Redhaven

Book 3: Sanctuary

by V.V. James

Genres: Fantasy

Synopsis

New enemies. Old mysteries. Dangerous allies.

Sarah Fenn and her daughter Harper are at the heart of a witch hunt that's spreading across America.

Now something new is coming. Government registration . . . and research that could destroy magical ability forever.

Sarah and Harper must choose their allies carefully, and learn from the secrets of their family's past.

They've tried running. They've tried hiding. But when Harper is kidnapped, the moment comes to fight - and to do it with all their power.

Modern thriller meets dark fantasy in this scorching fusion of modern-day witchcraft, small-town secrets, and the persecuted reclaiming their power - perfect for fans of Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, and Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson.

Release date: July 2, 2026

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 384

Sample

H.R. 4791 f.100

A BILL

To authorise the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, acting through the Federal Protective Service, to create a new national database of all Persons of Magical Potential (‘Witches’) by means of a nationwide assessment program of all known and suspected PMPs.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Witchcraft Registration Act’.

SECTION 2. CREATION OF A NEW DATABASE OF PERSONS OF MAGICAL POTENTIAL.

(a) in general the Secretary shall act:

(b) ‘a database’ shall contain:

(c) ‘a nationwide assessment program’ shall:

My wards tingle before the doorbell goes. I check the doorcam Pierre has talked me into installing. Because not even witches can see through walls, right? he’d said, laughing. I thought of Naomi Yamakawa’s little poppet and bit my tongue. But it’s only the mail carrier.

‘Tracked letter for Sarah Fenn?’ she says, holding out an official-looking manila envelope.

She’s already snapped a picture of me reaching for it, to log the delivery. Probably caught my nose wrinkling with dismay at what I suspect is a summons regarding Luka Ortiz’s trial. Ever since Pierre and I discovered his hideous ritual in the Bittershore woods and found Bea Garcia hanging from a tree, her blood dripping into a silver bowl, I’ve been fielding endless correspondence about my availability to testify. I’m dreading the exposure of the witness stand. I’ve no faith that witches will get a fair hearing in any court of law, after what Harper and I experienced in Sanctuary. But I have to do my bit, and hope people see that magical folk don’t tolerate magical crime.

This letter isn’t from any lawyer or court, though. Important – Department of Homeland Security is blocked on the envelope. NOT A CIRCULAR. OPEN IMMEDIATELY. I scan its contents, then pull out a chair to sit at the kitchen table and read it a second time.

The third time, the letter falls from my fingers. It’s gotten worse with each reading. Each detail.

I must register as a witch when summoned, at the time and place appointed, within the next seven days. Non-appearance and/or resisting a summons will result in felony charges. This is Sandra Ortiz’s work. The Witchcraft Registration Act she’s sponsored through Congress. It’s been expedited since her party won the midterms and the president figures cracking down on witchcrime is a good look.

My nerveless fingers turn the second page and the paper quivers beneath my horrified touch. All known PMPs are required to bring children under the age of 21 for registration, whether or not they have received a Determination.

Harper. They want to test my daughter – whose magic remains a secret.

I flinch as every glass jar and bottle along my sunny windowsill explodes. The ones I fill with flowers and use to sprout bulbs. Petals are still floating through the air as I check the damage caused by the overspilling of my power.

We should have been done with all this, after everything Harper and I went through. The final report from the Capitol hearings on witchcraft didn’t make things better for witches, but they didn’t make things worse. In hindsight, we were lucky even to get that. But it’s clear Sandra Ortiz won’t stop – and that the Moot won’t take a stand against her. I heard their statement yesterday. We look forward to co-operating. My fingers itch to tear the summons into tiny pieces. To whisper a hex and incinerate those pieces. Instead, I press my palms together and try and calm my racing heart.

I’m still circulating my breath when the doorbell rings again. The screen tells me its Bridget – and behind her, surely that’s not …?

‘Hello Sarah,’ Bridge says, a little strained.

She holds up a pink-ribboned box from the bakery on Main Street near her pet parlour. The one we all used to meet in, me and Bridget and Julia and Abigail, back when we were friends. When we were a coven. Before Daniel died, and Abi accused Harper of causing his death, and everything fell apart. I don’t think I could eat anything from that bakery without choking, but it’s a sweet gesture.

‘Don’t thank me,’ Bridge says. ‘They’re from Julia. And something else, as well. Bea will explain.’

Julia’s daughter steps out from behind Bridge’s shoulder, though I’d recognised Bea’s mass of curls on the camera monitor. I still don’t know how to feel about this girl, who accused my daughter of attacking her at school. Who violated Harper by projecting an intimate tape of her and Dan at their pre-graduation party. Who is only alive today thanks to the quick action of Bridge’s daughter Izzy, and my Harper, figuring out she might be in trouble.

Whose life I saved.

‘May we come in, Ms Fenn?’ Bea asks, all politeness.

I see the pair notice the tinkling sound of a sweeping charm tidying the broken glass, but they sit silently while I fuss around making tea and fetching plates. Only once I’m sat down and Bridge is sucking sugar off her fingers does Bea speak.

‘My mom and dad have moved back West. They’re giving their marriage another go. This is for you.’

Bea reaches into her bag and for a moment I dread what she might pull out. A photo of us all in happier times. A letter spitting resentment for what Julia convinced herself I did to destroy her and Alberto’s relationship, never mind that he was the one who had the affair and she was the one who asked me to magically fix it. But it’s not. Wrapped with Julia’s characteristic elegance, it’s a pale-blue porcelain vase I’d often admired in her studio.

Forever grateful you found Bea that night, reads the attached tag, penned in her calligraphic hand. Keeping hold of the good memories and hoping for better times ahead for us all. Your friend, Julia. x

I press the heels of my palms to my eyes. I won’t cry. Your friend. But she couldn’t come and tell me she was leaving? Oh Julia. Julia. Our foursome became three. Has become two. At least I still have Bridget. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it, and I let die on my lips the traitorous question of whether Bridge got to say goodbye to Julia in person.

‘I understand,’ I say to Bea, hearing the quiver in my voice. No magic can disguise it. ‘When you join your parents, do tell them I wish them all the best.’

I want to say more. Tell your mom my door is always open. Something like that. But I must accept that by taking her leave in this way, Julia has closed the door.

‘Oh, I’m not joining them,’ Bea says. ‘My future’s here on the East Coast. When I’m not at Cawden, I’ll be lodging with Bridget. I want to develop my political work.’

‘I promised Julia I’d keep an eye on her,’ Bridget says quickly, forestalling any question I might ask about this arrangement. Such as what Izzy thinks of having Bea under her roof.

Bridget reaches for another pastry. I pick almond flakes off the one I chose but haven’t touched.

‘I’m going to testify against Luka Ortiz,’ Bea says into the silence.

Guilt washes hotly through me for my thoughts about Bea, because that decision takes guts. That ‘political work’ which is evidently more important to her than being with her family? That’s been in Sandra Ortiz’s office. How can Bea take to the witness stand against Ortiz’s son, and continue that work? And in the cutthroat world of the Capitol, I can’t see how testifying against a sitting representative’s child will do her resumé any good. This is a big, brave step, and I lean out of my seat to embrace her.

‘No, Sarah,’ she says, a hand keeping me at bay. ‘You don’t get it. Luka Ortiz is magical, and the way I see it, all magic is evil. Some witches it corrupts, and others become corrupters. I guess we’ll find out which applies to Luka at his trial. Bridget, I’m going to go now.’

Bridget rises with her. ‘She doesn’t have her own key yet,’ Bridge says, apologetically. Then to Bea, ‘Let’s go get one cut right now.’

I follow them to the door, but Bea has already let herself out and my friend gives a vague wave before hurrying after. I watch them drive away, sunshine on my face and shadow in my heart. Four became three, became two – or is it only one, now? Julia has left me without a word, and even Bridget can’t meet my eye.

I go back inside long after her sports car has turned the corner. The tea is cold. I dump the box of pastries in the bin, tipping my almondine in after. Julia didn’t send those – Bridget bought them as a consoling treat. I wash and wipe the cups and plates, putting everything back in its place. The shattered glass I fold in copies of the Sanctuary Sentinel until no sharp edges cut through the newsprint. Only then do I pour myself a tall glass of cold water and stand at the countertop to drink.

There, next to my fingers, is the letter from Homeland Security. My eyes fall again on that second page. The requirement that witches bring their kids under the age of 21 for registration, even if a Determination has shown they don’t have magic.

They expect me to bring Harper.

And my heart takes off like a hare as I become suddenly, furiously, certain that this is Bea’s doing. Bea’s suggestion while she worked in Sandra Ortiz’s office. Does she still want to expose Harper? My throat tightens thinking about it, and even water is difficult to swallow around the rising lump of panic.

If Harper is taken for testing, will it open Dan Whitman’s death right up again?

AMERICAN NEWS NETWORK, 24-HOUR ROLLING BULLETIN

ANCHOR      Welcome back to ANN, the network serving you all the news and views without prejudice or partisanship. We’re going live to Washington, DC, the northern district law courts, where a grand jury deliberating the charges against Luka Ortiz has just issued its decision. Our Capitol Correspondent Joshua Feldstein is there. Joshua, what has been decided about any potential trial for this young man, the only child of Representative Sandra Ortiz?

FELDSTEIN      Thank you, Maritza. Yes, today comes the long-awaited ruling of a grand jury on whether Luka Ortiz should stand trial, and if so, on what charges. This case has moved remarkably rapidly in the past three months, since a man was grievously injured and a young woman subsequently found dead in Bittershore Nature Preserve, Connecticut. We don’t have the details but circumstances suggested a ritual, perhaps magical. Sensationally, in what prosecutors say is a third murder attempt, Luka Ortiz was apprehended in woods near Bittershore after – they allege – wounding a young woman, a fellow student at Cawden College.

ANCHOR      There was something interesting about who found him, is that right?

FELDSTEIN      That’s correct. The reported sequence of events of that night is that Ortiz was first interrupted by a magical practitioner named Sarah Fenn, the registered witch of nearby Sanctuary, whose daughter was at the centre of witchcrime allegations last year. Next on the scene was DI Maggie Knight, the detective tasked with investigating Sanctuary, who ultimately concluded that case was one not of magical murder or witchcraft but rather simple, old-fashioned hysteria. Knight and Fenn would be key witnesses in any trial. Will be key witnesses, I can now say, for it has been confirmed that a trial is indeed going ahead.

ANCHOR      That’s not the outcome Sandra Ortiz will have wanted, Joshua. Can you tell us the nature of the charges he’ll be facing, and what that tells us about this case?

FELDSTEIN      Absolutely. Luka Ortiz has been charged with two counts of grievous wounding and one count of depraved-heart murder, a category of second-degree murder. This charge is used when it’s thought a suspect knowingly commits acts against people likely to result in harm, but without intending them to die. And as magical means are alleged, it will be treated as witchcrime.

ANCHOR      Second-degree murder. Does that avoid the automatic death penalty, which was the most notorious aspect of the accusations in the Sanctuary case?

FELDSTEIN      What you call the ‘Sanctuary case’ never came to trial, of course, Maritza. The conclusion was that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution. But had it done so, yes, conviction would have automatically triggered capital punishment. That is not the case in this instance. In fact, Luka will be eligible for bail, although that’s likely to be under stringent conditions, and is at the judge’s discretion.

ANCHOR      Do we have any sense of the strategy or response of the Ortiz camp to this announcement, Joshua?

FELDSTEIN      I imagine an announcement with be forthcoming very soon. But we already know the key contention of the Ortiz defence, which is that Luka is in fact another victim. Sandra Ortiz has maintained from the start – if you remember the statement released very swiftly after the arrest – that if her son had any involvement at all, he was coerced. Essentially that he was magically controlled by another witch, or witches. ‘The magical community … have come for my son,’ were the words she used then.

ANCHOR      And do we have any idea who or what that accusation refers to?

FELDSTEIN      Not so far, Maritza, but I’m sure the defence team will waste no time telling us who they think is behind these crimes.

My dad. Luka Ortiz’s legal team is going to come for my dad – if they can figure out how he did it.

I figured it out. The signet ring he wore ‘for control’, on his pinky – identical to the one on Luka’s hand. The way Lachlan discarded his after Luka’s arrest, saying he didn’t need it anymore. His all-but confession when he told me the second victim hadn’t been supposed to die, and that he’d tipped off DI Knight so Bea could be rescued in time. The question is, did he leave any trail or clues for Ortiz’s defence team to uncover – or is their theory merely conjecture? What has Luka said about how he received the ring? Or where he learned the rituals he used in Bittershore, when he believed he was boosting the weak magic he inherited from his father?

It’s bad enough that Mom and Pierre and Bridget and DI Knight will be up there on the witness stand. Is there any chance Ortiz’s attorneys will name my dad as the man they hold responsible?

Where are you, Lachlan Frey?

I kick up the earth as I run, music pumping through my ear buds, setting the pace. I need something faster. To really push myself. If all my energy’s used up on running, I won’t have as much to keep chasing the tail of my own thoughts.

Thoughts like: why hasn’t Lachlan been in touch? Only the occasional text. I’ve plenty of excuses for him. He’s protecting me and Mom by keeping his distance in case Ortiz has investigators arrowing in on him. He’s been working behind the scenes on some kind of response to this bullshit new Witchcraft Registration Act. He’s expanding the Redhaven resistance network.

But still, it hurts. All I receive from him are vague, affectionate messages. Never from the same number, so I don’t know where to send my own texts, or whether I can call. Was I kidding myself that our reunion last year was the beginning of something meaningful? After all, he was content to be out of my life for the first nineteen years. Maybe he’ll find it as easy to disappear again.

I can’t believe it, though. I don’t want to believe it. It had sounded like pride blended with more than a dash of hope when he asked if I was all my mother’s daughter, or whether I might take after him a little, too. My magnificent daughter, he called me, that last day on the beach, when the three of us walked together. I’d felt so close to both my parents that day. As if family was its own kind of magic.

Tugging out the earbuds, I turn back toward my car. I want to be there again – at Eafa’s Rock. The last place we were all together. I need to remember that feeling and hold on to it. There’ll be a good reason Lachlan’s gone quiet. I trust him. But it doesn’t mean I have to sit around moping.

Even though it’s a warm, bright early July day, the beach is mostly deserted. The sand isn’t that height-of-summer gold, yet. It’s the pale, pretty hue of the posh sugar the bakery sprinkles on everything so they can charge an extra dollar. Some out-of-towners are shrieking as the small dog they stupidly let off the leash to chase seagulls finds itself being chased right back. I hunt above the tideline for driftwood. We’ve had a week of clear, dry days, so I’m sure to find something useable.

Stacked around a central chunky log, the wood catches easily with a whispered charm. I remember the campfires at Darkening Pine, when Mom and I were on the road after fleeing Sanctuary. How in the first weeks we’d both spook, me remembering the fire at the party villa where Dan died, and she the time my classmates burned our house. But this fire’s a comfort. The wood burns clean, save for an occasional flare of witchy blue or green from all the tidal salt that’s soaked in, or a mineral crust of dried seaweed.

Gazing into the flames I think about how to find my father. Mom would know what to do. She used her pendant to locate Bea and save her from Luka’s fucked-up ritual. Yes, Sarah Fenn doubtless has all sorts of tracking magic at her disposal, though she’s never used any on me, to give me privacy. I respect her for that, but right now, I wish I knew some of her tricks. I don’t even have anything belonging to my dad that could anchor a rite.

Except … The throbbing of my pulse has given me an idea.

My blood.

Blood magic is powerful. Primitive. Dark. Mom isn’t above making a blood offering for especially demanding spells, and hey, I’m the girl who carved a forbidden sigil into her flesh when she was eleven years old. Dark is my brand.

But then I think of how scientists say our red blood cells replace themselves every three or four months. How literal is magic? My DNA must be half from my Dad. I guess there are some witch physicians who’d know how to work with … chromosomes? But I’ve no idea where to begin. My magic may be strong as a sledgehammer, but it equally lacks finesse.

My magic.

Could that be the answer? My Gift has come from both my parents. Lachlan made that clear. Might it be a thread I can follow back to find him? What if I Command my magic to seek its source? It’s as good an idea as any I’ve had.

I don’t need to draw a sigil or shape a cantrip in the air, as Mom does, because my signs are part of me. I don’t have charts to unroll and consult, because inked lines criss-cross my torso. I’ll follow her example of a blood offering, because magically, this is a big ask. I’m trying to find a man who might be on the other side of the country. Stifling a gasp, I sink my little silver pocket knife into my palm and cut deep. Circling my clenched fist over the fire, I sprinkle the dripping blood, which flares then burns black.

A pulse is beating in my neck, through my wrists, everywhere I am porous and vulnerable. I feel each spurt squeezed out from the chambers of my heart. Sense the tickling rush of its passage through my veins.

Eyes defocussed, I stare into the flames. They no longer appear black. Rather, their flickering depths hold a kaleidoscope of colours. Movement dances and shimmers, both shadowy and bright, like those faded old reels of the earliest colour film. Intuitively, I know I’ll see more clearly not by sharpening my focus, but by letting it blur altogether. My eyes roll back. I tip up my face and the fire warms my throat.

No, not the fire. The sun.

My lashes fly up and I stare.

The warmth is the same. And the sun, with me sat cross-legged beneath it. But everything else is changed. I’m in a garden, expansive and lush. Ripe fragrances drift on a light breeze – blowsy rose and tart apple. It reminds me of the garden at Serafina’s farmhouse, and I twist to check. Dad met me there when I demonstrated my magic to him. Maybe he’s using it as a local base? The thought comes with a bruise of hurt that he might be so near and not have told me.

But this isn’t Serafina’s. A different house stands at my back, a broad two-storey clapboard farmhouse with a porch wrapping all the way around. It’s been recently painted a practical dark grey, yet the window frames are a cheerful canary yellow that makes me smile.

Laughter turns my head again. The note of one child’s in particular, boyish and young. A row of children sits along the porch balustrade, legs dangling, heels kicking the posts in delight. They’re watching an older boy who moves his hands fluidly in the air. He’s conjuring strange shapes, light as gossamer, airy as cloud, in the forms of fantastical creatures. Moved by his left hand, a sinuous blue dragon faces off against a lumbering troll animated by his right. It’s amazing illusionwork – a form of magic described in our Starcross grimoire, but not practised by my Mom, or any witch she’s ever told me of. It’s seen these days as old-fashioned. Black-and-white TV magic in an era of streaming-on-phones magic.

My eyes return to the boy whose laughter first drew my attention, and as I look at his freckled face – he’s no more than four or five, barely big enough to balance on the balustrade, and held tight by a friend’s arm around his waist – I feel a rush of warmth. A prickle of love. How strange! Who is he to me? Could he be my dad, as a boy, is that why my Command has shown me this scene? But as I shade my eyes and peer, I see he doesn’t look much like Lachlan. His hair is a light tawny, his eyes might be hazel. With those freckles, he’s all the soft, sweet tones of a small animal. A puppy or rabbit. And I can’t imagine that ever being my dad’s vibe, even when he was little.

A gasp turns me one more time, toward two girls in their late teens standing hand-in-hand where the mown grass of the yard turns to orchard. The tree they stand beneath – source of that amazing fresh sharp scent – is heavy with scarlet apples. Each has her free hand pressed to the trunk, so that together girls and tree are like three friends in a circle. And then, because even I know apples don’t ripen the same time of year roses bloom, I see what they’re about. It’s the Greenmagic.

That’s not the weirdest thing about them, though. They’re wearing old-time dresses, with high narrow waistbands and full skirts, like they’re cosplaying Little Women. Both skirts have a wide band in a different pattern at the hem that at first I think is fashion, until I realise it’s likely an economical way to lengthen the skirts as they’ve grown. I look back at the kids on the porch and see it in their clothing, too – britches for the boys, folksy frocks for the girls. All the girls have neatly parted hair, braided and looped up the back with ribbon. Are they some kind of cult? One of those religious denominations that rejects modern living?

There’s no way Lachlan Frey, my motorbike-riding, burner-phone juggling dad, would have anything to do with a low-tech or no-tech cult. Why the heck has my magic shown me this place?

I yelp with pain and look down to see a large ember on my bare arm. It’s floated from the fire in front of me, where driftwood burns and crackles on a sugar-pale Connecticut beach near the shadow of Eafa’s Rock. And like that, the scene is gone. No farmhouse, no garden, no kids. Not even a drifting trace of rose-and-apple on the breeze. Just sea salt and mineral ash that I can taste on my tongue.

Licking my finger, I rub the little red spot the ember left. I’m not gentle. I’m pissed off. My dad still eludes me.

Maybe I need some advice from Mom after all. I kick over the remnants of the fire and bury the ashes in sand.

The wards chime with recognition and I don’t need the doorcam to know it’s Harper. Her greeting is sullen as she stomps over the threshold, and I feel like barking at her that I’ve not had the best morning, myself. But I bite it down.

‘So you’ve not heard from him?’ she demands, from where she’s thrown herself into Serafina’s rocking chair – or rather, the perfect replica of it that Pierre made for us. She’s gripping a quilted cushion like she wants to rip its feathery guts out. ‘He turned up in our lives then disappeared again? How fucking dare he?’

I want to explain that’s how the world works, for witches. We don’t get to play happy families – the law’s too cautious of us to allow that to happen. If two witches cohab, one has to be bound, remember? But I don’t, because she’s right. Lachlan showed up in our lives. Made himself a part of how Harper understands herself, her magic, and the world. Then disappeared again.

‘Am I not worth knowing?’ our daughter asks, voice gone small, and suddenly my anger at her father flares like an unwatched cauldron fire. Indeed, how fucking dare he not maintain contact with her?

The wards chime yet again, and I’m so at the end of my tether as I go answer I don’t bother checking the camera. Which is how I open up to two federal agents, one male and one female.

‘Ms Fenn? We’ve come to accompany you and your daughter to Registration.’

Dread trickles in my veins like hemlock. Registration? The letter only arrived a few hours ago. I haven’t even had a chance to discuss with Harper the fact that she’s required to attend too, and how we deal with that. Co-operation or – what, exactly?

‘There must be a mistake,’ I say. ‘The letter was only delivered this morning and it said I’d receive a summons.’

‘We are the summons,’ says the fem. . .