Chapter 23
Food is a universal love language. A powerful ingredient that binds us all together.
LEMPICKA
“Ididn’t hear anything! Pretend I’m not here,” I said, waving my hands as if that could erase what I had just overheard.
I don’t want her to stay.
I understood, after all. Because of me, Arawn had been forced to save me, to endanger his kingdom, to unleash his cursed form, and now—rotten cherry on the cake—I had just been given a vision of his past.
Arawn, as a child, had been the Orchard Spirit.
And as if fate hadn’t tormented me enough, I sneezed so violently that a cloud of powdered sugar burst out of me in a true pastry storm.
Groaning, I shoved off the blankets and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
Mistake. Arawn moved before my toes touched the floor, his sharp gaze freezing me in place.
“Stay in bed,” he ordered.
The door clicked softly shut behind Yeun, leaving us alone in the room.
“No, I can’t,” I protested, my voice pitifully hoarse. “The kitchen’s a disaster! I need to get tomorrow’s pastries ready and—”
I didn’t even finish. Arawn leaned in, bracing his palms on either side of the bed. A sharp crack rang out as one of the slats gave under his weight.
“Don’t make me lock you in here,” he murmured, his voice as soft as it was venomous. “By the confectioners, I might even tie you to this bed, if I must.”
I narrowed my eyes. “If you don’t back away, I’ll sneeze on you.”
“Charming.” With a careless motion, he slipped off his coat and draped it over my shoulders. “You’re insufferable.”
It carried his scent. A smoky sweetness, like roasted guimauves with a touch of tree sap. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going with you. You need to keep advancing with breaking your curse, don’t you? Or does it no longer matter to you?”
He really wants me gone.
I sighed.“I’m working on it.”
Gathering my courage, I stood and cast a glance at my companions, still deeply asleep. I crossed the room on tiptoe. Arawn, of course, walked as though stealth were a foreign concept. I spun around to glare at him, finger pressed to my lips. He sent me a look that very clearly said no.
I pulled his coat tighter around me. The corridor was a tunnel of frost, every step crunching under my soles, every breath biting my lungs.
I was too absorbed in thought to anticipate his hand closing around my waist. He drew me against him, my back hitting his chest. His lips brushed my shoulder.
Not a kiss. Just a breath. As though he were breathing in my skin.
As though his body, in spite of his mind, refused to let me go.
“What are you doing?” I wasn’t even sure if I had spoken the words aloud. Too shocked to struggle, too unsteady to properly protest.
His fingers tightened slightly on my hip. Then, muffled against the skin of my neck, he said, “I’m stopping you from falling down my stairs.”
It was as if even his sarcasm had deserted him. The memory of the kiss exploded in my mind. He had kissed me back, hadn’t he? Maybe he’d forgotten. He’d been unconscious, after all. But then why was his mouth still there, lingering in the hollow of my neck?
“I’m not even stumbling.”
“Not yet.”
Sometimes I thought there were two Arawns trapped in the same body. One, sincere beneath his roughness, vulnerable under his armor of sarcasm. The other, distant, withdrawn, determined to push the entire world away. He pretended to be the latter, yet he lied. Which made him an idiot. And a coward.
He pulled back slightly, just enough for me to breathe. “I can always summon your precious broom if you prefer.”
I arched a brow. “Given the state of your floor, a little cleaning wouldn’t hurt.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. But nothing. No biting retort. He pressed his lips together, as if holding it back. As if… trying to be gentle. It was unsettling. Maybe he pitied me. Maybe he cared.
“You’re red,” he remarked, eyeing me with a trace of suspicion. “Fever? Or something else?”
I turned my head away at once. “I’m fine!”
We descended the stairs, Arawn at my heels, looking as though he expected disaster at any moment. At last, we reached the kitchen—but through a door I could have sworn had never been there before. I stopped short.
“Wait. There’s always been a door here?”
Arawn didn’t bother to answer. He merely opened it as though it had always existed. But pinned upon it, a note caught my eye.
Official invitation to the festival. For the confectioner and the others, from the Spirits and your dear Yeun.
The “dear Yeun” had been furiously crossed out, which certainly was the Spirits’ doing. Snatching the invitation, I waved it under Arawn’s nose, triumphant.
“I’m invited! They’re finally starting to like me!”
Arawn stared flatly. “Congratulations.”
“It’s going to be amazing and—”
I stepped into my kitchen and froze. A battlefield. Nothing had been touched since the Cursed attack. Worse, there were no sugarplums in sight. I shot Arawn an accusatory look.
He shrugged, unashamed. “I was hungry.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “You can stay here. I won’t be long.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Before I could protest, Arawn lifted a hand. A magical breeze swept the room, sending utensils and ingredients spinning in a whirlwind. Beneath his rolled-up sleeve, violet veins crawled along his forearm. His hair lifted under the pressure of the spell.
In seconds, the kitchen was spotless. Everything back in its place. As if nothing had ever happened. Except him. His jaw was taut, his features held too tightly to be honest. His arm slid discreetly behind his back, hiding what he refused to show.
“That’s cheating,” I lamented.
“Call it what you like. Centuries of practice, perhaps?” he said, his lips curving into a sarcastic smile as he leaned lazily against the wall. “But yes, let’s call it cheating, if it makes you happy.”
I hummed absently, then, with a small smile, pinned my invitation right in the middle of the room. “My whole life revolves around pastry, yet I’ll never be at the level of my mentor.”
The manor groaned, as if the very walls had heard my confession and disapproved of it entirely. “Why do you think that?”
I lowered my eyes to my grimoire. The ink stretched across the page, forming new sentences.
“Cooking together weaves bonds, stronger than any thread. As it began, a master confectioner and her apprentice, so it must continue. Food does not lie; it is truth made edible. A recipe has no soul—it is yours to breathe life into. Remember, the surest path to a heart passes through its hunger.”
I pressed my lips together. Oh no. The message was clear. This wasn’t only about cooking. It was a trial of sharing, of trust, of connection. And of course, my grimoire had to be unbearably intrusive.
I snapped the book shut before it could add more. I’d probably do it with éclair, who seemed interested in cooking, because I couldn’t imagine asking him. But the grimoire was stubborn.
It opened at once, its pages trembling with a will of their own, and a new phrase glowed.
“To deny what your heart holds is to deny its truth. A heart burdened with lies can neither speak nor grow.”
“Oh, and where was all that wisdom during all those years when I really needed you, huh?” I muttered, irrationally itching for a fight with a book. “You were silent! You’re no better than a liar yourself!”
“What?” Arawn blared.
“Nothing!” I plastered an innocent smile on my face as I slammed the grimoire shut. I didn’t want to lie to my heart, and maybe that wretched grimoire was right. But that didn’t mean it got to win the argument. “Do you want more sugarplums?”
I didn’t even give him time to answer before snatching several jars from the shelf: violet plums, cranberries, a jar of powdered strawberries and oranges, and a fat amethyst mushroom with a nutty flavor.
“So that’s what it feels like to be ignored,” Arawn remarked dryly.
I stared at the counter, wishing the ingredients would miraculously make conversation for me.
“I’m not at Nyla’s level,” I finally let slip, almost against my will. “I probably never will be. And that’s fine because we’re different. But…” I lifted my shoulders lightly, as if it didn’t matter. As if it didn’t twist my stomach every time I thought of it. “What Zelda said… That I was empty…”
Arawn was still leaning in the doorway, indifferent.
My words slid off him without effect. But the manor betrayed him.
The air thickened. His shadow stretched, crawling along the wall, denser, darker.
The pipes shivered, creaked, as though an invisible force twisted them.
Then he cleared his throat, and the tension broke.
The shadows receded. The pipes fell silent.
“You give yourself so little worth, and so much to others. It must be exhausting, never listening to what I say.”
I squeezed an orange too hard, sending a spray of zest flying across the room. Then my knife slipped through the plums, slicing their skins easily, revealing golden, juicy hearts.
“It’s hard to see your own worth, isn’t it?” I said, hinting at what the boy in the orchard had shown me of his past.
Thank goodness my grimoire couldn’t speak. It would have burst out laughing at me, twisting its own words to my advantage.
“Do you want to help me?” There, I asked. And now my heart thundered while I waited for his answer.
“I can’t touch the sucre d'or. It would coagulate under my hands.”
“Then just crush the mushroom into powder, like crystal,” I insisted, handing him a bowl and a spatula. “I’ll take care of the sugar. Imagine: forcing the poor cursed confectioner to do everything while you stand there sulking. What a heartless monster.”
He sighed before joining me behind the counter, grabbing the tools without a word. “Fine. But after this, pretend I’m not here.”
“You’d be more efficient if you took off your gloves.”
Arawn stiffened. “I can’t.”
“You never take them off?”
He said nothing. Now that I thought about it, I had never seen him without them.