Chapter 4
When a confectioner’s heart falters, it becomes vulnerable to the frost of curses.
LEMPICKA
Never would I have thought I’d say this one day, but having those two Cursed in my shop had, in the end, proven… useful. Even if, let’s be honest, I still had no idea how one was supposed to manage them.
“We should leave,” said Aignan, hiding from the Cursed in the debris of the counter split in two.
Yet, they weren’t so terrifying anymore.
The one who looked like a lump of clay topped with a lopsided mushroom brought me what I needed, or at least, he tried.
I would still have to teach him how to tell flour from dust and find a way to deal with the moss stubbornly growing across the backs of his hands.
As for the smaller one, she had settled herself between the spice shelves, letting out little satisfied gurgles.
Her tails, like violet ribbons, wiggled happily as she sorted jars of edible flowers—though she took the opportunity to slip a few petals into her wide mouth along the way.
I noticed she seemed rounder than when she’d arrived, but I moved on.
“Nyla asked us to take care of the shop, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
Crouched near the oven, I was waiting for my cupcakes to bake. I’d used up the last of my workable ingredients, but seeing the rainbow-tinted batter rise perfectly filled me with a small surge of pride.
“Hey, who stole my basket!? It’s not next to the cauldron anymore!” Aignan whined.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Baskets don’t just vanish. It has to be exactly where you left it.”
“No, it’s not!” he growled, leaping up onto the counter, fur bristling.
I set the tray down on the counter. The two Cursed froze at once, their big yellow eyes going wide, locked on the pastries.
“I really need to find you proper names,” I sighed, dusting a fine shower of matcha over my creations before placing delicate slices of strawberry on top. “Here, these are for you.”
The smaller one opened her gaping mouth, her face flushing, before spinning in place like a tropical fish in pure euphoria. The golem, meanwhile, stared at his cupcake for a moment, frozen, as if enchanted, then swallowed it whole in one gulp.
Aignan didn’t need to be asked twice and devoured his in one bite, a few crumbs instantly clinging to his fur. “Needs more icing.”
“You,” I said, pointing at the big Cursed, “will be éclair. Because you leave a lasting impression… let’s say, substantial and satisfying.”
A fresh red mushroom sprouted from the top of his head, swaying as his eyes crossed to look at it.
“And you…” I went on, turning to the little thief perched on my grimoire, one of her tails idly flipping through the still-empty pages. “I’ll call you Chouquette: light, elusive, fleeting, but delightfully sweet and—”
Without warning, Chouquette lifted the grimoire above her head. Her mouth stretched grotesquely wide—so wide it almost swallowed her whole face—and with a sharp snap, she gulped the grimoire down in one bite.
“Chouquette! No!” I cried, lunging toward her. “Spit that out right now! That’s not food!”
A confectioner without her grimoire was like a cake without sugar.
Unthinkable. I couldn’t let Nyla’s precious gift vanish into the gullet of a Cursed!
I grabbed her and pried open her mouth, peeking inside.
The grimoire was there, perfectly intact, sitting among a chaotic hoard of collected objects: spoons, vases… and was that a candlestick?
“She ate it?” Aignan choked, bounding closer. “Why do you leave things like that lying around?”
“I didn’t think she was going to EAT IT!” I snapped, struggling to keep Chouquette’s jaw open. “Help me!”
Aignan groaned but shoved his muzzle inside. “It’s a real mess in here! You could decorate a cottage with all this junk! And it stinks!”
“Aignan! The grimoire!”
With an exaggerated sigh, he dove back in and emerged proudly… with his basket clamped between his little teeth. “It was in there! She’d stolen it from me!”
Really? Who would even want his mangy old basket? Chouquette took advantage of the distraction to wriggle free and dart to hide behind the spice jars, her tails curling around her like a ball of guilt. I caught my breath, crouching down. I hadn’t signed up for any of this.
“You couldn’t have known, but this grimoire is very important to me,” I said, voice softer, holding a hand out to the creature. “Next time you want something, you just have to ask me, alright? Sorry for yelling.”
Chouquette hesitated a moment, then one of her violet tails slowly curled around my wrist before she pulled herself out of hiding.
“That’s it?” Aignan protested. “Nyla never left me anything, and this thief gets away with a pat?”
I stood, guiding Chouquette back to the counter. “The grimoire is safe inside her stomach, or whatever it is. She’ll keep it for now. Right, Chouquette?”
She nodded eagerly and leaped onto éclair. The big Cursed spun in place, trying to see her, until Aignan clapped his paws to show him where to look.
“Good thing Nyla’s never coming back,” Aignan grumbled, curling into a ball in his basket. “She’d be crushed to see all this.”
“She’s coming back,” I replied, arms crossed.
“She abandoned us!”
“I refuse to be as cynical as you,” I shot back, before turning to the Cursed, whose eyes still shone with a guilty glint.
“And you two, you’re going to have to learn to hide if someone comes in.
” I opened an old cupboard, its hinges groaning ominously.
A cloud of dust rose. “This—” I sneezed. “—will do. Any objections?”
The Cursed shook their heads quickly, then let out small, sharp cries of panic.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’re afraid of a cupboard? It’s just wood and hinges, maybe one or two spiders and—”
“In the cupboard, you useless lumps!” Aignan barked.
The Cursed squealed and scrambled inside, slamming the door shut behind them.
But before Aignan could savor his victory, the bell over the door chimed. I straightened. A heady poppy scent slipped into the shop. A woman dressed in crimson velvet entered, her painted-red lips stretching into a sharp smile. Her eyes, however, did not smile.
She wrinkled her long nose with a disdainful pout. “He’s forgotten that a trace of magic never truly fades.”
A faint tremor shuddered through the cupboard behind me. I snapped it shut with my foot, a bright smile on.
“Good morning. May I help you?”
“What an astute question…” the customer said, brushing her red fingertip against the last cupcake on the counter. “Tell me, I have at my disposal the most refined confectioners in all the kingdoms, yet, something eludes me.”
She tilted her head, her features seeming to lengthen. Her smile stretched ever so slightly, just a shade wider, just a shade darker.
“I had to see for myself what could possibly have drawn the Mist Sorcerer into this shabby little pastry shop.”
The Wish Witch was in my shop.
Granted, she had just insulted the place, but she wasn’t the first. I hardly cared. My heart pounded. I pressed my hands to the counter and rose onto my toes, leaning forward. At last, perhaps, I would hear news of Nyla!
“You’re the Wish Witch! It’s an honor to—”
“His magic has grown so weak.” Her smooth voice was mocking. “The pathetic protection circle he traced around this pitiful shop shattered without so much as a sigh. Looks like he couldn’t care less about the life of his little confectioner.”
I lost a bit of my momentum. Why was she talking so much about him? The Wish Witch was the most powerful of all. Loved, admired. He was nothing but an exiled sorcerer. And from what I had seen, he didn’t exactly resemble the creator of Cursed that the rumors claimed he was.
She plucked up the last cupcake and rolled it between her fingers, examining it as if it were a trinket of no value.
“Everything here is so small. And hollow. So hollow that you pour everything you have into your pastries just to make them pretty to the eye. But in the end, aren’t they just as empty as you are?
” A smile brushed her lips. “No grimoire either? What a shame.”
I gripped the wood of the counter until my knuckles turned white.
Nyla had left everything behind to follow her.
There had to be an explanation—something behind these acidic words.
My pastries might not rival those of the great houses, but each one was crafted with care and meant to make life a little sweeter.
“I only have a modest shop,” I replied, forcing my voice to remain even.
Behind me, Aignan—still hiding under his basket—gave me a sharp signal to keep quiet. The witch bit into the cupcake, chewed slowly, then dropped the rest on the floor.
“Hm,” she scoffed. “I have lived many centuries, and I have never seen a confectioner as pitiful as you.”
A lump of anger swelled in my chest. I had had my fill of insults for today. Behind me, the Cursed rattled the cupboard. “I understand my shop doesn’t please you. But I—”
The cupboard creaked. In a rush of breath, the two Cursed burst out. Chouquette scrambled up to the ceiling beams in a spiderlike movement, while éclair, heavier, slammed his heel against the wood.
The witch fixed her gaze on them, one eyebrow raised. “Ah, there you are at last.”
I froze, the blood draining from my face. They belonged to her? Behind me, the cauldron boiled violently, as if my anxiety was feeding the fire beneath it.
“I ordered you to wreck this place!” she snapped, her voice as biting as frost. “Not to loiter like vulgar decorations!”
“Why?” I cried. “I never did anything to you!”
She was supposed to be on the good side of the story. To bring hope to small people like me. My stomach knotted. The world tilted. None of it made sense. I was only a simple pastry chef from Bois-Joli. And Nyla? Where was Nyla?
“Because he came here!”
Her left eye twitched. A cloud of black dust lifted into the air, and I coughed. This was not fairy dust. This was chimney soot.
“Once, I knew a confectioner as naive as you. A far stronger heart. A true disappointment. Her shop was just as miserable as yours… Rania? Anna?”
“Nyla,” I breathed, my head buzzing.
Her smile widened. “Ah, yes. Nyla. So much wasted potential. She didn’t stay in my service for long.”
“Where is she?”
The ground swayed. My knees trembled.
“Dead, of course.”
Aignan stifled a cry. I clung to the counter to keep from collapsing, held upright only by the two Cursed pressing against me. My heart broke, shard by shard.
“It’s been nearly seven years,” she continued. “No one mourned her.”
Seven years… and I never knew. All those years of waiting, hoping, resenting her, when in truth, Nyla was no longer of this world.
“Leave.” I wiped away a tear. “I have nothing for you.”
My curiosity about sorcerers had just been snuffed out for years to come. Perhaps Aignan had been right.
She burst into laughter. A shrill sound that drilled into my ears. “Oh, but I will leave you. Leave you to become the exact reflection of what your heart is. Would I be the Wish Witch if I didn’t grant you what your insolence deserves?”
I had no time to react. She stretched out her hand. A cloud of dust wrapped around me like a tornado. I saw nothing, but her incantation struck me:
“Like the golden apple, of radiant beauty, yet poisoned and deadly, let the heart of this confectioner bind itself to the sweet magic of this forbidden fruit. If, at the first harvest of winter, she does not break her curse, she will remain hollow and rotten… forever.”
I choked. A searing pain tore through my chest. I collapsed to the floor, fingers clawed against my heart.
“Lempicka!” Aignan shouted, running toward me.
A cold sharper than the first snows seeped into me, freezing my veins and paralyzing my limbs. I couldn’t lift my head as the shop groaned, the beams trembling like a wounded beast.
“Did your mentor never teach you? A weakened heart is a wide-open door to curses,” she sneered, her voice distorted.
In an instant, roots burst through the floorboards, splitting the wood with a sinister crack, like bones breaking. They twisted and stretched, tearing the shop from its foundations, lifting it as if it had just sprouted legs.
“What the…?”
The witch staggered, hampered by her clothes. The roots came alive, dragging the shop forward in a jerky march, as if it were walking on spider legs. Her gaze suddenly locked on the Cursed clinging to the ceiling.
“Arawn, damn you,” she hissed. “You’re not as stupid as I thought.”
I could hear only echoes now. My chest burned. My tears fell, stinging, shattering on the floor like glass.
“Lempicka…” Aignan’s voice reached me. “You… you…”
Before I could demand an answer, the shop lurched violently.
Aignan and I were thrown across the room. Above our heads, the Cursed tried desperately to catch jars flying in every direction, but the roof began to splinter, the wood crumbling into jagged shards.
“We’ll meet again on the first day of winter. I’m hosting a banquet!” the witch muttered. “And give my regards to the Mist Sorcerer. He can’t ignore me forever. Good luck with your curse, little cursed apple!”
She vanished in a burst of dust, leaving behind only a bubbling black puddle.
I clung to Aignan as the shop hurtled forward in a frenzied flight. The walls twisted, and the roof disintegrated into fragments. The Cursed could do nothing to stop objects from flying everywhere—utensils, jars, even the big cauldron slid across the floor, slamming into everything in its path.
Through the shattered windows, the village receded, blurred, dissolved into the mist, swallowed by the monstrous strides of the roots carrying us farther and farther away.
“Nyla’s patisserie… I can’t let it collapse like she did, Aignan. It’s all we have left.”
Pieces of the shop vanished into shadow. The floor shook. Entire sections of wall evaporated, until only a tiny square remained where we clung to the wood, my companions and I.
“I knew it would end like this,” Aignan murmured. “You can’t trust them. Sorcerers are all—”
The mist thickened around us, heavy, suffocating, sliding into my throat and stinging my eyes. And through it, pairs of red eyes. Spectral, skeletal branches hooked into my clothes while the roots dragged us ever deeper into the Forbidden Forest.
“I think I know where the shop is taking us!” I shouted, but the roar of the wind swallowed my voice.
The last thing I remembered was not Aignan’s voice trying to warn me, nor the twisted, sinister trees.
It was my own hand. My fingers seemed woven from threads of sugar, as if coated in stardust. The cold sank deeper, biting, relentless, sharp as a winter blade.
My hands, my arms, my face… my entire being froze into a fragile sculpture of crystallized sugar.
With all my heart, I hoped the Mist Sorcerer wasn’t as cruel as they said.
For my shop was carrying me straight to him.