Chapter 2
Two
AMAZRA
The oven timer alerts me that the cinnamon scones are finished. And continues to alert me for several more seconds before I look over my shoulder and find myself alone in the bakery’s kitchen.
“Sorry,” my helper says, bursting into the room while I’m crossing from a prep table to the ovens. “I thought I had enough time to hit the restroom before they were finished. When nature calls, you have to answer, right?”
“That is what I have been told.” I have lived among humans long enough to become familiar with many of their traits and gestures, including the abrupt repositioning of their eyebrows, which I have learned indicates a wide variety of their emotions.
Though my kitchen assistant is a human with elf heritage, he had never lived among nonhumans before recently becoming a resident of Fate’s Falls. His seemingly endless questions over the past three days are evidence that he has minimal knowledge about any species aside from his own.
Currently, his eyebrows and the roundness of his eyes suggest he has another question, yet his lips remain closed. Another behavior I have found quite common among humans. Communication would be more effective if they were more straightforward.
“Hell-born demons do not require restroom breaks, as we neither eat nor possess a digestive system.”
“But…you’re alive, right?” he asks as I open the oven door.
“Not in the way that mortal beings are alive.”
He watches as I reach into the oven and remove the baking sheets with my bare hands. “Still not used to seeing you do that. What’s the highest temperature you can touch stuff before it burns your skin?”
“It does not exist in this realm.”
“Seriously? What about…” He scratches his chin, then snaps his fingers. “Volcanic lava?”
“There is no substance in the earthly realm that rivals the temperature of hellfire, which is my natural environment and not physically harmful to me.”
“So, is that what hell is actually like? A plane of endless fire that’s hotter than volcanic lava? What do demons do there? And why aren’t you still there?”
“Hey, Amazra,” Dauphine says, leaning into the kitchen from the shop portion of the bakery.
“I could use your help up here for a few minutes.” The highly independent and capable female elf has worked here since before I purchased the bakery from its previous owner, and only requests assistance with customers when the storefront is exceptionally busy.
“Move the scones to the wire racks for cooling, then resume the preparations I stepped away from,” I tell my kitchen helper. Pausing in the doorway, I turn and meet his gaze. “After you clean your hands. You touched your face during our conversation.”
Nodding, he hurries to the sink without argument or further questions.
Demons do not require breath, yet I find myself mimicking the human tendency to exhale purposefully as I step into the bakery’s storefront, which is currently vacant, aside from Dauphine. “There are no customers. How do you require my assistance?”
“I don’t. I was rescuing you from William.” Her lips form a grimace. “I could hear his stream of questions all the way in here. I’m sure he’s getting on your nerves back there.”
Working alongside Dauphine, I have learned that many words and phrases are used nonliterally in this realm.
Since the elf is aware that demons share few physiological traits with the wide variety of mortal species living in Fate’s Falls, it is safe to say she is not referring to literal nerves, which I do not possess.
“I’ll talk to him. Again,” she says, releasing a lengthy breath, much like my gesture a moment earlier, though hers is natural. “After today’s shift, if you can tolerate him for the rest of the day.”
“It is not a question of tolerance. He is a distant member of your clan, and you asked me to give him a job. I will continue to train him to perform his tasks competently. I will answer his questions about things unrelated to our workday if they do not interfere with tasks.”
Dauphine’s tall, pointed ears twitch. “Which they obviously were, since he was standing there and watching you do his job while he spewed out a string of questions about things that are none of his business.”
“He will learn and adapt.”
“You’re pretty cool for someone created in the fires of hell,” she says, smiling.
“William’s question got me thinking, though.
I know there are many kinds of hell demons, like Razbunare is a revenge demon and Hellmuth was a guardian of the gates.
No idea about Daemon, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with sex, if that’s a thing.
But in all our conversations since you took over the bakery, you’ve never once mentioned what you did in the hell realm. ”
“Tasks for which I was created and am glad I no longer perform.”
Her smile vanishes and the color drains from her fair complexion.
“Amazra, I…I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy or bring up unpleasant memories.
” By the time she finishes speaking, the elf’s eyes are glassy, and her large, pointed ears have lowered, nearly drooping.
“You’re not just my boss, you’re a good person and a friend, and I would never intentionally disrespect you or knowingly step out of bounds. ”
“You have committed no offense.” My words appear to offer little solace.
Reaching under the wooden counter, I remove some cash from the coffee fund, as it is called.
“If it is not inconvenient, perhaps you could rescue me from returning to my kitchen duties a while longer by going to The Brew for some refreshments. Whatever you prefer, and perhaps something cold for your kinsman, to avert his attention from the topic of heat.”
Sniffling, she releases a small laugh. Her ears return to their normal position, and a tentative smile lifts the corners of her mouth as she takes the money from my hand. “I know you’re not asking because you need rescuing. From anything. Ever.”
In the literal sense, she is correct. Hell demons are immortal. Few creatures are capable of destroying us, but even those cannot reach me here, inside the Oracle’s protective boundary. But that is not the answer my employee—my friend, in this moment—needs to hear.
I follow her toward the front entrance, using the brief pause as she reaches for the door to speak. “Your assessment about my nerves was not inaccurate.”
Eyebrows nearly as fair as her skin rise above pale-blue eyes. “Are you trying to make me feel better, or are you serious?”
“I am always serious, and to your first question, the answer is yes.”
One of the tallest females in town, Dauphine doesn’t have to look upward to meet my eyeline, which, unlike many other creatures, she does without hesitation. “Your claim that demons have no or minimal emotions just got flimsier.”
“I responded to your questions truthfully. Honesty is not an emotion.”
“No, but caring about my feelings is.”
I have no rebuttal, so I remain silent.
“Thanks, Maz. Back in a few minutes.”
The chime above the door rings as she exits, leaving me alone with my thoughts. With my…emotions. Something I should not possess, but cannot deny. They drove me to escape the hell realm and my duties there.
Each day I have spent in Fate’s Falls has brought peace the likes of which I did not know existed, could not have imagined. And with that peace, seeds which have sprouted a variety of immeasurable internal sensations. Emotions.
Those sensations have grown recently. I might attribute the uptick in my emotions to the lack of attention and perpetual questions about anything not related to his bakery duties from my new kitchen helper.
Frustration, or getting on my nerves, as Dauphine described it, if I had not specifically noticed a significant change yesterday while walking home after closing the bakery.
Like several hell demons who reside within the protective boundary, when I arrived in Fate’s Falls, I chose to dwell in a less populated area beyond the edge of town.
Other nonhumans, aside from demons, also live past the town limits.
Some for privacy or solitude. And some, such as the small pack of fox shifters whose cluster of cabins is not far from my abode, because they need space to run.
That is where I experienced the heightened sense of…
something. Awareness, though of what, I could not discern.
Despite the truth of my statement about being unaffected by heat, an undeniable warmth spread through me as I passed the fox shifter enclave.
Not a response to external stimuli. An internal sensation.
Unexpected and inexplicable, as I do not possess the physiology to support such a thing.
The phenomenon has lingered in my mind since. Even the constant chatter from my kitchen helper has not been an adequate distraction.
“Oh no…oh shit…” His distressed tone and unfortunate words pull my focus from the intangible.
I turn toward the kitchen, taking only two steps in that direction before the warmth I experienced yesterday flows through me again. Stronger than before. Inconceivable, unclassifiable, yet entirely undeniable.
The door chime sounds behind me. Attending to customers is not my primary task, but I have grown accustomed to it in my time as proprietor, and it is as important as crafting quality baked goods. But that is not why I turn sharply to greet the incoming patron.
It is an automatic response to the warmth building inside me.
The same awareness from last evening. This time, however, I know the something causing the sensations, and as the door closes behind the beautiful creature who just entered my shop, I experience another strange yet automatic reaction—the urge to draw a breath.
A slight inhalation and her scent races through me, like a spark connecting with tinder, igniting the warmth, setting me ablaze from the inside out.
I do not need to breathe and have never been affected by scent. Until now.
This mesmerizing human woman who now stands still, staring wide-eyed at me from several paces away, smells like everything I hoped to find in this realm, even before I understood what it was to hope for anything.
She smells like…mine.