Page 1 of Impawssible Magic

ONE

LEIRE

A FRESH START (SORT OF)

The amethyst cluster goes to the left of the window. Obviously. Anyone with half a brain knows amethyst needs morning light to properly charge, and this window faces east, so⁠—

“Don’t give me that look.” I set the rose quartz on the counter with more force than necessary. “You’re going in the love corner and that’s final.”

The crystal doesn’t respond. Because it’s a crystal. And I’m talking to rocks at seven in the morning like a completely normal, well-adjusted witch who has her life under control.

Whisperwind Charms. My shop. My fresh start. My chance to prove that one catastrophic betrayal doesn’t define an entire life.

Three weeks in Mistvale, and the place is finally starting to look like an actual business instead of a storage unit that had a breakdown. Display cases gleam under carefully positioned fairy lights. Shelves line the walls, each one holding crystals I’ve personally cleansed, charged, and probably had at least one conversation with. The back room is set up for custom work—my specialty, the thing that’s going to make this whole gamble pay off. Crystals and copper wire and silver, yes, but also the botanical materials that anchor intention in organic matter: dried herbs, resins, pressed flowers whose properties have been documented for centuries.

I pick up a piece of citrine and hold it to the light streaming through the bay windows. The golden glow catches, fractures, throws tiny rainbows across the aged hardwood floor. Pretty. Hopeful. Everything I’m pretending to be.

“You’re going right by the register.” I turn the stone, watching light dance through its facets. “Abundance energy for the money corner. Let’s manifest some actual customers, shall we?”

The citrine warms slightly in my palm. I choose to interpret that as agreement.

The thing about crystals is they don’t lie. They don’t pretend to be your friend while secretly plotting to ruin your life. They don’t curl up in your lap for years, let you pour your magic into them, and then⁠—

I slam that mental door shut so hard the wards on the shop walls flicker.

The wards. Right. I should check the wards.

I close my eyes and reach out with my senses, feeling for the magical barriers I spent the first several days here constructing. They hum at the edges of my awareness, gossamer-thin layers of protection woven into the very bones of this old building. Keep out ill intent. Deflect harmful magic. Alert me to danger.

They’re fine. Functional. Also about sixty percent weaker than they should be.

Because I’m not anchored anymore.

I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, counting to ten in three different languages. It doesn’t help. It never helps. But the alternative is screaming into a pillow, and I’ve already done that twice this week.

“Enough.” The word comes out sharper than intended. “Soft opening today. Focus.”

I spend the next hour arranging and rearranging displays, adjusting the angle of every crystal until the morning light hits them just right. The shop window showcases my best pieces: a massive smoky quartz cluster that took me a month to properly attune, several palm-sized selenite wands, and a collection of handcrafted charm bracelets that each took about forty hours of focused magical work.

By nine, the fairy lights are twinkling, the incense is burning (sage with a hint of sweetgrass, welcoming but not overwhelming), and Whisperwind Charms looks exactly like the kind of place that belongs in a magical town called Mistvale.

The Familiar Registry sits on the corner of Moonthread Square straight out of a fever dream. Three stories of robin’s-egg blue Victorian architecture, climbing roses scrambling up the walls despite the fact that it’s not exactly rose season, and windows that somehow manage to look both welcoming and vaguely menacing.

I stand on the sidewalk for a solid minute, just staring at it.

The bell above the door jingles when I push it open, and I’m immediately hit with the smell of old paper and a sweetness underneath. Brown sugar, maybe. And... peaches?

Inside, the Registry is chaos barely contained. File cabinets line every visible wall, their drawers labeled in a script I can’t read but somehow understand—a neat trick of translation magic I’ve never seen before. Mismatched chairs cluster in what might optimistically be called a waiting area. A spectral cat lounges on top of the front desk, transparent enough that I can see the wood grain through its striped fur.

“Hello?”

A harried-looking clerk pops up from behind a stack of folders, wire-rimmed glasses askew on their nose. “Oh! Registration? New to Mistvale? Have a seat, I’ll be right with you, just need to file these before they start reorganizing themselves⁠—”

She disappears again, muttering about alphabetical systems and sentient paperwork.

I eye the chairs. They look... mobile. Like they might shuffle around when I’m not looking.

I stay standing.