A Faron & Bane Story
©2026 Misty Evans
This short story is for paid subscribers in my Magic Bites community and can be enjoyed over a cup of your favorite brew or before bedtime. ☕️💜 I add a new one every month.
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Fate is a tangled thing… and sometimes, it needs a little help.
In the shadows of Chicago, where magic hums beneath the pavement and creatures of myth walk among mortals, Faron—one of the three Fates—works to keep destiny on course.
But fate doesn’t always cooperate, and neither do the things that lurk in the dark.
With her enigmatic bodyguard, Bane by her side, Faron untangles cursed destinies, confronts creatures that defy fate, and deals with the consequences when someone tries to restring the threads of time.
Each month, dive into a new supernatural mystery filled with magic, danger, and a partnership forged in secrets.
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The man on my doorstep is bleeding from the chest and holding a broken pocket watch like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.
“You don’t know me,” he gasps, “but I’ve done this seventeen times. You’re my only hope.”
Then he drops dead at my feet.
I stare down at the body.
Bane, appearing behind me with a steaming mug of coffee, glances at the mess and sighs. “We’re starting the day like this?”
I kneel and peel the watch from the man’s stiff fingers. A jagged crack spiders across its face, but the second hand continues to twitch—backward.
“Faron,” Bane says, pointing. “His thread… it’s still moving.”
I look closer. The thread attached to the man’s soul snaps—and then rewinds. Snaps again. Rewinds.
The man gasps. His eyes flutter open. “Eighteen,” he whispers.
Before I can haul him to his feet and ask questions, he dies.
Again.
“Interesting,” Bane says, taking a sip. “Do I have time for breakfast?”
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The pocket watch leads us to a part of the Gold Coast that isn’t on any map. Down an alley that shouldn’t exist, behind a boarded-up nail salon, is a weathered brass door with no handle.
The moment I touch the frame, the lock clicks open. Inside is a clock shop frozen in time.
Literally.
Dozens—maybe hundreds—of clocks hang on every surface. They tick in opposite directions. Some chime in whispers.
“Stay sharp,” I murmur to Bane. “This place is a place out of time.”
He glances at a wall clock whose second hand spins wildly. “You don’t say.”
A soft chime echoes through the room. “You’re late,” says a voice.
The man who steps out from behind the counter is tall and impossibly old, but not in the usual way. He looks preserved. His eyes shine like polished obsidian. His hands—mechanical. Brass joints, delicate gears, and fine ivory knobs where bones should be.
I study his thread.
It’s ancient. And tangled like a nest of vipers. “Do you know me?” I ask.
“I knew you,” he says quietly. “Before you were Her.”
“You mean Fate?”
“No,” he says. “Before you were rewritten.”
Bane stiffens beside me.
“Project Harrowgate,” I whisper.
The clockmaker nods. “Harrowgate, where we all began.” He brings out a velvet-lined box and takes the broken pocket watch from me, laying it inside. As soon as the casing touches the velvet, the ticking stops. “These watches were meant to hold time still,” he says. “To anchor dying men long enough to rewrite their fate.” He lifts his mechanical hand. “I was the first.”
I swallow. “You’re Subject Zero.”
He smiles—sad and mechanical. “The prototype. When the other experiments failed, they used me to bind the next round. My time loop became the core of Harrowgate’s tech.”
I glance at the pocket watch. “So when someone dies wearing this…”
“A sliver of my soul resets the clock,” he finishes. “They suffer. I fracture.”
“Why give it to that man?”
“To summon you,” he says, locking eyes with me. “I’m not allowed to leave this shop.”
He pulls a strip of parchment from a drawer and hands it to me. It’s torn from an old notebook. On it is my handwriting. “If I ever forget who I am, look for the man with gears in his hands. He’ll remember. He always does.”
My knees go weak.
Bane catches my elbow. “You okay?”
I nod. Barely. I don’t remember writing this. But it’s my handwriting.
The clocks freeze. Every tick, every whisper—stops.
Then the front door blows open. A tall, androgynous figure steps through the threshold. Dressed in an all-black suit, skin gleaming like polished glass, eyes like twin black holes. Time bends around them.
“Executor Nine,” the clockmaker whispers. “A Harrowgate enforcer.”
I shove the parchment into my coat and square my stance.
The enforcer speaks in a perfect monotone. “Subject Zero has exceeded temporal bounds. Retrieval is authorized.”
Bane steps forward. “You’ll have to go through us.”
“Accepted.”
The room explodes into chaos.
The enforcer’s touch ages whatever it strikes. Brass gears rust. Wood splinters. Bane gets flung into a wall and emerges ten years older and smoking around the collar.
“Could’ve warned me!” he yells.
I twist threads in the air, trying to anchor the shop’s collapsing timelines. Every second shifts under my feet. The enforcer moves through time like a shark through water.
“Faron!” the clockmaker shouts. “Tie me to you! It’s the only way!”
I hesitate—but only for a second. I grab his thread and weave it into the lining of my coat. The enforcer screams as the connection severs.
“Loop stabilized,” I whisper.
The enforcer vanishes in a shimmer of unraveled time.
But the shop begins to collapse—not violently, but with a sigh, like it’s finally allowed to age.
The clockmaker sits in his favorite chair, which has already begun to fade to dust. “I waited so long,” he says.
“You won’t be alone anymore,” I tell him. “You’re free.”
He smiles. “Thank you.”
He dissolves—gears, bones, thread and all—into a golden light.
What’s left is a single cog, warm to the touch, etched with words.
Bane picks it up and reads it aloud.
Project Harrowgate – Subject Zero / Status: TERMINATED
Next to it, inside a small glass jar, is a folded note with the same handwriting as the page I never wrote. “They took your memory, but not your purpose. You’re not who you think you are. Follow the thread to the end.”
Bane meets my gaze. “What does it mean?”
I swallow hard and stare at the jar, reading between the lines. Everything in me buzzes. “It means Harrowgate didn’t just trap the clockmaker in time.” I drag in a sharp breath. “I think they rewrote me.”
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I hope you enjoyed this free short story. Stay tuned for next month’s adventure,
Misty