Chapter 1: Knitting Needles and Bad Omens

Ivan Kozlov had always believed that yarn was the most honest material in the world. It didn't lie about its weight, its texture, or its purpose. Unlike people, unlike magic, unlike the inheritance that clung to him like the faint scent of ozone and strawberries that followed him everywhere.

The bell above his shop door chimed with unusual violence, jarring him from his meditative rhythm of winding merino wool. The customer who entered wasn't quite right – something about the way shadows seemed to pool around his feet despite the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows.

"I need something... specific," the man said, his voice carrying an accent Ivan couldn't place. Too many consonants, too few vowels, like a language that had forgotten how to be human.

Ivan kept his eyes on the yarn, muscle memory guiding his hands while every instinct screamed danger. Twenty-eight years of running from his heritage had taught him to recognize the supernatural when it came knocking. "What kind of specific?"

"The kind that binds." The customer's smile revealed teeth that were just slightly too sharp. "The kind that calls to blood."

The wool in Ivan's hands began to smoke.

"I think you have the wrong shop," Ivan said carefully, setting down the yarn and reaching for the wooden knitting needles in his pocket. His grandmother's needles, carved from ash wood and older than the shop itself. "This is a yarn store. We sell comfortable, mundane things."

The man laughed, and the sound made the windows rattle. "Oh, grandson of the Iron Witch, we both know that's not true."

The temperature in the shop dropped twenty degrees in an instant. Ivan's breath misted as he pulled the needles fully from his pocket, their familiar weight grounding him even as his world tilted sideways. No one had called him by that name in years. No one should have known.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ivan lied, but his hands were already moving, threading intention through the air like he was working an invisible loom. The needles grew warm in his grip.

"The Shadows of Koschei have been watching you, little hedgewitch. Did you think you could hide forever in this pathetic mortal costume?" The man's form began to shift, growing taller, his features sharpening until he looked more like a predator than a person. "Did you think we wouldn't find you?"

Ivan's heart hammered against his ribs. The Shadows of Koschei – a name from his grandmother's most terrifying bedtime stories. The cult of the Deathless One, servants of the ancient sorcerer who had turned immortality into a curse. They'd been quiet for decades, but if they were moving again...

"What do you want?" Ivan asked, though he already knew the answer would be nothing good.

"Your death, of course. Or better yet, your service." The creature's grin widened impossibly. "The Deathless One requires a new vessel, and Baba Yaga's blood runs so very sweet."

Ivan moved before his conscious mind caught up, muscle memory taking over as he spun the needles in a complex pattern. The air around him shimmered, and suddenly the yarn throughout the shop came alive, unspooling from their balls and skeins like serpents responding to a charmer's call.

The creature lunged forward with inhuman speed, but Ivan was ready. He'd spent his childhood learning to fight with whatever was at hand, and his grandmother had made sure he knew that any tool could be a weapon if you had the will to make it so.

Strands of wool wrapped around the creature's ankles, hardening into bonds stronger than steel. Mohair became razor wire, slicing through the air with lethal precision. The wooden needles in Ivan's hands hummed with power, their tips glowing with a cold blue light.

"Clever boy," the creature hissed, struggling against the yarn bonds. "But parlor tricks won't save you from what's coming."

Ivan drove one needle toward the creature's heart, but the thing was faster than it looked. Claws raked across his forearm, drawing blood that sizzled when it hit the floor. The scent of copper and magic filled the air.

"You smell like her," the creature said, its voice dropping to a whisper. "Like strawberries and lightning. Like the old power that should have died with the old world."

"Shut up," Ivan snarled, spinning more yarn into weapons. A skein of alpaca became a whip that cracked with magical energy. "I chose this life. I chose to be normal."

"Normal?" The creature laughed even as Ivan's makeshift bonds tightened around its limbs. "Boy, you're walking around with enough soul magic to level a city block. You're marked by the Iron Forest, blessed and cursed by the Bone Mother herself. There is nothing normal about you."

Ivan's concentration wavered for just a moment – long enough for the creature to break free with a sound like breaking glass. It moved like liquid shadow, flowing across the shop floor toward him.

This time, Ivan didn't hesitate. The needles in his hands flared with brilliant light as he poured power into them, transforming them into weapons his grandmother would have recognized. He struck once, twice, driving the enchanted wood deep into the creature's chest.

The thing screamed, a sound that shattered every window in the shop and set car alarms wailing throughout the neighborhood. Then it crumbled, dissolving into ash and shadow that scattered in a wind that existed only in the magical realm.

Ivan stood in the wreckage of his shop, breathing hard, his hands still gripping the needles. Glass crunched under his feet as he surveyed the damage. Seven years of careful, mundane life destroyed in less than five minutes.

"Well," said a voice from behind the counter, "that was dramatic."

Ivan spun around to see a sleek ferret with impossible sapphire-blue fur perched on his cash register, cleaning its whiskers with one tiny paw. Stasik, his grandmother's gift and his constant, unwanted companion.

"How long have you been there?" Ivan demanded.

"Long enough to wonder why you're still pretending to be surprised by this." Stasik's voice was cultured, amused, and far too intelligent for a creature that spent most of its time napping in sunbeams. "Did you really think you could run a yarn shop three blocks from a dimensional convergence point without eventually attracting attention?"

Ivan sank into his chair behind the counter, suddenly exhausted. "I was hoping."

"Hope is for people who don't have Baba Yaga for a grandmother." Stasik hopped down from the register and began investigating the scattered yarn, his nose twitching. "This one was just a scout, you know. They'll send more."

"More what?"

"More of everything. Shadows, demons, bureaucrats from the celestial realm who think you're a threat to cosmic order." Stasik paused in his investigation to look at Ivan with ancient, knowing eyes. "Your quiet life just ended, Ivan Kozlov. The question is: what are you going to do about it?"

Ivan looked at the destruction around him, at the needles still glowing faintly in his hands, at the ferret who had been his only constant companion for the past seven years. The scent of strawberries and ozone was stronger now, no longer masked by the mundane smells of wool and cotton.

"I'm going to need answers," he said finally.

Stasik's grin revealed tiny, sharp teeth. "Oh good. I was hoping you'd say that."

Outside, storm clouds gathered with unnatural speed, and somewhere in the distance, Ivan could have sworn he heard the sound of iron bells ringing a warning across dimensions. The Shadows of Koschei had found him, and they were just the beginning.

His grandmother had always said that the blood of the Iron Witch ran true, no matter how far you ran or how deep you buried it. Looking at the magical chaos surrounding him, Ivan was beginning to understand that some legacies couldn't be escaped – only embraced or destroyed.

The choice, it seemed, was no longer his to make.