Excerpt from Everita Valarion’s Codex
(approx. 7,000 years old)
Kai shi vek’mar.
Val’mar krev, val’mar nam’ar,
val’mar Orin, val’mar Nar’velreth.
Kai shi kai’tas vek’tesh vek’mar.
Kai shi’tas krev, shi’tas ven’resh,
shi’tas yesh’ven vek’mar.
Val’mar Kai’tor, val’mar ves’ar,
val’mar kai’reth,
val’mar Kor’sai’tas Ishtar.
Kai shi kai’tas vek’mar—
kai’tas, yesh.
Ven’shai.
Vek kor’marath yesh.
PRELUDE
The Krev’marath
Translation by Eve Valarion
I bind you.
By blood, by name,
by Orin’s sands and Nar’velreth’s sea.
I bind you to me.
I bind your blood, your flesh,
your eternal soul to mine.
By rune, by sacred Vessel,
by hearth and home,
by the holy bound strength of Ishtar.
I bind you to what is mine—
bound, eternal.
Surrender.
Our sacred unity endures forever.
CHAPTER ONE
October Arrives, So Does He
Isadora
“Isadora, are you open?”
The shout ricochets down Mouraria’s cobbles, bouncing off azulejo and laundry lines. The morning air tastes like espresso and exhaust, salt dragged uphill from the Tejo. Lisbon is doing what Lisbon always does: pretending it’s soft while it sharpens its teeth.
Isadora pauses mid-step. A bag of bread warm against her ribs, and the shop keys cold in her hand. Her coat still smells faintly of last night’s incense, one cuff marked with candle wax.
From the auburn wavy mass of her long hair, one of several thin braids—most of them threaded with brass charms and trinkets—has come loose. She puts it behind her ear at the same time she turns to watch Senhora Filomena barrel into view. A local fixture. Neighbourhood gossip. Walking hex. Cardigan buttoned wrong, hem flapping like a warning flag.
Some people get addicted to wine, cards, bad men. Filomena collects curses like a hobby—mostly aimed at her son’s girlfriends—and blames Mouraria when they bounce back.
“Bom dia, Senhora Filomena. Still alive since yesterday?” Isadora says, dragging on a smile she doesn’t mean.
Filomena clicks her tongue as she approaches, eyeing her like she’s a stain that learned to speak.
Isadora turns the key in the lock. The metal sticks for half a second—old building, old door, old city—then gives with a reluctant clunk.
The sigil on Loja das Sombras—a flame inside a crescent moon—catches the morning light as she pushes the door open, a brief flare of gold against the glass. Back when she first marked it she thought life would be different. Cleaner, easier too.
The shop squats between a fado bar and a mini-market that permanently smells of bacalhau. It looks like nothing. That was the point when she opened it at nineteen: a place people could pass a hundred times without noticing.
Unless they needed it.
Inside, the red velvet seat by the door looks far grander than anything else in the shop. To the left, the card-reading table waits—two chairs, a scarred wood surface, a candle stub, a tarot deck worn thin from too many strangers’ futures.
Things have changed.
The wards don’t hush the shop anymore. They mostly watch and keep out only what is truly dangerous.
Isadora leaves the front shelves loud on purpose—crystals, dreamcatchers, espanta-espíritos, little bowls of seashells that make tourists smile. The cabinet in the back corner stays shut, dark wood and iron latch. That’s for the real work and the clients who don’t browse.
The shop still takes the ones who show up with shaking hands and nowhere else to go. But it also takes tourists, the curious, and anyone with cash burning a hole in their pocket. Isadora’s broke more often than she isn’t. No point pretending she’s some mystic, high-and-mighty Witch when rent doesn’t care about dignity.
The bell jingles as Filomena bustles in after her.
“I know you said it needs time,” the old woman says, already pawing through her handbag like she’s digging for proof, “but that spell warding powder you gave me—gone!”
She crosses herself three times—fast, fierce, holding a small silver crucifix—and lowers her voice as if the whole street is listening. “It’s Gisela in number twelve. She makes things disappear in my house. She cursed me.”
Isadora exhales through her nose and counts to three in her mind. The ‘powder’ is Tejo sand and ink. Pure placebo, zero magic. What Filomena needed was rest, so Isadora gave her a grounding charm and kept the money.
More mercy than most Witches would bother with.
Isadora takes off her coat, steps behind the counter and nudges the ancient PC's mouse out of the way. The screen glows—yesterday's half-written invoice still open, and the notification that the invoicing software's licence is about to expire still popping up.
She takes a new packet of sand for Filomena from the shelf below the counter and slides it over. “Here. Maybe check under the sofa this time.”
“It won’t be there,” Filomena huffs, tucking it away. “But thank you, Isadora. Without me protecting that boy, God knows what he drags in.”
Filomena bustles out. The door swings open, letting Mouraria in—the man busking further down the street, the tram crawling uphill, voices rising to debate the latest football match from the cafe on the corner. For a second, the light of the rising sun hits the corridor beyond the shop: stairs up to her room on one side, the kitchen door further down.
Two steps from Witchcraft to a sink full of dishes.
Two steps from other people’s curses to her own.
The front door shuts, and she leans on the counter, savouring the sudden silence.
Then—
Her phone buzzes.
‘WhatsApp — Mara
Isa, have you seen this?
(Instagram link)’
She taps the link.
The shop’s old Wi-Fi sulks for half a second—then the photo loads and her stomach just drops.
“Oh Goddess. No.”
It’s him, smirking.
Her own personal fado.
Actually smirking—that smile she knows too well, the one that means he’s either about to ruin someone with pleasure or with death and won’t apologise for either.
“What the fuck?”
The man in the photo looks no older than his twenties. Hoodie. Baggy jeans. Earring on his left ear. Pretty as a sin she’s never outrun. Wild, almost-silver blond hair, ice-blue eyes, pupils just a little too long. He isn’t human. Not anymore.
Over nine centuries old and still posing like some skater brat who stole immortality and wears it badly on purpose.
And beside him—
“Matilde?”
Too loud.
The wards stir. The sigil on the glass gives a faint, warning hum. Her grip slips. The phone almost hits the floor.
Matilde Silveira Llewellyn—The Glitter Witch of Lisbon.
Even in a phone screen, Isadora can feel the old irritation climb up her spine—that honey-smile, that polished cruelty, the way Matilde always manages to ruin people without ever looking messy doing it.
Then Isadora sees the caption. And it gets worse.
‘@glitter_with_matilde
#mymorningwalk #usforever
📍 Martim Moniz
Today, 2nd Oct. 2028—5 minutes ago’
Isadora’s pulse starts hammering.
Five minutes is enough time to ruin a life.
Memories flash—kisses, small domestic moments that felt like safety—the end of June—sun warm through her room window—his voice too careful, too controlled.
“I might take a few months on this job. I can’t contact you. Do not contact me, for your safety, Isa.”
And then, at the shop door, mouth on hers like a promise he meant even as he was making it impossible:
“I love you. I’ll be back soon.”
He’s back. And he hasn’t even given her the courtesy of a breakup before he’s—what? Replacing her? Parading it?
“Bastard.”
The shop door creaks, the bell jangles.
A German couple steps inside, mid-smile, mid-wonder. She doesn’t even look up properly.
“Out. Shop’s closed.”
Their faces falter—confused, offended, polite—as they walk out.
Not my problem. Not today.
Not when her whole world just cracked open in her hand.
Coat. Keys. She’s gone before she can think better of it. Because she has to see. Has to know.
Whether her Vampire—her almost-forever, clearly her mistake—has really crawled back into Lisbon on Matilde’s arm. And whether she’ll hex him. Or rage-kiss him.
Or both.
CHAPTER TWO
Leashed, Kissed and Cursed
Bast
“Bast,” Matilde purrs, pressing her cheek to his arm like she’s posing for worship. “You sure you don’t want to look? You love vintage. Always in those shabby little shops.”
The jab lands clean. She means a particular shop. The one tucked in Mouraria, flame-and-moon sigil painted on the glass.
Bast almost manages to laugh, but for all his centuries of charm, all that he manages to offer her this time is a smirk.
She’s not wrong. His feet always drift to old places and women with no sense of self-preservation.
And Isadora.
Over two years in her orbit, and he knows this much: Isa is twenty-eight on paper. In spirit, wiser than half the ancient bastards in this city.
“I’m fine,” he mutters. “Don’t you have followers to scam?”
Her green eyes narrow, glittering with delight. Blond curls catch the sun as she tosses her head, perfectly staged in the chaos of Martim Moniz.
Vendors shout over crates of pomegranates, smoke rises from roasted chestnuts, tourists haggle over cheap knockoffs.
A month. A fucking month, stuck in darkness.
Matilde left his mind stuck with nothing but that cursed chat screen, while his body was kept somewhere else. Best case: folded into a closet like a forgotten coat. Worst case—her bed.
Used like a trophy.
Matilde glides through the market like a serpent in heels, perfume cutting through spice and sweat.
“I do,” she says, all sugar. “Just need to grab a few rare crystals to resell.”
Bast snorts. Her idea of “rare crystals” is flea-market glass spelled with sweet lies, then flipped to influencers who lap her up.
He threads his fingers through hers, pulling her close with a practiced smile. “Matilde,” he murmurs, caressing her cheek softly. “While you’re at it, I’m going to my flat, grab some clothes, meet you after?”
Matilde’s grin slices wide, cruel and triumphant. Scarlet nails gleam as she taps her phone to his chest. “Midday, my place,” she sings, eyes gleaming. “No games, Bast. I have a tight schedule.”
Bast drags a hand through his hair, hiding fury beneath his smirk. A month tracking a fucking book, another in her snare, then another in her bed—he's the one with a tight schedule, not her. “Already missing you.”
Her kiss lands. He kisses her back. Automatic. Every kiss with Matilde is a transaction—bargain struck, a slice of freedom given.
She thinks she’s powerful. Thinks that the last month they spent together—and the love confession he made last night while he fucked her against the wall—means he wants her.
He doesn’t. Never will.
He’d hoped that after he told her he was in love with her, submitted to her, she’d tire, loosen her grip. But she’s relentless.
So fucking relentless.
Matilde pulls back, lips glossy, smirk poison-sweet. “Tell me again,” she says tapping her phone, winking.
He forces his mouth into a wicked curve, winks back, the picture of reckless charm. “I love you, Matilde.”
She drinks it in, emerald eyes glittering. He knows that look. Adoration.
Fuck, she won't get enough of it anytime soon.
When he turns away, the October sun slices through cloud, warm on his skin, it feels so good, grounding. Mortals still whisper Vampires burn in daylight.
Cute myth.
He has walked under a sun that would make the light now peeking through the clouds look timid.
Would, won’t.
That sun was brought down long ago, in a war some are still stupid enough to keep fighting.
Bast stops at the crossing beneath a red pedestrian sign. Around him, Martim Moniz keeps moving—vendors shouting, chestnut smoke filling the square, tourists drifting in slow, bright ignorance.
Three months ago he’d gone to pay off a favour to the Ishtarian princess playing court in Bairro Alto. Find an old book, a family heirloom.
“A simple case of misplacement,” she had told him. Most likely someone in court trying to be cunning and clever, “a clean job.”
It hadn’t been simple or clean. If he’d known Witches would be involved, he would’ve asked Isadora for backup. However, it’s good he didn’t. Because now there’s no version of this where she stayed untouched if she had gotten involved.
Matilde is too cruel, petty, possessive and fucking with very dangerous Magic.
Bast closes his eyes for a heartbeat—sees Isa’s little braids, the ink on her fingers from drawing spells, the way she looks at him like she’s already decided to love him and curse him in the same breath. He opens his eyes and looks up the hill toward Mouraria. His feet betray him one step.
“No. I gotta leave. Now.”
Bast turns away.
And then he sees her.
She moves through the market like something sent to end him. Through chestnut smoke curling like incense, past neon stalls hawking counterfeit everything—until the crowd stops mattering.
Isadora’s scent hits him before her words do. Dragon’s blood resin clinging to her skin and something rarer—Arctic thyme—the wild bloom he once crushed between his fingers on a fjord hillside over nine centuries ago.
Isa’s long auburn hair hangs loose and wild, catching the autumn light, the little braids threaded with charms and trinkets—five of them his—swing with each step.
Bast remembers slipping those relics into the strands between kisses, between nights he swore he wouldn’t fall harder and did anyway. One catches the light and his stomach drops. He knows that piece. He shouldn’t have ever given it away. It was his mother’s.
Braided into her, pieces of me—promises I didn’t keep.
Isadora’s brown eyes blaze with fury, but beneath the fire, there’s hurt. That nearly undoes him. She stops only a step away. Small frame, mortal bones, yet her presence shifts the square.
Shifts my fucking soul.
Bast forces the old armour onto his face. Casual. Cocky.
“Hey.”
Her lips part. Close. Part again.
“You’re a piece of shit, Bassi Svartason.”
His real name—pronounced perfectly, for once. Not a slip. Not an accident. Thrown like a curse she’s been saving up. And Gods help him—he almost smiles. Reins it in.
Matilde is still close enough to see. Close enough to tap that phone again and trap his mind. Close enough to look at Isadora and decide how entertaining it would be to use his body to break what he loves. And even if he wanted to warn Isa—if he wanted to spill the whole ugly truth—he can’t. The snare won’t allow it.
So he locks his face. Cruel enough to be believable.
“I am. You’re better off.”
Isa stares straight into him like she’s trying to drag the truth out through his pupils. It takes every stubborn, ancient bone in him not to cave.
“You lied to me,” she says. Her voice trembles, just once, and her jaw tightens immediately—angry at herself for letting it show. She was never good at pretending. She thinks it’s a flaw. He has always loved her for it.
“I never thought you were a coward,” she continues, and that one lands like a blade. “Why not just tell me to my face we were done?”
“You’re right,” Bast says, flat. His mouth twists in something like a shrug. “We’re done. Forget me.”
The flinch is immediate. Clean. Like he hit her.
Something in his chest splits. He has to move.
Now.
Before she speaks again. Before Matilde notices.
Bast turns away and walks off into the noise and smoke of Martim Moniz before he does something stupid and honest.