and where Kit could lick him all over in peace.

"Lorin…"

"Grandma, help" came the choked vibration from the chest next to his ear.

Lorin?

Was that his mate's given name?

"You said there was barely a chance…you said…" Lorin continued, only for his rumbling voice to trail off.

Had he been searching for Kit as long as Kit had been searching for Lorin?

Kit leaned up to lick a soothing stripe over Lorin's neck and almost got tumbled out of Lorin's lap again.

The witch really needed to work on his cuddling skills.

"Lorin, calm down," someone instructed. "Breathe."

Calm was good. Breathing was good. Kit felt like he could fully expand his lungs for the first time in forever. And it had been a long day. Long years.

Kit could feel the energy leaving him fast, that frisson that had sparked between them tapering off and sapping his vigor, leaving him tired beyond measure.

He got a good hold with his claws and settled himself in against Lorin's tense body, molding his form around Lorin's waist and tucking his tail in around Lorin's back until he was all but covered by Lorin's jacket and heat. He kept his snout pointed up into Lorin's scent, letting that lull his eyes closed and relax his exhausted body.

Lorin would take care of him.

His mate.