Chapter 11
A sorcerer can manipulate matter, curse beings, and create a multitude of endless spells, but the soul remains a forbidden territory to their magic.
ARAWN
Hunger growled inside me.
When I took my cursed form, I could devour entire mountains. But ever since I had forced myself into this vegetarian diet, a primal frustration lingered—my body was always starving. It was like a void demanding to consume more and more.
I trudged through the forest, passing Yeun’s cabin, its chimney tucked into the hollow of a tree. I never understood why he insisted on sleeping there when the will-o’-the-wisps piled on top of each other for warmth. But he was always alone.
A tiny Spirit nestled against my neck, its damp, icy mist brushing my skin. Others, just as small, crawled across my shoulders, clinging to my boots like a swarm of wasps. Newborns. The worst kind.
“You’re looking for her.”
I plucked one of the Spirits between my fingers and flicked it carelessly into the air. It reformed at once into a little ghost. “I’m not looking for her.”
“You lie,” one whispered in my ear.
“You’re never outside with us, usually,” another added.
“Shut up.”
They giggled, whirling around me. One brushed against my hair while another slipped into the folds of my coat.
My patience, already thin, frayed further.
I pressed on, and that was when I saw her, a pink ponytail swaying side to side through the half-open kitchen window.
I arched a brow, a faint smirk twisting my mouth. Persistent, wasn’t she?
The Spirits latched onto my shoulders again like parasites. “You’re smiling.”
“I’ll exterminate you.”
This time, they fled for good.
I loathed my dependence on her presence.
Me—capable of leveling a kingdom with a single blink—reduced to this.
Worse still, I should have known purple was a bad choice when I’d admitted (out of sheer irritation) that she was right about my favorite color.
That damn shade was everywhere. Me. The lake’s reflection at night.
Yeun, when he grew melancholy. My heart. I hated it.
I clenched my fist hard, and thunder rumbled in the distance.
My gaze slid to my own hand. The same hand I had extended to the confectioner.
I never touched anyone (unless it was to take their life).
I was nothing more than a Cursed with two hearts: one buried in Zelda’s kingdom, beating faintly, and the other consumed by eternal rage.
My humanity? Forgotten. And good riddance. I was condemned, and I knew that condemnation was irreversible.
I realized I had stopped in the middle of the path. Not that the confectioner had noticed. She had dared spy on me before, so I saw no reason not to return the favor. I slipped behind a tree, crouching near a bush, thorns snagging my coat. Hiding in my own realm. Pathetic.
“Hey, intruder, that’s my bush! Go find another and see if I’m in it.”
I turned and found myself face-to-face with the confectioner’s lamb. The beast raised wide eyes at me, then immediately backed away, tail low, fur trembling. Fear. I knew it well. I had seen it far too often. After all, there was a time, at the start of my transformation, when Zelda fed me lambs.
“I’m not going to eat you,” I said flatly.
“I don’t believe a word that comes out of a sorcerer’s mouth,” the lamb sniffed loudly. “You’re monsters.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“LEMPICKA!” the lamb bellowed, its voice half choked. “The sorcerer’s here!”
Her head popped out the window, and she waved me in with a broad gesture. I instantly revised my judgment: this beast was insufferable.
“And your kitchen’s a disaster!” the lamb declared, tail snapping upright before it kicked at the dirt, head held high. “A complete dump!”
Then it scampered off to its mistress, leaving me with a moral dilemma of following him or strangling him with its own tongue.
With a sigh, I stepped toward the threshold just in time to catch a spectral arm swiping sweets from a tray. The Spirit met my eyes and froze like a startled post. Then vanished into the mist with the stolen platter. I shoved the door open. The confectioner jumped.
The kitchen I had left behind was a disaster: dusty, chaotic, an insult to any notion of order.
But what I had before me now was almost worse.
She had clearly waged an all-out war against filth—only to spread her own chaos in its wake.
A precarious pile of utensils threatened to collapse across the counter.
Towels were flung everywhere, stained with melted sugar, and something was burning in the corner.
The confectioner, of course, didn’t seem to notice the brand-new disaster she had created. And perhaps that was the worst part.
“I didn’t expect you so soon.” She turned back to her stove, sweeping the room with her gaze. “The first batch is… Oh no! They’re gone! Chouquette, is it you?”
Was this na?veté innate to her, or a conscious effort? The creature squeaked and covered its head with its long ear tails.
“Well,” the confectioner muttered, “the second batch should be ready soon, but it’ll need to rest under a cloth.”
I could have told her I hadn’t planned on staying. That if I’d been caught skulking around by a lamb, it was purely accidental. But the situation was so absurd that I merely nodded.
She wrinkled her nose. “You smell something burning?”
“Indeed.”
She rushed to the oven and pulled out a tray with her bare hands. I sighed, folding my arms. What a clumsy fool.
“Oh no, they’re completely burnt! Totally ruined!”
I leaned over her shoulder, observing the misshapen lumps that looked like slimy water lilies. “Were you trying to poison me? I admire your persistence, but it won’t work.”
At least she seemed more and more open to the idea of ending my existence.
“No!” she protested, cheeks aflame. “They were Yeun’s favorites, and I ruined them completely! I’m useless! So useless!”
She grabbed one, but immediately, a violet streak snaked across her finger, dark and restless, curling around her skin like a growing bite.
The pastry slipped from her grasp. I caught it midair.
She bit her lip, staring at her trembling fingers where the dark mark still pulsed before lifting her eyes to the sugared lily.
I leaned toward her, my shadow covering hers, but I said nothing. Words were not my strength.
What I did not expect was to see her smile with a single tear sliding down her cheek. “It’s going to happen more and more, isn’t it?”
Something raw pierced my chest, sharp and vivid, like a blade brushing against my heart without cutting. I was no friend to human emotions, except Zelda’s. But I never considered her a woman—only a creature of whim, a storm of greed and fury with no other shade.
“I’m a sorcerer, not a healer,” I answered. “Your soul has been marked. I can neither change it nor control it.”
Magic could nearly do the impossible, but it had no power over the soul.
She nodded, eyes fixed on the charred pastries. “What am I supposed to tell Yeun now? And the Spirit… what will happen to him?”
I whistled, and the sick Spirit fluttered over to us, coughing little wisps of mist here and there. I tossed pastries into its mouth and kept the rest for myself.
“What are you doing?” the confectioner shrieked, eyes wide. “You don’t eat a failed confection. It’s like revealing the worst part of yourself. Stop!”
Too late. I swallowed them whole, letting the flavor claw at my throat. A concentrate of burnt sugar, a nauseating acidity, a bitterness that clung to my tongue like a stubborn curse.
“At least you won’t have to lie. You can simply say the insufferable and selfish me devoured everything without remorse.”
Her mouth opened, then snapped shut, her face a mix of outrage and confusion.
As for me, that abomination sat heavy in my chest. I knew her pastries, and now I could state without the slightest doubt, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever eaten.”
“I told you they were ruined!”
“No. Not ruined.” When something is ruined, you feel nothing at all. It’s empty. Flavorless. “They were very unpleasant, certainly. But not ruined.”
“That’s even worse!” she huffed.
“No.”
She pouted. Now she looked wounded. Why did humans only crave sweetness and softness, refusing to face the other side of the mirror?
“They were instructive… Familiar,” I added.
A taste I recognized. A sensation I had once felt. Even if it had been an eternity since I’d let myself feel anything at all.
“Look,” I said, pointing at the Spirit.
It gagged and spat out a wad of paper with a hiccup—or rather, Zelda’s invitation I had tossed at it and it had swallowed.
“The atrocity of the taste made the Spirit cough it up. You succeeded.”
“You twist the knife,” she muttered, tapping the paper with the tip of her spatula as if it might bite. “But I suppose you’re right. Confectioners’ magic is emotional after all. Unlike yours, which rests in conviction and… brute force.”
She shot me a dark glare, heavy with judgment.
“A spell only has the strength we give it. It is imposed on reality. But for both, it’s a question of faith. Belief. If the intent falters, the magic fails.”
She blinked and turned away as quickly as someone who couldn’t bear their own reflection. She pinched the paper between two fingers. “What’s this?”
“An invitation. And a reminder of your deadline.”
I stepped toward her, each move measured, forcing her back until her spine pressed against the counter.
She flinched slightly. Then, without breaking eye contact, I set my hands on either side of the wood, giving her no escape.
I leaned close enough that my shadow drowned hers, close enough to hear her heart pound in distress.
“I asked you to make me your favorite pastry.”
“I don’t know which one it is.” She gulped, eyes darting away again.
“Then I won’t eat any other until you know, or at least make the effort to find out.”
She lifted her head, stunned, as if I’d just declared I intended to set fire to the kitchen for sheer amusement. “But… your magic won’t regenerate.”
I stepped back, breaking my hold on the counter. “Console yourself with the thought that it will be entirely your fault.”
I pivoted sharply on my heel and slammed the door behind me. Outside, dawn brushed the manor with a pale glow, and I cursed myself inwardly for what I was about to do, my gloved hand hesitating against the wood.
The roots of the kitchen shuddered, then stretched. With a low murmur, the little house rotated on itself, obeying the curse I had just bound to it. A sunflower curse. Now it would follow the light: east in the morning, west at dusk, and north at noon.
A whim. A gesture I had no excuse to justify.
“YES! I FINALLY HAVE A KITCHEN FACING EAST!” the confectioner shouted from inside.
Perhaps it wasn’t food I truly craved in the end. But something far more elusive.