Chapter 8
EIGHT
DAHLIA
Three days.
Three days since Callum Ursa had walked into her bakery, bought a coffee, and walked out again without looking back. Three days of perfectly normal business, perfectly normal customers, perfectly normal everything.
Dahlia should have forgotten about him by now.
She hadn’t.
The memory of that brief touch kept surfacing at inconvenient moments. While she was kneading dough. While she was helping customers. While she was lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time anyone had made her feel so... aware.
Marzipan watched from her perch on the ingredient shelf.
You’re thinking about him again.
“I’m thinking about the croissants.” Dahlia focused on the lamination, folding butter into dough the way she’d done ten thousand times before.
Liar. Marzipan’s tail flicked. Your pulse jumps every time you look at the door. You’re waiting for him to come back.
“I’m not waiting for anyone.”
But her attention drifted to the front window anyway, to the spot where his truck had been parked. To the sidewalk where he’d stood, all broad shoulders and a weariness that had nothing to do with sleep, surveying her bakery like it held answers to questions he hadn’t asked yet.
He hadn’t come back. Not once in three days.
She told herself that was fine. She told herself she was relieved. She told herself a lot of things.
Her phone buzzed. Junie’s name flashed across the screen.
Emergency friend meeting. Avine’s suite. 7pm. Bring pastries. This is not optional.
Dahlia sighed. She should probably stay and prep for tomorrow.
The morning rush had been brutal lately, her charmed pastries selling faster than she could make them.
The surge was making everything more potent, more unpredictable.
Yesterday, a batch of clarity cookies had caused three separate customers to quit their jobs on the spot.
Not a random phenomenon—the town’s senior witches believed the surge was tied to the territorial instability.
Magnus Ironwood’s boundary claims were disrupting the ley lines that ran beneath Haven Shores, and the resulting magical pressure was bleeding into every spell, ward, and charmed recipe in the district. The stronger the territorial dispute, the more volatile the magic.
She really needed to recalibrate her recipes.
But Junie had said emergency. And Dahlia didn’t say no to her friends.
Because that’s what you do. Marzipan’s mental voice carried a pointed edge. You never say no. To anyone. About anything.
Dahlia ignored her familiar and started boxing up pastries.
The Siren’s Rest was everything Avine had made it—welcoming, inviting, the place where magic hummed in the walls and the scent of sea salt mixed with something sweeter.
Dahlia had spent countless evenings in Avine’s private suite, drinking wine and laughing and pretending the outside world didn’t exist.
Tonight, the suite was full of chaos.
Cassia had commandeered the largest armchair, her long legs thrown over one side, dark curls crackling with barely contained static electricity. Gust, her storm petrel familiar, was perched on the lampshade, ruffling his feathers at anyone who got too close.
Junie was on the floor, surrounded by what looked like the contents of an entire potions cabinet, gesturing wildly as she explained something to Avine.
Her red hair had escaped its pins and was standing up in multiple directions.
Leo’s shirt—definitely Leo’s, based on the size—hung off one shoulder.
Narla sat in the corner, serene as a marble statue, silver-streaked hair pulled back in a neat twist. Her owl familiar, Ember, was a small dark shape on her shoulder, watching the room with knowing amber focus.
And Avine—their unofficial hostess, their emotional center—was pouring wine with the efficiency of someone who’d anticipated exactly this level of chaos.
“Dahlia!” Junie scrambled up from her potion chaos. “Finally. We need your professional opinion.”
“On what?”
“The new bear.” Cassia didn’t move from her sprawl, but her sea-glass gaze tracked Dahlia with interest. “The one who’s been stomping around town in a suit that costs more than my rent, making everyone uncomfortable with his ‘efficiency assessments.’”
Dahlia’s stomach did an unwelcome flip. She set down her box of pastries and accepted the wine glass Avine handed her. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You met him.” Junie dropped back onto the floor, cross-legged, bouncing with barely contained energy. “He came into the bakery. I heard from Mrs. Patterson, who heard from Tom Chen, who heard from the seagull network that he was in there for at least ten minutes.”
“It was five minutes. Maybe less.” Dahlia took a long sip of wine. “He bought a coffee. We barely spoke.”
“And yet.” Narla’s voice was soft. Measured. “Your scent shifted when his name came up.”
Damn candle witches and their too-sensitive noses.
“My scent didn’t shift.”
“Sweeter.” Narla sipped her own wine, utterly unruffled. “Richer. The way people smell when they’re thinking about someone who... interests them.”
Cassia sat up straight, curls bouncing. “Wait. Wait. Are you saying our Dahlia has a thing for the grumpy bear?”
“I don’t have a thing—”
“The corporate disaster in the expensive suit?” Junie’s grin was wicked. “That’s your type now?”
Heat crept up Dahlia’s cheeks. She could feel it spreading, betraying her despite every attempt to stay neutral. “He’s... attractive. In a ‘hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep this decade’ way. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“She’s blushing.” Cassia’s grin spread. “Dahlia Moon is actually blushing.”
“I don’t blush.” But the heat in her cheeks made her a liar.
Avine eased onto the sofa beside Dahlia, close enough that their shoulders touched. Grounding. Steady. The presence that Avine provided for everyone in her orbit. “Tell us what happened. The real version, not the ‘we barely spoke’ version.”