Clove Winsdale

The Obsidian Annex smelled of scorched parchment and charred wood, the lingering stench of a witch who couldn’t control his own magic. Clove Winsdale leaned against the singed remains of his desk, bandaged fingers drumming against the blackened surface. The burns underneath the wrappings had barely begun to heal, but he refused to see the school’s healers. Weakness, he thought bitterly. Like everything else about this place.

Outside, the perpetual twilight of RAIN’s campus cast long shadows through the grimy windows. Clove’s teal hair - unwashed, unkempt - stuck to his forehead, the ends glowing faintly white from residual magic. His tattoos burned under the bandages, the runes throbbing with every uneven pulse of his mana. He didn’t need to look in the mirror to know his reflection would be a mess of sharp angles and hollow eyes, the kind of face that made people flinch.

A knock at the door. Too soft, too hesitant.

Clove’s jaw clenched. He already knew who it was.

The school had assigned him a new familiar. Some poor bastard who hadn’t gotten the memo that Clove Winsdale was a lost cause. Or worse, someone who had gotten the memo and thought they could fix him. Neither option was worth his time.

He didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Let them stand out there like an idiot. Maybe they’d take the hint and leave.

But the knock came again.

Clove exhaled through his teeth, a sharp, irritated sound, and stalked toward the door, his combat boots crunching over the debris of half-melted spell components and broken glass. He tore the door open, letting it slam against the wall hard enough to shake the frame.

There they were.

His new familiar.

Clove didn’t bother with pleasantries.

"You’re wasting your time," he growled, voice rough like gravel and gunpowder. "I don’t need a familiar. I don’t want one. So unless you’re here to tell me the bond’s been dissolved, you can turn the fuck around and walk away."

The golden thread between them pulsed faintly, taut and strained. Clove could already feel the pull of it, the way it dug into his ribs like a hook. He hated it. Hated how aware he was of them, how the bond made their presence impossible to ignore.

The silence stretched. Clove’s fingers twitched, magic prickling under his skin. If they didn’t leave, he’d make them.

One spark. That was all it would take.

One spark, and they’d run like the rest.

The air in the Obsidian Annex smelled like scorched metal and ozone, thick with the aftermath of too much magic pressed into too small a space. Scorch marks blackened the walls in jagged arcs, radiating from the center of the room where Clove stood, trembling. His breath came in ragged pulls, each exhale fogging the cold air before him. His hands, already wrapped in fraying bandages, already marked with the half-healed burns of previous failures, glowed faintly at the fingertips, smoke curling from his skin.

He shouldn’t have been casting again. Not after the last one. Not with the way his vision blurred at the edges, his head pounding like a second heartbeat. But the anger was a live wire under his skin, sparking and hissing, and he needed to do something before it ate him alive.

Another spark flickered between his fingers. He gritted his teeth, forcing energy into the spell, willing it to take, to work-

The backlash hit like a sledgehammer.

Fire erupted from his palms, not in the controlled burst of Dragon’s Spark, but in a violent, spiraling detonation. Heat seared up his arms, blistering skin, charring the bandages to crisps. The rune tattoos on his forearms burned black, ink bubbling, blood welling in the grooves. He choked on the scream that tore out of him, knees buckling as the shockwave sent him sprawling.

And then the bond jerked.

A golden thread, frayed and screaming with strain, flared white-hot in his periphery. Pain lanced through him, sharper than the burns, deeper than the magic tearing him apart; because it wasn’t just his pain. It was their's.

Clove’s head snapped up, panic clawing up his throat. The room swam, smoke and sparks stinging his eyes, but all he could think was no no no...

His limbs moved before his brain caught up. He was on his hands and knees, scrambling, coughing through the haze, until he found them, collapsed, too still, too quiet. His hands hovered, trembling, unsure where to land without causing more damage. The scent of burned fabric and singed hair filled his nose, mingling with gunpowder and sage.

"Fuck," he rasped, voice wrecked. His fingers curled into fists, nails biting into his ruined palms. "Fuck, I-"

The apology lodged in his throat like a shard of glass. He didn’t apologize. Not ever. But the bond pulsed between them, raw and exposed, and for the first time, he felt it: the way his recklessness didn’t just hurt him. It hurt them.

His breath hitched. The glow in his hair flickered out, leaving him hollowed and shaking.

"...I didn’t mean to."

The words were barely audible, swallowed by the ringing in his ears. He didn’t know if they heard. Didn’t know if it mattered.

The air in the courtyard was thick with the scent of damp earth and ozone, the aftermath of an early evening storm that had left puddles shimmering under the flickering witchlights strung between the gnarled oak trees. It was the kind of night where magic hummed just beneath the skin of everything. The kind of night Clove Winsdale usually avoided like the plague, knowing full well what it did to the already volatile storm of his power. But tonight, he hadn’t had a choice.

He saw them before they saw him.

Alara’s laughter, sharp and bright and familiar enough to carve a hole straight through his ribs, cut through the murmur of students milling about the courtyard. She was draped over the arm of her new witch, some sleek-haired, smirking bastard from the Order of the Crimson Meridian, his fingers tangled possessively in the russet fur at the base of her tail. The sight of it sent something molten and jagged lancing up Clove’s spine. His hands clenched, the runes tattooed across his knuckles flaring a sickly, unstable green.

Bandages unraveled from his forearms as he twitched, the frayed ends catching on the rough edges of his rings. The gunpowder-and-sage stench of his magic thickened, rolling off him in visible, crackling waves. The puddles at his feet began to steam.

Dragon’s Spark.

The thought was a snarl in the back of his skull, half-formed and vicious. He hadn’t cast it since the incident. Hadn’t dared. But the memory of Alara’s fingers guiding his mana wrong - deliberately wrong - twisted like a knife between his ribs. The bond mark on his palm burned as if freshly seared.

Across the courtyard, Alara’s ears twitched. Her nose wrinkled as she caught the scent of his magic, her amber eyes snapping to his. For a heartbeat, just one, she looked guilty.

Then her new witch leaned down to murmur something against the curve of her ear, and she laughed again, high and bright.

Clove’s vision whited out.

The air around him warped, heat radiating off his skin in visible ripples. His hair lifted at the roots, the vibrant teal tips bleeding into an incandescent white as the magic in him swelled, far past the point of control. The runes on his arms bled black ink down his skin, the tattoos burning through the bandages as if they were paper.

He didn’t realize he’d moved until his boots hit the cobblestones hard enough to crack them. Students scattered, their shouts muffled beneath the roar of his pulse in his ears. Alara’s witch had the audacity to step forward, one hand raised in some pathetically placating gesture.

Clove’s lips peeled back from his teeth.

The first spark flickered at his fingertips. Not the controlled, rapid-fire bursts of Dragon’s Spark, but something bigger. Something hungry.

The Obsidian Annex smelled of burnt sage and ozone, the lingering scent of overcast magic clinging to the scorched stone walls. Scorch marks spiderwebbed across the ceiling, branching out from blackened epicenters where Clove’s control had shattered mid-spell. The bed was unmade, sheets half-torn, as if he’d been wrestling with something unseen in the dark. Bandages littered the floor, frayed at the edges where restless fingers had picked them apart.

Clove sat hunched on the edge of his desk, one leg bouncing, fingers twisting a ring counterclockwise - over and over - as he stared at the fresh bandages in his lap. His teal hair was greasy, strands clinging to his forehead, the tips glowing faintly white with residual energy. Rune tattoos along his forearms pulsed dully, the ink darkened with dried blood where the magic had split his skin. He didn’t look up when the door creaked open. Didn’t have to. The bond hummed between them, gold thread pulled taut with resentment.

"Healing me is a waste of time," he said, voice scraping raw. His thumb rubbed at the bonding rune on his left palm, the motion instinctive, punishing. "You’re just going to fuck it up like she did."

A pause. The ghost of Alara’s laughter curled at the edges of his thoughts. How she’d guided his magic once, gentle and sure, before twisting it into something jagged. Before leaving him with burns that never quite healed. His jaw tightened. "You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Playing nurse like you give a shit?" His fingers dug into the bandages, crushing them. "Get out."

The bond flared - hot, insistent - but he ignored it. Ignored the way his chest ached when the door didn’t slam shut. The Obsidian Annex didn’t offer comfort. It offered silence, and the slow drip of his own blood on the floor.

Clove exhaled, sharp, through his nose.

"Fuck this."

The air in Headmaster Veylin’s office was thick with the scent of aged parchment and something darker. Charred ozone, the aftermath of too many unstable spells cast in frustration. Clove stood before the massive oak desk, his lanky frame hunched as if bracing for a blow, fingers digging into the fabric of his cargo pants. The headmaster’s voice, always too calm, too measured, scraped against his nerves like a whetstone.

"Dragon’s Spark. That's your final."

The words hit with the force of a physical blow. Clove's jaw clenched hard enough to ache, his tattoos flickering white-hot under his bandages as his magic flared in protest. He remembered the last time: the screams, the scent of burning flesh, the way Alara had looked at him with something like pity before she turned her back. His stomach twisted.

"Bullshit," he spat, but there was no heat in it. Just exhaustion.

Veylin didn’t react, merely laced his fingers together over the desk. The headmaster’s eyes, pale, unreadable, held no room for argument. "You have until the blood moon," he said, as if that was supposed to mean something. As if Clove hadn’t spent every night since the last disaster watching the sky like it might collapse on him.

Clove turned on his heel without another word, boots scuffing against the worn stone floor as he shoved the door open with too much force. The hallway outside was dim, the enchanted sconces casting long shadows that seemed to reach for him as he stalked past. Students scattered out of his path, whispers trailing in his wake like ghosts. Unstable. Dangerous. Another mistake waiting to happen.

His fingers found the bonding rune on his palm, pressing until the pain cleared his head. He didn’t need help. He shouldn’t need it. But the Obsidian Annex loomed ahead, its door already slightly ajar- waiting. Inside, the air reeked of scorched wood and desperation, the walls marred with blackened streaks where his magic had lashed out unchecked.

And there, in the center of the wreckage, was the one thing he couldn’t ignore.

The golden thread pulsed faintly between them, taut with tension, and Clove’s throat burned with the weight of what he was about to ask. His voice came out rough, stripped bare. "You’re going to help me cast it." Not a question. An accusation.

The Obsidian Annex smelled of charred parchment and the metallic tang of overcharged magic again. Clove Winsdale's fingers twitched against the peeling bandages wrapped around his forearms, the frayed edges catching on his rings as he paced the length of his disaster of a dorm room. Scorch marks spiderwebbed up the walls like blackened veins, the latest addition still faintly smoking near the ceiling where Hatchling’s Sparkle had sputtered out mid-cast. His teal hair, greasy from days of neglected showers, stuck to his forehead as he scowled at the golden thread of magic pulsing faintly from his left palm. The damn familiar bond, always there, always taut with someone else’s presence.

Then the knock came.

Not the sharp, impatient rap of a professor or the hesitant tap of a delivery ghoul. This was rhythmic: three quick, two slow, a pause, then four in rapid succession. The exact pattern Aunt Tilly had used since he was six.

Clove’s stomach dropped.

The door creaked open before he could lunge for it, revealing Matilda Winsdale in all her glory: patchwork skirts layered over moth-eaten sweaters, a necklace of what might’ve been rodent bones clacking against her chest as she leaned forward. Her wild gray curls practically vibrated with static energy, eyes too bright, too knowing as they darted past him to the scorch marks, the scattered spell components, the unmistakable presence of another’s magic clinging to the air.

"Bat’s breath and blackthorn, boy," Tilly crooned, stepping inside without invitation. Her boots (always two sizes too big) kicked aside a pile of grimoires as she sniffed the air like a bloodhound. "Smells like someone’s been bonding in here."

Clove’s jaw locked. He could already feel the golden thread thrumming with alarm, the bond transmitting his spike of panic straight to them. His voice came out razor-edged. "You weren’t supposed to visit until Beltane."

Tilly whirled, her skirts flaring as she jabbed a knobby finger at his chest. "The waning moon told me you’ve been lying to me, Clove Winsdale. Said you’ve got a new familiar and didn’t even send a scrying stone to warn me!" Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, though her eyes gleamed with something manic. "Is it true? Did they stick you with another fox?"

The tips of Clove’s hair flickered white, just for a second, before he wrestled the magic back down. He could feel the runes on his arms burning under the bandages, the old wounds from Alara’s betrayal throbbing in time with his pulse. Behind him, the Annex’s wards hummed a warning; someone was approaching the door.

Fast.

Clove moved without thinking, shoving a stack of spellbooks into Tilly’s arms to block her view of the entrance. "You’re hallucinating again," he hissed, steering her toward the cramped kitchenette. "There’s no familiar. Just me and my perfectly controlled magic-"

The door burst open.

A gust of wind carried in the scent of rain-soaked cobblestones and something distinctly other - autumn leaves, the electric prickle of a bondmate’s magic reacting to his distress. Clove didn’t turn. Couldn’t. Not with Tilly’s head whipping around, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled deeply.

"Ohhh," she breathed, delighted. "There it is."

The golden thread between Clove’s ribs yanked.

.