Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Lucie stepped back from the window display and tilted her head, surveying the arrangement she and Georgiana had spent the better part of the morning perfecting.
Behind the wide glass of The Honeycomb’s front windows, three tiers of confections rose on stands of polished brass and etched crystal.
Slabs of honeycomb brittle in shades of gold, cracked into glittering shards.
Rows of petit fours glazed in delicate pastels.
A cascade of crystallized orange peel, curling like ribbons.
And sugar roses, two dozen of them, each one enchanted to bloom in slow, trembling cycles.
The effect was, if she said so herself, rather lovely.
With just under a week before the Bloom Season officially began, the displays needed to be perfect. The trickle of invited patrons was thickening into something closer to a current, and the window had to make people want to know what was inside.
She had come in at her usual hour that morning, before the light had fully found the lane, and found a note propped against the honey jar.
The upstairs storeroom door is resolved. That concludes the outstanding repairs. — K
She had read it several times, standing there in the quiet kitchen with Balthazar watching her through barely open eyes. So. That was it, then. Kazrian would be leaving—had left already, perhaps—and that was exactly as it should be.
She had slipped the note into her apron pocket and continued with her list of morning tasks, and if her hand drifted to her pocket more than once throughout the morning, that was simply a matter of habit, nothing more.
“I think the brittle wants to come forward,” Georgiana said behind her. “The light’s catching the petit fours, but the brittle’s lost in the shadow of the stand.”
Lucie tilted her head. “You are right. It’s the best part. It ought not be hiding.”
Georgiana reached in and slid the dish a few inches toward the glass, angling it just so.
“Oh, how is your aunt?” Lucie asked. “You said you were on your way to visit her when you left yesterday.”
“Oh—she is … much the same as ever, I suppose.”
Lucie waited, but nothing more came. Georgiana was like that. Warm and capable and perfectly friendly, but she did not share much of her life outside The Honeycomb.
“The new elderflower champagne jellies,” Georgiana went on, smoothly returning to the conversation at hand. “Should we put a few in the window? Or hold them back for the launch?”
“Hold them back, but mention them to the patrons who visit.” Lucie smiled. “Lady Rivenna would tell us a thing nobody can have yet is worth twice a thing they can.”
Georgiana laughed softly. “She is rather magnificent at that, is she not?”
They worked on in companionable quiet, Georgiana adjusting the height of the stands, Lucie repositioning the blossoms so the breathing of them rippled down the display in sequence rather than all at once.
It was while Georgiana leaned in to nudge the topmost stand into place—stretching over the others, one arm extended—that her neat little capped sleeve shifted upward, revealing a bruise at the top of her arm.
“Oh, goodness—what happened there?”
Georgiana glanced down and laughed before delicately tugging the sleeve back into place. “That silly handle on the back kitchen door. I keep catching my arm on it. I try to push the door open wider, but the gnome has so many flower pots lined up out there that I can never open it fully.”
“Oh.” Lucie frowned. “You are right, it is rather a tight squeeze. I shall have a word with him. I do not want anyone else catching themselves on that handle.”
“Oh, no—please.” Georgiana’s voice was quick. “Do not trouble yourself. It is only my own clumsiness. I ought to look where I am going. Please do not inconvenience the poor fellow on my account. He does such lovely work out there.”
“That he does,” Lucie agreed. “When he is not waging war with the florist next door over whose lavender is encroaching on whose territory.”
That got a real laugh out of Georgiana, the alarm dissolving into it, and the moment passed.
Lucie left her to the last of the window and went back through to the kitchen, turning her mind to the work of the day: orange and almond florentines.
Lacework confections, more nut and peel than anything else, held together by the thinnest layer of crisp caramel biscuit and dipped along one edge in dark chocolate.
And then, once they set, the honey light. Kindred.
This particular variety produced a brief sense of warmth toward whoever one was with.
Not manufactured affection, but rather a gentle lowering of one’s guard, the moment when a stranger starts to feel like someone you could know.
Lady Rivenna wanted them for the launch, and Lucie needed to ensure they were perfect.
She slid her stool out from beneath the worktable with her foot, stepped up onto it—
And paused.
Something was not right. The worktable was … too low? Not by much, but her body knew this surface the way her hands knew her rolling pin, and something had definitely changed. She stepped down from the stool and stood beside the table without it.
The surface came to exactly the right height.
“What in all the stars …” she murmured.
Balthazar came strolling across the kitchen, tail high, and wound himself once around a table leg—which was as near the worktable as he ever came, the legs being plain wood with none of the lumyrite lattice that offended him so.
He completed his circuit, sat at her feet, and regarded her with the flat patience of a creature waiting for a slow human to arrive at an obvious conclusion.
And it was then that Lucie realized it was rather obvious what had happened. “Oh. Kazrian? I—I mean … Lord Rowanwood.” Balthazar’s left ear flattened a fraction. “Yesterday, after I left?”
Balthazar tilted his head in the manner that generally meant ‘yes.’
“Well, that was very … very thoughtful of him. Very considerate. A perfectly professional thing to do.”
The feeling that rose in her chest was …
Well, whatever it was, she had no intention of looking at it.
“Right,” she said, and brushed her hands together. “Florentines.”
She pushed the stool back beneath the table and set about gathering her ingredients. Almonds. Candied orange peel. Sugar. The golden bottle labeled Kindred on the shelf alongside its sisters.
She would not think about it. The table legs were simply one more item on a list of repairs. Kazrian noticed what was broken and fixed it. That was what his magic did, and the fact that this particular fix had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with paying attention to her was …
Well, it was not something she was meant to be thinking about.
She returned her attention to the florentines.
There was a deep and steadying pleasure in this part: the measuring, the slicing, the mixing, the slow turning of separate ordinary things into a single extraordinary whole.
She prepared the rich caramel batter over a low flame, then brought the saucepan to the worktable and added the sliced almonds and candied peel, allowing the kitchen pixies to take over the stirring while she tidied up and returned the various ingredients to their places.
The morning settled around her. Through the side window came the busy drone of a bee at the window box; out in the courtyard the gnome muttered to his herbs. A kitchen pixie alighted on the high shelf—and Lucie tensed immediately, half expecting the small creature to be launched into the air.
Nothing happened. The pixie sat swinging its legs, perfectly content.
Lucie released a breath. Kazrian really had fixed it.
Another pixie nudged her hand, and she looked down to find it offering the wooden spoon to her. She took it, leaned over the saucepan, and gave the mixture a slow, careful turn. Perfectly combined, though the mixture would need to cool before she placed spoonfuls on a tray.
She stood there for several moments, looking out across the kitchen.
The back door stood open to the mild morning, and it was true, what Georgiana had said: the gnome did do lovely work.
From where she stood, Lucie could see a corner of the courtyard, the herb pots crowded thick and green, the lavender just beginning to purple, a climbing rose throwing one bright spray of blossom up the stone wall.
Beyond it the morning was soft and gold and full of bees.
It struck her, not for the first time, how happy she was here.
Yes, it was a great deal to manage. Yes, the launch loomed, and the showpiece still terrified her.
But Lady Rivenna had reached down into the ordinary world and chosen Lucie Fields, out of everyone, and Lucie did not intend to waste a single day of it.
She would do this work, and do it well, for exactly as long as Lady Rivenna allowed her to stay.
The back door opened wider and in walked Kazrian, and Lucie’s whole body lit up as if she had swallowed a bottle of honey light.
“Good morning,” he said.
“I—ah—good morning.”
A prod on her finger made her glance down.
A pixie was staring at her with an expression of considerable reproach.
The spoon. She was still holding the spoon, but it was now hovering over the worktable instead of the saucepan, trailing a thin streak of caramel across the surface.
She set the spoon back in the saucepan and quickly wiped the drizzle with a cloth.
“I was not certain you would be back,” she added. “Your note suggested the work was finished.”
Kazrian shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the peg beside the door. “It is finished. But I would not leave without saying goodbye.” He paused. “And I have not forgotten about the structure for your showpiece.”
“Oh—that. I had thought perhaps you were simply being … polite. When you offered.”
He looked genuinely confused. “Polite?”