3 The Witch's Apprentice Chapter 3

Bell gasped, blinking hard. The shop came rushing back into focus—the ticking clocks, the amber glow of lanterns, the faint rustle of Elspeth’s robes.

She looked up, trembling. “What was that?”

Elspeth’s eyes, green and ancient, regarded her quietly. “Your first scrying,” she said. “You caught a thread of something real. And something… caught a thread of you in return.”

Bell shivered, still staring into the mirror’s depths, where now—just for a second—her reflection smiled back at her.

But she hadn’t smiled.

Not at all.

“You’re good at this, Bell. You have a natural talent for readings,” Elspeth said, her voice low but firm, as if stating a fact she had known all along. With a careful motion, she wrapped the mirror in its indigo cloth and tucked it away once more in the dark drawer. The silver edge of the frame caught the light for just a second before vanishing into shadow, like a closing eye.

Bell sat motionless, staring at the empty space where the mirror had been. Her thoughts fluttered like moths caught behind glass—silent, frantic, trying to make sense of what she’d seen. That sky with the broken moon. The white bird falling. The gate of bone. The reflection that smiled without her.

Elspeth's voice broke the silence again, smooth and deliberate. “Would you like to try something more?”

Bell blinked at her, as though emerging from a dream. Her eyes were wide, distant, still caught in the echo of that other world. Slowly, she nodded. The question still lingered in her chest like a splinter. She didn’t know what she was hoping to find—but whatever it was, it wasn’t finished with her yet.

Without another word, Elspeth rose, her robes trailing behind her like smoke. She moved across the room with the grace of someone who had performed the same ritual a thousand times. The scent in the shop began to shift again—less of parchment and dust now, more herbal, earthy. A whisper of rosehips, citrus peel, and something darker: a bitter undertone like wormwood or wild sage.

“Tea leaf reading is an ancient art,” she said, heating the blackened kettle with a glowing ruby ring. “Older than Dûrnarn itself. Long before the city dug its teeth into the bones of the world, there were seers who spoke to fate over a cup of tea.”

The kettle began to groan softly, a low, ghostly sound like wind in a canyon.

Elspeth opened a drawer and withdrew a jar wrapped in dark velvet twine. Bell recognized it instantly—she had helped blend that particular infusion not long ago, selecting each dried petal and shard of root under Elspeth’s sharp instruction. Inside were curls of black tea leaves mingled with flecks of blue cornflower, fragments of dried apple skin, and slivers of pale ginger.

The moment the jar opened, the scent spilled into the room—warm and bright with an undercurrent of something sharp and forested. The aroma seemed to wake something ancient in the walls.

Elspeth scooped a spoonful into each of their delicate, mismatched cups—hers was bone white, etched with a ring of thorns; Bell’s was dark green, glazed with hairline cracks like a spider’s web. She set them before Bell on the desk and, with a graceful motion, poured the boiling water.

The leaves swirled as the hot water kissed them, releasing a richer, deeper aroma: Ginger and something deeper and earthy. The cups began to steam, filling the small space between them with a haze that shimmered faintly, as though catching the edge of unseen light. For a moment, Bell imagined the mist curling into shapes—snakes, branches, eyes that blinked and disappeared.

She watched in silence, the warmth of the cup seeping into her palms, anchoring her.

“Drink until the cup is nearly empty,” Elspeth instructed, her tone now almost ceremonial. “But leave just enough to cover the leaves. And while you drink… don’t speak. Don’t think. Let the tea take you where it will.”

Bell nodded slowly, lifting the cup to her lips. The tea was hot, but not scalding. It tasted like sunlight filtered through old wood, sweetened by apple. As she drank, the shop seemed to grow quieter still—as if holding its breath, waiting to see what would be revealed at the bottom of the cup.

Bell drank slowly, letting the warmth of the tea spread through her chest like a quiet fire. Her mind, still buzzing from the mirror’s vision, began to settle, lulled by the rhythm of sipping, the soft crackle of the fire under the kettle, and the ever-present, quiet ticking of the shop’s many mismatched clocks. The world narrowed to the space between her hands, to the rising steam and the cup’s growing weightlessness.

Finally, she set the nearly empty cup down.

The leaves at the bottom clung to the porcelain in looping patterns, dark and delicate. For a long moment, Bell simply stared. Then the shapes began to emerge—not as images all at once, but as suggestions, outlines rising slowly from the tangle like memories returning from a dream.

“There,” Elspeth said, her voice hushed, almost reverent. “What do you see?”

Bell tilted the cup, watching the leaves shift slightly in the remaining liquid, her breath catching as the image came into focus.

“I… I think I see a doorway,” she whispered. “A tall one, arched. And something beside it... a person, maybe.”

Elspeth leaned in, eyes gleaming. “Yes. Go deeper.”

Bell’s gaze moved to the far side of the cup. A sharp cluster of leaves spiraled outward like a fan. As she turned the cup, her brow furrowed.

“A tower,” she said slowly. “Or no—a pyre. Broken at the top. And smoke curling from it.”

Her voice trembled. Something about the pattern tugged at her—not fear, not entirely, but recognition. The feeling you get when you see something from a dream you didn’t know you remembered.

“And here… a moon,” she added. “But it’s cracked. Like it’s been shattered.”

Elspeth’s breath caught, so subtle Bell almost didn’t notice. “Interesting.”

Bell’s pulse quickened. “What does it mean?”

But Elspeth didn’t answer immediately. She stood straight, folding her arms, her eyes still fixed on the cup.

“You’re not just seeing the leaves,” she said at last. “You’re seeing through them. You’re not reading symbols—you’re remembering something that hasn’t happened yet.”

Bell’s mouth went dry. “Is that possible?”

“In Dûrnarn?” Elspeth’s gaze darkened with a strange sort of wonder. “Anything is possible.”

The shop grew very still. Even the light seemed to hesitate.

Elspeth took the cup with care, her expression unreadable now.

“Some visions invite us,” she said. “Others… are sent.”

Bell’s hands trembled in her lap. “Sent by who?”

Elspeth didn’t answer. She set the cup aside, reached out, and laid a hand over Bell’s.

“We’ll find out.” she said softly.