Page 1 of Hex and the Dragon
ONE
IVY
The autumn air carried the scent of wood smoke and dying leaves through the tall windows of Mistwhisper Falls Library, but Ivy Chen barely noticed. She sat cross-legged on the polished hardwood floor of the archive room, surrounded by towers of leather-bound volumes that smelled of centuries and secrets. Her long black hair was twisted into a messy bun secured with two pencils, and her oversized cardigan hung loose around her petite frame as she carefully cataloged each tome in her precise handwriting.
Two weeks had passed since the entity crisis that had nearly torn their supernatural community apart, and Ivy was grateful for the return to quiet routine. The familiar weight of books in her hands, the whisper of turning pages, the methodical process of recording titles and magical classifications—it all helped steady her nerves after witnessing the kind of cosmic horror that most people only encountered in nightmares.
"Compendium of Lunar Binding Rituals, circa 1847," she murmured to herself, running her fingertips along the book's cracked spine before writing the entry in her ledger. "Protective ward construction using moonstone and silver thread."
The pile of books beside her represented just a fraction of the ancient texts that Nico Beaumont had brought back from his mysterious research expedition. The usually impeccable fae bookstore owner had returned to Mistwhisper Falls looking like he'd aged a decade, his platinum hair disheveled and his normally pristine clothes replaced by travel-stained garments that spoke of weeks spent in dangerous places. He'd deposited the entire collection in her care with a haunted expression and a warning to "catalog everything carefully—some of these were sealed for good reason."
Ivy reached for the next volume and froze. Unlike the other books, this one seemed to pulse with its own inner light. The binding wasn't leather but scales that shifted from deep emerald to midnight blue depending on the angle, and they felt warm beneath her fingers despite the cool air in the archive room. Intricate silver clasps held the covers shut, their surfaces etched with symbols that seemed to move when she wasn't looking directly at them.
"Chronicle of Echoes," she read from the small placard attached to the cover. "Origin unknown. Handle with extreme caution."
Extreme caution had never been Ivy's strong suit when it came to books. Her fingers traced the silver clasps, and she felt a faint vibration run through the tome, like a heartbeat made of paper and ink. The clasps clicked open without resistance, as if they'd been waiting for her touch.
The moment she opened the cover, the library around her seemed to hold its breath. The pages were thick parchment that felt almost silky beneath her fingertips, but they were completely blank. Not aged blank, not faded blank, but pristine white as if the book had been created moments ago and was waiting for someone to write its first words.
"That's odd," Ivy whispered, turning page after empty page. Ancient magical texts were never blank. They contained spells, histories, theoretical treatises, or at the very least some indication of their intended purpose. This book felt powerful—the magical energy radiating from it made her skin tingle—but it offered no clues about what it was meant to contain.
She was about to close the book and set it aside for Nico to examine when the front door of the library slammed open with enough force to rattle the windows.
"Where are the books?" The voice was deep, rough with exhaustion and desperation, and carried an undercurrent of barely controlled power that made Ivy's pulse quicken. "The founder texts Nico brought back. I need to see them now."
Ivy scrambled to her feet, clutching the Chronicle protectively against her chest as heavy footsteps approached the archive room. She'd heard that voice before, though she'd never actually spoken to its owner. Dorian Ashwind, her mysterious neighbor who lived in the overgrown estate next to her small cottage, rarely ventured into town and never visited the library.
He appeared in the archway like a storm front given human form. Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair that looked like he'd been running his hands through it and amber eyes that seemed to glow with inner fire. His jaw was sharp enough to cut glass, covered with several days' worth of stubble that gave him a dangerous edge. A black leather jacket hung open over a dark gray henley that stretched across his chest, and his jeans were worn and practical rather than fashionable.
Everything about him screamed predator, from the way he moved with fluid grace to the careful control he maintained over his supernatural nature. Ivy had always found him fascinating from a distance—the mysterious dragon shifter who kept to himself and inspired equal parts fear and curiosity among the townspeople.
Up close, he was overwhelming.
"The texts," he repeated, his gaze sweeping over the scattered books before settling on her face. "I need to find something about draconic binding rituals. Ancient ones. Pre-founding era."
"I... what?" Ivy blinked, struggling to form coherent thoughts while her traitorous brain cataloged the way his shoulders filled the doorway and how his amber eyes seemed to see straight through her. "Why do you need?—"
The Chronicle in her arms suddenly flared with heat and light, as if it had been struck by lightning. The blank pages began to rustle and turn of their own accord, and Ivy gasped as words began to appear across the parchment in flowing script that shifted between languages faster than she could follow.
Dorian's head snapped toward the book, his nostrils flaring as if he could scent magic in the air. "What is that?"
"I don't know," Ivy admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. The book was growing warmer in her arms, and the writing on the pages was becoming more frantic, symbols and text appearing and disappearing in languages she recognized as ancient draconic, proto-Celtic, and something that might have been pre-Columbian. "It was blank a moment ago, but when you walked in..."
She looked up at him and found his face had gone pale beneath his tan. "When I walked in, what?"
Before she could answer, the Chronicle's pages suddenly stilled, displaying a single line of text in elegant script that both of them could read perfectly despite its archaic styling:
The vessel has arrived. The binding may commence.
"No." Dorian took a step backward, his hands clenched at his sides. "Absolutely not. Whatever that thing is, I want nothing to do with it."
The book's response was immediate. New text flowed across the page like ink dropped in water:
You cannot run from what you are, child of flame. The whispers have already begun.
Ivy saw Dorian flinch as if he'd been struck. "The whispers," she said, understanding dawning. "That's why you came here. You've been hearing them."
"For three days," he admitted through gritted teeth. "Voices speaking in languages I shouldn't understand, offering things I..." He shook his head violently. "I thought it might be connected to the entity crisis. Some kind of lingering effect."
