The Bake Off Alibi
I’m halfway to the kitchen when someone knocks on my door.
I freeze. My heart lurches into my throat. Nobody knocks on my door. Nobody ever knocks on my door. I don’t have friends who drop by. I don’t have family who visit. The only person who might knock is Adam, and Adam always texts first.
The knock comes again. Louder this time. More insistent.
“Felix?” Adam’s voice carries through the door, muffled but unmistakable. “Felix, I know you’re in there. I can hear you moving around.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
I glance back at the living room. Dis is still sitting in his circle, those blue eyes fixed on me with an intensity that suggests he’s very interested in how I’m going to handle this.
The knock comes a third time. “Felix, I’m sorry, but I’m coming in. I’m worried about you.”
Oh god. He has a key. Of course he has a key. He’s the landlord. Why did I rent from my best friend? Why did I make such catastrophically poor life choices?
I hear the key slide into the lock.
“Wait!” I shout, my voice coming out higher than intended. “Wait, just give me a second!”
But it’s too late. The door swings open and Adam is standing there, his face creased with concern.
“Felix, what’s going on?” Adam steps inside without waiting for an invitation. “You haven’t been answering my calls. You haven’t been answering my texts. I’ve been trying to reach you for two days.”
Two days? Has it been two days? I’ve completely lost track of time.
“I’m fine,” I say, moving to block his path to the living room. “Totally fine. Just been busy.”
“Busy with what?” Adam’s eyes narrow. He knows me too well. He can tell when I’m lying.
“Just... stuff. Witch stuff. You know how it is.”
“No, I don’t know how it is.” Adam takes another step forward. I take a step back. We’re doing some kind of horrible dance in my hallway. “You always answer your phone. Even when you’re busy. Even when you’re in the middle of a spell. Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong!”
“Then why won’t you let me in?”
“You are in. You’re standing in my hallway.”
“You know what I mean.” Adam’s voice softens. “Felix, talk to me. What’s going on? Are you okay? Did something happen?”
Yes. I summoned a shadow king and trapped him in my living room and he’s currently sitting in a summoning circle ten feet away from where we’re standing and if you walk in there you’re going to see him and this entire situation is going to explode in my face.
“I’m fine,” I say again. “Really. I’ve just been... distracted.”
“Distracted by what?”
My mind goes completely blank. I can’t think of a single plausible excuse. My brain has turned to static and panic.
“The Great British Bake Off,” I blurt out.
Adam blinks. “What?”
“I’ve been watching The Great British Bake Off. The reruns. All of them. I got really into it and I just... lost track of time.” The words are spilling out now and I can’t stop them. “It’s very engaging. The baking. The competition. The... soggy bottoms.”
Adam stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“You’ve been ignoring my calls because you were watching soggy bottoms?”
“Yes.”
“A baking show.”
“It’s very compelling television.”
“Felix.” Adam’s voice is flat. “You don’t even bake.”
“I could learn! Maybe I want to learn! Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes. Extremely.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” I say quickly.
“I still think something’s wrong,” Adam says. He moves to step around me. “I’m coming in.”
“No!” I grab his arm. “I mean, it’s messy. Very messy. Embarrassingly messy. You don’t want to see.”
“I don’t care if it’s messy.” Adam gently but firmly removes my hand from his arm. “I care that you’re okay.”
He walks past me into the living room.
I have approximately two seconds to prepare for disaster.
I follow him, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
This is it. This is where everything falls apart.
Adam’s going to see Dis and he’s going to freak out and Hex is going to freak out and they’re going to discover that not only have I trapped a shadow being, I threw a himbo at him, fed him myself which was way too intimate, and got him addicted to daytime TV, and now everything I’ve been trying to accomplish is going to crumble.
Adam stops in the doorway to the living room.
I hold my breath.
He looks around. His gaze sweeps over the second-hand sofa, the rolled-up carpet against the wall, the chalk marks on the floorboards.
The empty chalk marks on the floorboards.
Dis is gone.
Not just hidden. Not just invisible. Gone. The circle is empty. There are no blue eyes burning in the darkness. No shadows that are darker than they should be. Nothing.
“See?” I say, my voice coming out strangled. “Just messy. Told you.”
Adam frowns at the summoning circle drawn on my floor. “What’s this?”
“Spell work. Told you. Witch stuff.”
“What kind of spell?”
“The witchy kind. Very technical. You wouldn’t understand.” I’m babbling now. “Lots of herbs and candles and... other... witch things.”
Adam gives me a long look. Then he sighs. “Felix. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Positive. Absolutely positive. Never been better.”
“Because if something was wrong, you’d tell me, right?”
The genuine concern in his voice makes guilt twist in my stomach. Adam is my best friend. My only friend, really. He’s always been there for me. And here I am lying straight to his face about having a shadow king in my flat.
“Of course,” I say. “You know I would.”
It’s not technically a lie. If something was wrong, I would tell him. This isn’t wrong. This is... complicated. Very, very complicated. But not wrong.
I hope.
Adam steps closer, his eyes scanning the room more carefully. He’s looking at the chalk marks, the candles, the general state of chaos I’ve been living in. I can see him trying to piece together what’s going on.
“You’ve been acting strange,” he says quietly. “Ever since the fire. I know that was traumatic, but Felix, you can talk to me. You know that, right?”
“I know.” I try to smile. Try to look like everything is normal and fine and not at all chaotic. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Okay.” Adam doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he’s respecting my boundaries. That’s one of the things I love about him. He worries, but he doesn’t push. “But I’m serious. If you need anything. Anything at all. You call me.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Adam pulls me into a hug. I stiffen for a moment, then relax into it. He smells like coffee and safety and everything comfortable and familiar. Everything that my life has never had and probably never will. For a moment I let myself pretend everything is okay, that I’m not lying to him.
“I worry about you,” he says into my hair.
“I know.”
“You’re important to me.”
“Obviously. I’m awesome. Of course I’m important.”
He pulls back and looks at me seriously. “I mean it, Felix. Don’t shut me out.”
“I won’t.”
Another lie to add to the pile.
He leaves. I hear his footsteps on the stairs. The door to the coffee shop opening and closing below.
I stare at the empty summoning circle, my heart still racing, my hands shaking with leftover adrenaline.
“You can come out now,” I say to the air.
Nothing happens. The flat is silent.
“Disney. I know you’re still here.” I call out with far more confidence than I feel. Surely I’d feel it if my wards had been broken? Right?
The temperature drops so suddenly I can see my breath mist. The shadows along the edge of the circle deepen, growing darker and more solid, then coalesce into a familiar shape. Blue eyes blink into existence, burning like cold fire.
Dis materialises slowly, pulling himself together from scattered pieces of shadow. He’s still in the circle, exactly where he was before. Still bound. But somehow he managed to hide himself completely.
I’m far more relieved than I’m ever going to admit to anyone. Ever.
“How did you do that?” I ask.
“I am made of shadows,” Dis says. His voice is carefully neutral. “Shadows can hide in darkness.”
“But the circle…”
“The circle prevents me from leaving. Not from controlling my own form within its boundaries.” He tilts his head, studying me. “You may thank me now.”
It takes me a moment to understand. Then it hits me.
He hid himself. Not because he had to. Not because I commanded him to. But because he understood that if Adam saw him, things would get complicated for me.
He protected me.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“Don’t mistake necessity for kindness, Little Witch,” he says, even though he just told me to thank him. But there’s something in his voice that suggests he’s not being entirely honest. “If your friend had discovered me, it would have been... inconvenient.”
“Right. Inconvenient.”
“For both of us.”
“Yeah.” I sit down on the sofa, my legs suddenly shaky now that the adrenaline is fading. “That was close.”
“Indeed.”
We sit in silence for a moment. The weight of what just happened settling over us.
“You lied to your friend,” Dis observes.
“I had to.”
“Did you?”
“What was I supposed to say? ‘Sorry I haven’t been answering, I’ve been holding a shadow king prisoner in my living room’?”
“That would have been honest.”
“That would have been insane.”
“And yet, it’s the truth.” Dis’s eyes gleam. “You chose to protect this situation. To keep me secret.”
“I chose to protect myself. If Adam found out, he’d tell Hex and make me release you.”
“Would he?”
The question hangs in the air. Would Adam tell Hex to make me release Dis? I’m not actually sure. Adam believes in justice. In doing the right thing. But he also believes in letting people make their own choices. As for the shadow prince’s morals, I have no idea.
“I don’t want to find out,” I say finally.
“So you lied.”
“So I lied.”
“And invented a story about baking competitions.”
Despite everything, I feel my mouth twitch. “It wasn’t entirely a lie. We have been watching a lot of Bake Off.”
“We have,” Dis agrees. There’s something almost amused in his voice. “Your friend seemed skeptical.”
“Adam knows I don’t bake. I once set fire to instant noodles.”
“Perhaps you should learn. For authenticity.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. The absurdity of the situation is too much. “Right. I’ll add that to my list. Learn to bake. Keep shadow king prisoner. Lie to best friend about both.”
“You forgot one.”
“What?”
“Feed shadow king dinner.” Dis’s eyes fix on me. “You were about to make pasta when we were interrupted. To fuel yourself for fuelling me.”
My stomach does that swooping thing again. Right. The pasta. The feeding.
“I should probably do that,” I say.
“You should.”
I stand up, my legs still a bit unsteady.
I walk toward the kitchen, then pause in the doorway. Turn back to look at him.
“Disney?”
“Yes, Little Witch?”
“Thank you, really. For hiding. You didn’t have to do that.”
The blue eyes study me for a long moment. “We have a common goal, it seems. Not being discovered.”
“I guess we do.”
“Besides.” Something shifts in his expression. “You’re going to feed me. I have an interest in maintaining this arrangement.”
It’s a flimsy excuse, and we both know it. He could have revealed himself. Could have called out to Adam. Could have begged for rescue.
But he didn’t.
He chose this. Chose to stay hidden. Chose to protect me, even if he won’t admit it.
Of course, there is the whole shame thing. I mustn’t forget that and get all sappy. Dis has reasons he doesn’t want to be discovered that have absolutely nothing to do with me.
But still. He’s not entirely a selfish jerk. I don’t think.
I nod slowly. “Food coming up.”
I turn toward the kitchen, and not for the first time since this whole thing started, I feel like maybe we’re not just captor and captive.
Maybe we’re something else. Something I don’t have a name for yet. Something that feels dangerous and complicated and possibly like the worst idea I’ve ever had. But also something that feels right in a way I can’t explain.
I’m just not sure what that means.