Chapter 3
The kingdom was divided into three regions: the mountains of the Wish Witch, the royal city of the Prince, which included the village of BoisJoli, and the Forbidden Forest of the cursed Mist Sorcerer.
LEMPICKA
Aman stood in my shop, his head nearly brushing the ceiling.
Not that having male customers (or customers at all) was so unusual—but he was nothing like a customer.
His eyes were drowned in shadow, his expressionless face sending a cold jolt straight down my spine.
There was also that scent, sharp nettle and green tea.
His coat hung from his shoulders like shards of winter sky, that kind of blue-violet that warns of a coming storm.
His hair was dyed the shade of faded lavender, dipped in an indigo too shy to be called blue.
Around his gloved wrists, blood—or rather, a thick violet liquor—beaded before dripping to the floor.
For the blink of an eye, I thought I saw dark spikes burst from one of his arms, like thorns, tearing through his shirt with a slow, splintering crack.
I swallowed hard. Aignan tugged at my dress, trying to pull me back, but I stayed frozen.
Behind him, the two Cursed from the night before, smaller now, trembling.
I lifted my battered broom toward the man and his creatures. “You don’t think you’ve done enough already?”
The man tilted his head slightly, revealing sharp cheekbones and features honed like a blade. A cold smile flickered briefly on his lips. Without a word, he reached out and took my broom. Under his fingers, it crumbled to ash.
“I have doubts about the efficiency of that weapon.”
I stepped back. A sorcerer. Aignan bolted out of the shop faster than I ever thought possible for him.
“You’re the one who sent them, aren’t you?” I said, my voice breaking.
The sorcerer raised a hand, indicating the two Cursed. “You will be bound to this shop, at the peril of your souls. Clean. Protect. Once your task is done, you are free to flee and snuff out your miserable existence, if you wish.”
The Cursed froze like broken puppets, their yellow eyes going wide.
The smaller one, purplish, rose slightly off the ground, its many tails gripping shards of glass while its fennec-like ears twitched.
The larger—a mass of greenish clay with a mushroom sprouting from the top of its head—stepped forward to set the cauldrons back in place.
The sorcerer took a step, crushing a bottle under his heel without so much as an apology.
“To answer your question, no, I didn’t send them. But they found me. I simply… requisitioned them.” He pressed his hand against his arm, as though to slow a hemorrhage. Yet there was no trace of pain on his face. “Consider it free labor.”
Labor? A few steps away, the two Cursed were already fighting over a brush. All I wanted was my routine back. “I don’t want help. Leave.”
He had that look, somewhere between frozen horizon and storm-violet, where sparks of gold glimmered like fireflies trapped in glass. He studied me as though I were some foolish creature he hadn’t yet decided whether to destroy or tolerate.
“What admirable stubbornness. Given the state of your shop, I’d dare say you’re in no position to refuse.”
My jaw tightened. “I’ve always managed on my own.”
“Yes, I see the overwhelming success of your methods.”
My fists clenched, but he had already moved on, brushing aside my objection with condescending ease.
“I need some sucre d'or. Quickly,” he said, his calm voice leaving no room for negotiation.
I blinked. The audacity of this one. “You can’t just walk in and demand—”
“Of course I can,” he cut in. “Don’t make me force you.”
I crossed my arms. “I have nothing to sell. Not a single pastry. And in this mess, it will take me hours to get the shop back in order.”
He inclined his head slightly, a thin smile touching his lips. But nothing was reassuring in it. He was as sharp as a weapon. Cruel, even. “Then give it to me raw.”
I stepped back, outraged. “Raw? Are you mad? The sucre d'or can’t be eaten like that! It’s unstable and dangerous.”
“I’ve survived worse,” he replied dryly. “Flirting with death is something of a pastime.”
I stared at him, words caught in my throat. This sorcerer—this man—was nothing like anything I had ever known before, and he seemed far too at ease amid the wreckage of my life.
“If you’re going to pity me, at least make it useful. Bring. Me. The. Sugar,” he ordered, as a bitter mist began to rise around him.
“I can’t.”
“How unfortunate, then,” he cut me off. “I suppose I’ll just collapse here and spill my blood all over your floor.”
“What? But—”
Before I could finish, the sorcerer collapsed heavily to the ground.
I certainly hadn’t expected to end my day with—not only an unconscious, blood-covered sorcerer sprawled across my floor—but also two other Cursed busily cleaning.
I had closed the shop’s shutters and locked the door twice over, afraid someone might accuse me of foul sorcery.
I paced in circles around the sorcerer. What was I supposed to do?
I had never treated anyone before, and certainly not a sorcerer who was giving off a strange, icy mist. His magic seemed unstable, leaking out of him as if searching for an escape, or else trying to shield him, but far too chaotic to be controlled.
“Nyla would know what to do,” I murmured, more to myself than to Aignan, who came back, keeping a cautious distance from the two Cursed.
He sniffed the air in disgust, wrinkling his muzzle as though the sorcerer reeked of something pestilent.
“He’s unconscious, he won’t hurt you,” I assured him.
“He’s a sorcerer! No one’s safe,” Aignan groaned, flattening his ears tight against his head.
“I can’t just leave him here, can I?” I set my hands on my hips with a sigh. A sticky, rebellious strand of hair slid across my forehead.
“Put him outside,” Aignan suggested offhandedly, as though we were discussing a dead branch.
I bit my lip, painfully aware that I had neither the strength nor the courage to drag his body into the street and toss him out like an old sack of grain.
“Don’t you think it’s strange? Mr. Yeun turning into a will-o’-the-wisp, then this sorcerer showing up with the Cursed who attacked us? He must be his master. Yeun must have warned him, and this sorcerer fought them. That’s why he’s bleeding,” I said, tapping my foot, brows furrowed.
Even unconscious, my customer’s master carried a certain elegance, but he wasn’t at all what I had imagined. I would have thought him older, wiser, less… troubling. He had clearly pushed his magic too far without replenishing it.
“You see too much good in people,” Aignan grumbled. “Yeun’s a coward, that’s all. He abandoned us, and I’d bet this sorcerer doesn’t belong to any kingdom.”
Aignan gave the sorcerer’s side a none-too-gentle kick with his hoof. I ran a hand over my forehead. If I didn’t act, I was going to have a dead sorcerer on my floor. The thought sent a chill through me.
“Aignan, check if he’s still breathing!” I ordered, making my way through shards of broken glass toward the meager ingredients behind my apothecary’s counter.
Aignan dragged his hooves reluctantly, clearly less than thrilled by the task.
I lit the cauldron and tossed in fragments of sucre d'or, pale as dawnlight.
The crystals melted into a thick syrup, warm with honeyed glints.
My hands trembled as I reached for a bundle of lavender and a few butterfly pea flowers that the Cursed had so neatly set back on a shelf.
That should stabilize and calm his magic enough to let him regain consciousness.
“Excuse me,” I said to one of the Cursed.
The many-tailed creature’s lashes fluttered. She opened her mouth in a perplexed little “o” before letting out a brief, dissonant cry, like badly tuned birds. I was fairly certain this Cursed was a she. I crushed the flowers quickly, the well water already boiling in the cauldron.
After all, anything could be turned into poison. It was only the dose that decided whether it was a remedy or venom.
“I need a flask,” I muttered, not really expecting an answer.
To my surprise, the Cursed golem clumsily held out a jar far too large for the task.
“Thank you,” I blinked, taking it all the same.
I didn’t have time to work miracles, so I hoped this violet syrup, with its spring-sweet scent, would be enough. I poured the liquid, holding my breath. What if it didn’t work? What if my makeshift brew failed, leaving me with a dead sorcerer—and worse still—the weight of my own failure?
If only Nyla were here.
The floorboards groaned under my weight as I knelt beside him.
The air thickened, heavy, making every breath harder to draw.
I brushed aside a lock of his hair, revealing a face of unsettling serenity.
Angular features, almost princely. My heart skipped.
He was handsome and far less threatening like this.
“Is it just me, or are you turning pink?” Aignan grumbled, exasperated. He gave me a sharp nudge with his horn to snap me back to reality. “You’re not that stupid, are you?”
It wasn’t my fault that all the men in the village were either married, old, or crushingly dull. I shoved Aignan away and took a deep breath, parting the sorcerer’s lips gently to let a few drops of the violet potion slip inside.
“Please don’t die. Don’t turn into a corpse… or worse, a Category Nine Cursed. Don’t die, don’t—”
“If only you knew what you were doing.”
The sorcerer’s eyelids fluttered, then he fixed me with a piercing gaze, cold as frozen winter lakes. Aignan and I jolted back in unison.
“You… you’re awake?”
He sat up slowly, one hand pressed to his temple. “You should never plead while casting a spell. Words have power, and negatives cancel out positive effects. But I suppose a novice like you couldn’t understand that.”
“I’m healing you, and you insult me?” I burst out.
Aignan sniffed with open disdain. “Nothing to blush about, clearly.” He waved a paw lazily toward the many-tailed Cursed, who had frozen mid-task. “You, sew my cushion properly this time.”
The sorcerer rose with an ease almost unnatural for someone who had been unconscious seconds before. His oppressive aura seemed to lighten a little as his strength returned. “Well, I’m standing, am I not? You’ve succeeded. Congratulations.”
His gaze cut straight through me again, studying me as though I were just another oddity in his world, or as if he hadn’t expected me to pull it off.
“Applause would be in order, but you see, I’m tragically allergic to displays of joy,” he drawled, the shadow of a predatory smile curling at the corner of his lips.
My eyes widened. Not a word of thanks, no recognition—only that lazily cruel stare that made me feel like an insect pinned under glass.
“What happened to you?” I asked, sharper than I’d intended.
“Exorcizing Cursed all night has its consequences.”
“I meant your past. To make you so…” Contemptuous. Cold. Careless. “Indifferent.”
“Centuries of darkness, of boredom… and a patience that frays a little more with every indiscreet question.”
He strode toward the door. He was so tall he had to dip his head slightly to avoid hitting the lintel.
“Wait!” I called. “I can’t keep two Cursed here! The villagers would never understand.”
The two creatures’ shoulders sagged, as if wounded by my words, before they went back to their work with less spirit.
The sorcerer turned back, his gaze narrowing faintly.
“You refuse my gift?” he said, his words brushing like a blade against skin. “They’re harmless now. At worst, Category Three or Four. You have nothing to fear.”
“Tell that to the village,” I muttered.
The sorcerer crouched by the doorway, laying a hand on the frame while murmuring words of incantation I couldn’t catch.
The shop gave a soft creak, as if something had just been added to it.
Then he dusted off his hands and his eyes fell on the notice pinned to the door—the one about the mysterious Mist Sorcerer.
A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Ridiculous.”
“You know him?” I dared to ask.
“The author of this absurdity? Oh yes,” he said, voice sharp, each word laced with biting scorn. “If he’s not already dead, he deserves to be for this farce.”
Farce? I opened my mouth, searching for what to say, but he was already leaving. And though he seemed careless with his own life, I couldn’t help but call after him:
“Your magic isn’t restored yet! If you keep using it without feeding it, you’ll end up—”
“I’m not looking for a confectioner,” he cut in, cold as steel.
“I believe I’ve already compensated you for your trouble.
” His smile tugged slightly wider, tinged with mocking irony.
“Unless you have a specific request? But don’t ask me to make someone fall in love with you. I don’t do that sort of magic.”
I clenched my fists, heat rising to my face. Did he just imply I was a spinster?
“I didn’t save you, hoping to get anything in return,” I shot back, furious.
The sorcerer frowned faintly, as though the idea itself was incomprehensible to him. “You’d best forget our meeting.”
“Wait!”
But it was already too late.
A sudden gust burst in, shoving me back inside. The door shut behind him. In an instant, he vanished into the mist.
I no longer had a shred of doubt: I had just met the abominable Mist Sorcerer.