Chapter 29
There is no bond more absolute than the one that ties a confectioner to her sorcerer. A sorcerer has only one confectioner who resonates perfectly with his magic, and no other could ever fill that flawless echo.
LEMPICKA
My pastry never had the chance to reach the windowsill.
It crashed on the floor, right where Arawn stood outside.
In all his splendor, or rather, in all his decrepitude.
He looked like he’d walked backward through a bramble bush, his horns bent back like blades, and judging by the shadows gouging under his eyes, he’d spent his nights concocting some diabolical plan.
And despite all that, the ring on my finger vibrated as quickly as my heartbeat. I hated it and immediately forced down that stupid reaction.
“Good morning.” But as I glanced at the window, I frowned. Was it already dusk? Where had the day gone?
“It’s a wretched morning,” Arawn replied, his voice biting like a winter wind.
Ah. At least he was as lost as I was.
He stepped over the ledge and entered the kitchen. “I have to tell you something.”
He had barely opened his mouth when a bucket of water shot through the air, hurled straight from Chouquette’s throat.
Arawn raised his hand, and the bucket instantly twisted into a winged mouse that escaped in a shriek of metal.
Naturally, Chouquette darted after it. Meanwhile, the spider-plant that had sprouted from éclair’s arms transformed into an apron embroidered with his name—enough to bring tears to his eyes.
“I should have told you earlier, but your curse made things complicated…” Arawn continued, his gaze fixed on me. “Humans react unpredictably to emotions that run too strong, and I couldn’t risk compromising our pact.”
I untied my apron, my fingers stiff, and tossed it onto the table. Thunder growled above us, splinters of wood falling in a fine rain between two warped beams. Air gusted through the same fissure.
“What is that supposed to mean? If you have something to say, say it. Don’t look for excuses. Don’t blame me or my condition.”
A thin smile brushed his lips. “You’re right. My apologies. You are a far better human than I will ever be.”
And now he was apologizing? Goose bumps crawled up my arms. He was even more threatening when he tried to be civilized.
He raised a hand toward the ceiling. The boards groaned. One by one, nails sprang loose. The wood heaved, pulsing like a heart under strain. The kitchen trembled. I clutched the edge of the counter.
“Arawn, what are you doing?!”
“Get out of here,” he ordered. “You have company, Sugarplum. It’s time you’re introduced.”
The last plank flew free, revealing the shadow of an attic above our heads. And in that in-between space, curled behind a pipe, hovered a translucent silhouette with crimson eyes. A Spirit, with the curves of a woman.
I took a step forward. “So… she was the one watching me?”
But already the Spirit was retreating, her form rippling and slipping into the pipes like ink sucked away. Arawn had already pivoted, his coat snapping behind him.
“I know where she’s going. Hold on.”
His arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me hard against him.
He carried me straight through the window.
Before my feet had even left the ground, we were already airborne.
His wings of mist unfurled. My arms clung tight around his neck.
Below us, the manor reeled by in a succession of dark roofs, twisted turrets, and sharp dormers.
“I don’t know what you’ll see,” he said, his jaw tightening against my temple. “But that Spirit will show you far more than I could ever explain.”
The wind lashed my cheeks, my legs dangled in the void, yet I could not tear my eyes away from him. “Wait… You knew about the Spirits?”
Arawn gave a fleeting, cutting smile. “I understood the moment you arrived. How they swarmed around you when they’d always ignored the others. How only you could hear them, change them in your presence. How even when they tried to drive you away, it was hopeless. You taught them to exist. To hope.”
My heart hammered against his chest as I tightened my hold around his neck.
A flicker caught my eye, just long enough to glimpse Aignan.
A silk basket dangled proudly from his fangs.
He trotted down a corridor, tail lashing the air as though he had just saved the world. What on earth was he doing here?
I didn’t have time to finish the thought. With a sharp beat of his wings, Arawn dove straight for another window. The glass roof shattered in a shriek of breaking crystal. His wings folded around me like a cocoon of mist, his body twisting to take the impact.
His hands slid down my arms to catch my wrists. Gently, he set me on the floor and released me. Heavy drapery, walls black as night, the scent of eucalyptus and resin, no doubt we were in his chamber.
“The Spirit won’t harm you,” he said behind me, his voice lower, slower.
I turned. He wasn’t looking at me as he usually did. There was no sarcasm, no provocation. Just emptiness in his eyes.
“I don’t deserve your trust, Sugarplum. But I’m asking you to give it to me one last time.”
He guided me behind a screen. There, the air was thick with steam, veils of mist seeping from pipes.
The bathroom, where a black basin streaked with violet stood at the center like a forgotten altar.
A moist heat clung to my skin. The dark water inside the basin could only have come from the lake.
It rippled, and the Spirit’s hand timidly emerged, her body hidden within.
“I will be with you,” Arawn said, his own hand outstretched to me.
I took them both. A dizzying vertigo stole my breath, and when I opened my eyes, it was no longer water before me.
It was Nyla. Standing before a door, pounding, again and again. A chill ripped through my spine, cold seeping straight into my bones.
“Arawn, what is this?”
He didn’t answer, but Nyla pushed the door open. She entered a room with dark green walls and slid a familiar grimoire onto the desk. My grimoire. It would have kept sliding if a boot, streaked with dried blood.
I recognized him at once—Arawn of the past: long hair, slouched in his chair, feet propped on the wood, as if none of this mattered.
“I need you to hide a letter in this grimoire,” Nyla ordered. “I want it discovered only when its full potential has been reached.”
It had been so long since I’d heard her voice. I bit my lip hard to hold back the rising tears.
“And why would I help you?” Arawn replied, leafing idly through the grimoire with a claw-blackened finger. “There’s nothing in here that interests me.”
Nyla slammed her fists onto the desk. “I agreed to work for you and for Zelda. You owe me that much!”
Arawn lifted his hand and, with a cynical smile, hurled a haze of black magic her way. Nyla didn’t even flinch.
“I’m not as weak as you think.” She blew the smoke away with a single breath. “Your spells do not affect me.”
She shoved the grimoire back toward him with one finger.
“That’s why Zelda entrusted you with me,” Arawn muttered, narrowing his eyes. “She thinks you’ll last longer than the others. But staying by my side is signing your own death sentence.”
“Don’t underestimate me, Sorcerer,” Nyla replied with a smile that never reached her eyes.
Then her gaze slid to Arawn’s hand, where dark veins spread beneath his skin, spikes piercing through his flesh.
“They say a good deed purifies the soul. And you—you look more and more like your mentor. I’d say your time is running out. ”
Arawn shot to his feet, rage flashing in his eyes. The walls trembled. I expected him to lash out at Nyla. Instead, he thrust out his hand.
“Give me that damned letter,” he growled through his teeth. “And don’t ever ask me for anything again.”
The image dissolved, replaced by another.
Arawn lay sprawled on the frozen floor of a kitchen (surely Zelda’s castle, judging by the sheer scale of the place and the pallid gleam of marble beneath him).
Purple scars streaked his body like fractures.
Inks of shadow seeped from him, his frame curled tight, arms locked around his knees as if holding himself together by force.
His Spirits laid their hands on his shoulders, their shapes sagging. He shoved them away with a hoarse snarl, and at once, they vanished into the dark. Nyla entered the kitchen. A mask veiled part of her face, likely shielding her from the mist rippling around him.
“I look pathetic,” Arawn murmured, with his usual biting bitterness.
“Shut up,” I hissed, heart hammering.
I didn’t want to miss a single crumb of this memory.
Nyla knelt before him and searched his bloodshot eyes, crimson tears carving paths down his face. She didn’t speak, only gathered boxes across the counter. My chest tightened.
“Don’t forget,” she said at last, her voice as sharp as it was weary. “The pain you inflict on yourself, you inflict on me as well. You haven’t eaten the sucremort, have you? I’m taking risks for you. If Zelda finds out I’ve stopped making it, she’ll—”
“No. And I could say the same for you,” Arawn shot back, his tone venomous. “Your thoughts aren’t on your confections but on someone else. Your emotions betray you. And I hate hearing them endlessly… worse still, tasting them. Love is a weakness.”
Nyla slowly removed her mask. Her face was more marked than I remembered, worn down by time and exhaustion. New wrinkles ran along her features, silver streaks threading through her pixie cut.
“What I feel belongs to me.”
The bond between a confectioner and her sorcerer. That was when I understood. Nyla had been Arawn’s confectioner. A connection deeper than words tied them. A connection that even I had never fully shared with him. The revelation left a bitter taste on my tongue.
“I wish that were true, believe me,” he muttered, his gaze darkening on Nyla. “You don’t have much time left. Your heart is at its end.”