Chapter 14
A true confectioner doesn’t merely craft sweets. They create fragments of essence, torn from the depths of their own heart.
LEMPICKA
Braided brioches with cinnamon bark cause irritability, bad faith, and temper tantrums.
I reread the line in the grimoire. Three times. Then I screamed. “What?! But that was Nyla’s recipe!”
The one for mornings too hard to bear, when Aignan grumbled like an old cauldron someone had forgotten to scrub, and for me, whose stamina rivaled that of butter melting in a pan too hot. It was supposed to give strength. Not… this monstrosity!
A sharp noise. The tray of brioches lay on the floor. Empty. Sprawled majestically across the counter as if preparing to hold court, Aignan licked his glistening muzzle, golden crumbs stuck to his fur, his single horn sparkling like a shard of hardened sugar.
“What are you staring at, scarecrow?!” he snapped. “Nyla, at least, knew how to make brioches! Good thing she’s dead, that one, or I’d have gored her myself for saddling us with this witch! That’s how she thanks me… And now you’re going to abandon me too!”
“I’m not going anywhere, I’ll fix this—”
I reached out a hand to pet him, but he bolted out the window, shooting me a murderous glare over his shoulder. “Don’t touch me! You look like scorched sugar, and you smell like burnt caramel!”
My palms heated. My forehead was sticky. I was literally caramelizing. And of course, while I panicked, Aignan was outside growling at a tree branch. He challenged it with a glare, then tried to stab it with his horn.
I bewitched Aignan. This is all my fault!
“DELIVERY!” Yeun suddenly shrieked, in a flash of blue flame.
He zigzagged low across the ground, chased by a runaway cart on wheels, its canvas awning flapping in the wind like a fleeing circus tent. Aignan dove headfirst into a bush, narrowly avoiding being flattened by the rolling shop.
The cart screeched to a halt, uprooting grass a few meters from the kitchen. A burst of spices, candied fruits, and vanilla pods hit me as I scrambled out the window.
“I only asked him for currants,” I muttered. “A small bunch. And he sends me… this.”
Up on tiptoe, I slipped into the delightful chaos. Crooked shelves climbed toward the ceiling, sagging under the weight of jars where floral powders whirled, vials of precious essences, mismatched boxes spilling over with dried citrus.
“Master… borrowed it. So you could choose all the ingredients you desired.”
In the center, a flour-dusted counter sagged beneath antique scales, spiced mortars, and worn pestles. Brass spoons lay forgotten mid-task.
“Borrowed?” I repeated, lifting my eyes toward the crystals dangling above, catching the faintest light.
Yeun hesitated at my side, his glow shifting nervously. “Yes… let’s say he… relocated it. Several shops, in fact.”
“You mean he stole them?”
“Borrowed,” Yeun corrected, turning a queasy shade of green (a dead giveaway he wasn’t telling the whole truth). “You know how he is. Not exactly… cordial. But he compensated them, I swear on my wing!”
“Stolen and terrorized, then. With what money? This manor is collapsing in ruins. He surely hasn’t a coin left, and—”
My words died when a shadow darkened the tent’s entrance. The crystals chimed.
Arawn stood there. His silhouette filled the cramped space, dominating it as though the very air recoiled beneath his presence.
The weak light seemed reluctant to touch him, retreating into the crooked shelves.
His eyes, usually as sharp as a blade, had taken on the storm-dark shade of an approaching tempest. And they were fixed on me.
Heavy. Inescapable. With an intensity that made the ground feel ready to vanish under my feet.
He ducked beneath the arch of the entrance, his coat brushing the hanging glass jars, setting them quivering in his wake.
“In ruins?” His voice was low, each syllable weighed out slowly as he advanced. “Penniless?” Another step. “And a thief, besides?”
My back hit the counter. I tried to retreat, but he was already there. Too close. His shadow stretched over me like a trap snapping shut. He leaned in slightly, just enough to shrink the space between us. The air held its breath. So did I.
“You’re all of a sudden very much silent.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. My heart hammered against my ribs. I couldn’t move. He was too close. His gaze too piercing. He filled the whole space until I no longer knew where to look. Where to retreat.
“It’s true that Master spends without restraint,” Yeun blurted. “He buys all sorts of useless things, like those plush slippers that purr like cats!”
“A bit of comfort never harmed anyone,” Arawn replied, with cutting composure.
“I heard you telling them, ‘Stop that, I’m not your master.’ And that self-knitting scarf? We had to lock it away because it wouldn’t stop growing, it tried to swallow the entire manor!”
“At least it’s productive.”
Thunder growled in the distance. Yeun paled, flushing a shameful brown, and darted out of the shop. When Arawn turned his attention back to me, his expression had shifted into something else… almost shameful.
“If I forget all this,” I murmured with a sly smile, “you’ll forget my comments about the manor? And… the rest?”
A beat of silence.
“Deal.”
He straightened, then cracked his head violently against a beam. A jar of pine cones wobbled. I caught it just in time, heart fluttering. I had never tried making candy with pine before!
Meanwhile, Arawn turned on his heel and strode out of the wandering shop as if nothing had happened.
“Thank you!” I called after him.
He stopped dead, his back to me. Heat rushed to my cheeks. Why had I said it like that? I cleared my throat and hurried after him.
“This isn’t charity,” he said at last. “It’s in my best interest that you lift your curse. That your grimoire unlocks its full potential to serve me. You needed the right… tools.”
“And me? No one cares about my needs!” grumbled Aignan, bursting out of nowhere, horn first, covered in leaves as if he’d charged through every bush in the forest. “Everyone treats me like I’m useless, but you’ll see! Category One, my ass! If I don’t find orange marmalade, I’ll bite someone!”
“But you don’t even like orange marmalade,” I said, watching him squeeze into the shop.
“I know! It’s to show how displeased I am!”
“Should I know?” asked Arawn, head tilted.
“I created a pastry that infuses anger… and he ate… about ten of them.”
He only hummed, as if I’d made something utterly ordinary.
“But I’ll fix it!”
“Take everything you need. I’ll send the moving shop back tonight.”
His gaze lingered on my bandaged wrist. My stomach knotted. He had that way of looking—long, too long—as if he could strip the truth out of silence itself.
“What happened to you?” His voice was calm. Too calm. Like a taut wire about to snap.
I hid my arm at once. The last shards of light slipped behind a veil of clouds. Mist thickened around us. I couldn’t tell him the truth. Couldn’t admit that the mark spread a little further with every doubt. That Yeun’s wing had only slowed the inevitable.
“It’s nothing, I—”
A shiver raced down my spine. Arawn had moved. His gloved hand rose, and without me retreating, without even breathing, his fingers brushed the edge of the bandage. A touch. Light. Absent. My throat tightened. Beneath his fingers, my crystallized skin crackled. Tiny sugar crystals glittered.
“I have to get back to work!” I spun around and fled for the kitchen. As if distance could be enough to break the invisible hold he had just laid on me.
I wiped my forehead with the corner of my apron, caramelized sugar weighing down the air. éclair was peering out the window, eyes fixed on the purple forest.
“He’ll come back. Aignan might be bitter, but he’s not suicidal.”
éclair slowly shook his head, his new little mushroom bouncing on top of his head.
“Look, see…First we melt the sugar in the cauldron and—”
Before I could continue, Chouquette, her tail wrapped around a lantern, swung down with a frog clamped between her teeth. I blinked. The frog, visibly offended, wriggled free and leaped onto the windowsill, settling there with an indignant croak.
“I suppose you can stay,” I sighed, pointing my ladle at the amphibian. “You’ll be our muse.”
Chouquette, already busy imitating the frog’s croaks, dragged it into her favorite cauldron. I cast a glance at the crack in the ceiling. Strangely silent tonight. Maybe its host had grown bored, or perhaps I’d imagined everything.
“We’re making a green Paris-Brest. Matcha choux pastry filled with pistachio cream, then topped with roasted pistachios, sliced almonds, and a veil of powdered sucre d'or.”
At that moment, my grimoire snapped open on a new page. Ink stretched out in elegant arabesques, like ivy tendrils unfurling.
The Forest Crown:
Gather the regenerative roots of matcha, the resilient richness of pistachios, and the mossy whispers of powdered sucre d'or. Unite them in a crown of choux, a feast of woodland enchantment, a bridge between past and present, solitude and sharing.
I jumped, letting out a little squeak. “That’s exactly what Aignan needs!”
A shiver ran down my arms as I tightened the knot of my apron, and excitement bubbled in my chest. The grimoire trembled lightly, its words reforming into golden instructions. I skimmed through the steps and held an egg aloft.
“éclair, watch closely! You have to tap it three times against the bowl. Once for light, twice for hope, three times for unity.”
I demonstrated. On the third tap, a golden shimmer rippled across the shell before it cracked cleanly over the bowl. éclair rushed to imitate me with far too much enthusiasm. Crack. An avalanche of shells collapsed into the batter, while tiny mushrooms sprouted on his head.
“Perfect,” I assured him, biting my lip to keep from laughing.