Chapter 16
The sorcerers' market stood unmatched—dangerous, ungoverned, and irresistibly brimming with forbidden wonders.
LEMPICKA
The golden caterpillars crawled up my thigh, slow and slimy like trails of syrup badly poured.
“Go away,” I whispered, half begging, the fresh batch of black donuts wobbling at the top of my hand.
I lifted one leg, trying to keep some scrap of dignity while the entire forest treated my picnic like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Ants. Bees. Crows. Most of the guimauve eyes on the donuts had already been pecked out.
A caterpillar was staring at me from my collarbone. I could’ve sworn it was smiling.
I was alone. Truly alone. éclair was busy playing architect with acorns, focused as if he were building a temple of earth and twigs across my blanket. I don’t know where Aignan had taken Chouquette—probably to loot the manor or set it on fire.
All I wanted was a picnic in the woods, to at least try to celebrate my birthday with these moody Spirits and my friends (with no guarantee they’d even show up).
“Planning to feed the whole forest, or just its deadliest inhabitants?” His voice. Low. Dragging. Like a strand of black licorice coiled down my spine.
Arawn, draped in a black tunic, mask covering his nose and mouth. Golden chains, a hood shadowed with silk, embroidered panels swinging at his hips—prince and assassin all at once, with gold epaulets on his mantle.
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes lingering on the caterpillars clinging to my leg. “Sugar draws them. You’re a walking confection. Of course they want you.”
He spun his lighter between his fingers. Same tic. Same gesture. Same flame that always died instantly, like a missing breath.
I swallowed my pride. “Could you… help me?”
“Well, well, she finally asks,” he breathed, mock-tender. “Next time—” He crouched, one knee to the ground. His dusk-colored eyes locked on me from below. “Ask for help. Spirits are lazy. Don’t feed them if they don’t deserve it, Confectioner.”
He caught my thigh, settling it onto his. My boots smeared dirt over trousers that looked woven from midnight sky. My cheeks burned.
“What are you doing?” I panted.
He lowered his mask, and I glimpsed a smile. The lighter vanished into a fold of fabric. “Just don’t drop the tray.”
His fingers touched my skin and slid up my thigh.
One by one, he plucked the caterpillars away, carefully.
They left shimmering trails, and he left a burning frost in their wake.
His breath brushed the inside of my leg, and my fingers locked tighter around the tray.
He didn’t waver, igniting tiny crackles inside me. I had to think of something else.
“You always keep that lighter. Sentimental?”
“Sentimental?” He arched a brow. “It’s ugly, broken, and the charm’s long dead. I keep it to remember why I don’t want to feel anything anymore.”
I swallowed hard. His words were cold, like a splinter left buried in the heart. A scar still raw. But hate was never the absence of feeling—quite the opposite.
His hand slid higher, slowly lifting the fabric of my long skirt, exposing skin inch by inch, only for his other hand to tug the cloth back down, draping it carefully across the top of my thigh like a protective curtain.
Dangerously methodical.
A sting pricked my neck. My heart hammered, and suddenly, my leg was guided over his shoulder, precise enough to steal my breath. His hand braced beneath my knee as he removed the last caterpillar.
“You’ve no bites.”
He lowered my leg gently and rose. Now it was me looking up at him. His silhouette cut the light, his shoulders swallowing the air. He tilted my chin with one finger. My nape bent. Strands of hair parted from my neck, and he pulled free the last caterpillar.
He smelled good. Far too good. Sharp eucalyptus, soft moss, raw bark.
“I spoke too soon,” he murmured. “May I?”
I nodded.
Slowly, he lowered himself. His lips brushed my collarbone.
Then kissed me. A searing line traced down my skin as his tongue followed the curve of my neck.
My breath dissolved. My head tilted back, and my knees turned weak like candies ready to spill.
He growled low, rough, and right against my ear.
Then I felt his fangs.
He bit me.
A shadow bite on my sugared skin. Right there, in the tender hollow between shoulder and neck.
That was the moment the tray gave up. A rain of black donuts tumbled over us.
His gloved palm pressed into my neck, holding me as if he’d keep me prisoner in his grasp.
A sigh slipped from me as he kissed me once more, then broke away.
“You drew out the venom, didn’t you?” I stammered, breathless.
“Their bites aren’t deadly.” He straightened, licking the corner of his lips. “But they’re used in aphrodisiac potions. I didn’t want you… affected.”
He left the words hanging. His eyes glowed like embers under ice. Burning yellow, like when he transformed in his cursed form.
“And you?” I breathed. “You will be.”
That smile. The one edged in ruin. “I’m immune to such pettiness.”
He said it in that frozen voice. But I saw it. In the dilation of his amber eyes. In his breath, barely reined. In the tension of his jaw. He wasn’t as untouchable as he thought.
“Ahem,” a dry voice said.
I shoved Arawn back with all my strength, caught red-handed in sugar. He crashed against the table with a dull thud.
Aignan stood there, front hoof tapping the ground with the annoyance of an innkeeper catching scandal. His tail whipped the air, and his gaze screamed paternal disappointment.
“I leave for two hours,” he muttered, “and it’s debauchery.”
Chouquette snickered, floating beside him, ribbons tangled in each of her tails.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I squeaked far too high, cheeks aflame.
Aignan raised a brow. “So it’s worse.”
“Fine!” I clapped my hands. “I have to move the meal elsewhere and make ice cream!”
Ice cream in winter. What a ridiculous idea! I was about to slip away when Arawn’s voice cut me.
“Lempicka.” He rose into my line of sight. “I was leaving for the sorcerers’ market. I wondered…” His brows drew tight, leaning down to my height. “That curtain you cut up, is it mine?”
I gulped. I’d borrowed his beige kitchen curtain to make another dress. And, incidentally, a few green-and-pink floral towels for ribbons and a corset. “Yes, I—”
“I’ll bring more.”
That almost smile, cold as a sharpened blade, brushing close without cutting. Yet no longer a threat. Or maybe I’d simply grown used to it. The sorcerer tilted his head, eyes narrowing, like a misty winter-morning now fixed on Aignan.
“It also seems someone redecorated my chambers. Moved the furniture. Left a massive frozen puddle. And every left shoe from my pairs is missing.”
Chouquette cackled, and I shot Aignan a panicked look. He suddenly found his hooves fascinating, as if a lamb could care about a pedicure.
“Who would do such a thing?” I sputtered, feigning outrage.
“A true mystery,” Arawn drawled, his syllables dripping with venomous languor. “Luckily, I cursed my belongings. Whoever meddled with them will soon sprout glowing warts over their body unless they bathe immediately in enchanted water.”
“WHAT?” Aignan bolted, tail tucked.
“All lies,” Arawn added, “but lambs have an abysmal fear of baths.”
“Aignan would think that paradise,” I shot back with a smug grin. “I’ve never heard you joke before.”
“He isn’t the brightest. I saw them break in. They seemed to enjoy themselves, so I let them. Though I’ve yet to recover all my shoes. In any case, I’m fetching an ingredient from the sorcerers’ market. It only appears once per moon.”
Oh. The recipe. The one I was supposed to craft… to end his life. While also creating the recipe of my soul, to save his. The thought alone made my head spin.
“You already know the recipe?”
“No. That’s your job. But I’ve memorized some ingredients.” He motioned through the forest. “Want to come?”
My eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yes. Though it’s a terrible idea. You’d draw attention. I’d have to watch you. You’d get lost. I’d get a headache. And you never listen. Did I authorize this picnic? No. Yet here we are.”
“I just wanted to celebrate my birthday!” I protested, probably sounding like a spoiled child to him.
He stopped, staring at me as if I’d just declared the end of magic. “You said nothing.”
“Because if I had, you’d all look at me just like that. Worse, you’d force yourselves to stay with me out of pity! I finally found the confection to offer the orchard boy. I hoped he’d come. That we’d all be… together, so I must—”
“Let the Spirits handle your picnic in your absence. You’ll be back by nightfall.” He held out his hand. “Come. If someone must endure you today, Confectioner, it will be me.”
I bit my lip. “And if I cause trouble?”
“I’ll cause more.”