Chapter 34
Grimoires are fickle things. Listen closely enough, and they will always pretend to know better than you. While some recipes are meant to be followed, others… must be rewritten.
LEMPICKA
The slow, steady rhythm of a heartbeat lulled me. But it wasn’t mine.
That beat, pressed against my chest, was both foreign and painfully familiar.
My eyelids fluttered before opening on a ceiling I did not immediately recognize.
A vaulted arch of polished wooden beams, woven through with climbing ivy.
Glass jars lined up on shelves, in shards of amber and emerald green.
Wooden furniture trimmed in gold. A forgotten dream in which I had just awakened.
“Lempicka! You’re awake!” Aignan’s damp muzzle pressed against my cheek, nudging me with enough force to knock me over.
I was lying on the parquet. My parquet. The one from Nyla’s confectionery. But it wasn’t the same anymore.
The shop had… expanded. The ceilings rose higher, bathed in soft light filtering through tall green stained glass windows with floral patterns.
The sweet scent of vanilla and honeyed milk wafted through the air, mingling with the freshly cut tulips laid in bouquets on the counter.
A wooden staircase curled upward toward a floor I had never seen before.
The pale-pink walls bore not a single crack. The ovens gleamed like enchanted jewels. Every ingredient, every jar, every sack of flour, all of it was there. Everything from Arawn’s kitchen. And in a gentle ballet, the copper utensils were already floating.
“Arawn…” I whispered, bolting upright.
At the other end of the shop, Chouquette and éclair perched on a massive wooden table designed for customers. And the chairs—each had all four legs. Yeun, in his fairy form, straddled his ostrich as it hovered.
“It was his wish, Mademoiselle Lempicka,” he said softly. “He wanted you safe. Happy.”
His heart throbbed between my fingers. The sucremort spilled from it, sticky as jam, clinging around my hand. I set it down on the cake display. The trail it left behind looked like a frozen tear, and I rushed to the front door.
The bell went wild, chiming furiously. Bois-Joli greeted me with its familiar silence. My three-story boutique towered taller than all the other half-timbered houses. Passersby had stopped, wary of its pale-pink and anise hues, too vivid for a tasteless little village.
I lifted my chin, letting the wind bite at my cheeks. A bitter odor lingered in the air. Ash. The witch’s castle was still out there, hidden somewhere in the mist that cloaked the world beyond the village.
I clenched my fists, stormed back inside, and locked the door twice before yanking the curtains shut. Planting my hands on my hips, I glared at Yeun.
“This. This shop. What is it?”
“It’s yours,” he replied with a smile. “Master Arawn… Well, he made many trips into the human realm. He rebuilt it for you. See? He even kept the original wood.”
A sharp breath escaped me. My gaze swept the shop again, as if I could imprint every detail into my memory. Arawn, who believed himself capable only of destroying… He had done all this.
“He gave me my traveling shop,” I murmured, running my finger over the wood. Then my fingers curled tight. I stomped my foot so hard the jars on the shelves rattled. “The nerve of him!”
The Cursed startled, too.
“That damned fool thinks he can make such a grand gesture and then just disappear? Who does he think he is?” My hair bristled with fury, a deafening silence falling over the room. “There’s no way I’m letting him do this to me.”
“I thought it would make you happy,” muttered Aignan, kneading his new silk throne.
“Happy?” I cried, my cheeks blazing hotter.
“Of course it’s romantic! It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever done for me.
It’s perfect, and it’s…” My voice broke.
I threw my arms up, exasperated, pacing the room.
“It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of! But he can’t just leave me this and vanish.
I refuse to be trapped in a shop built with love while he sacrifices himself for me. ”
Not again.
No one moved. I drew in a deep breath. Once. Twice. Three times. Then, by sheer reflex, I tied on my apron.
“Fine. Alright. He left me his heart. Literally. As if I had a choice.”
Yeun fluttered toward the counter where the still beating organ bled onto the parquet. “You do have a choice, mademoiselle. The elixir, or… With this heart, you can stop him by binding him. It beats for you, and it will obey you.”
“Bind him?” I repeated darkly, eyes fixed on that fragile thing. “The one thing Arawn feared most was being controlled. I won’t make him a puppet. Not just to keep him with me. He’d make a pitiful pet monster anyway.”
A trembling breath escaped my lips. My resolve faltered. I pulled my knees up against my chest, curling against the counter.
“Love isn’t possession. He drove me away to protect me from the fight.
And now I have to go back. Back to the ashes he left behind.
” I closed my eyes, tilting my head back.
“Either turn him forever into something he despised, by controlling him with his heart… Or honor his will and kill him with the elixir.”
I twisted the ring on my finger. The apple-shaped lid clicked open. A butterfly of mist escaped, spiraling toward the western window. Arawn’s words echoed in my mind.
I will always be with you.
I shot upright, banishing the ache that threatened to shatter inside me.
“Alright,” I snapped, fire blazing in my voice. “Are you with me, or not?”
Despair had no place here. I had endured too much to crumble at another obstacle. Chouquette leaped to me, her tails brushing my cheek. éclair stepped forward, the shelves trembling under his weight as he tied on his own apron.
“I suppose you have a plan,” Yeun fretted.
Not yet. Not really. But I nodded all the same.
“If it doesn’t work, you’ll have to stop him,” he added.
I drew in a deep breath. “I understand. I’ll prepare the elixir.”
Arawn believed in me. I no longer had the right to doubt. I turned to Aignan. He hunched down, averting his gaze, refusing to meet my eyes. I crouched beside him.
“I know how you feel about sorcerers… You don’t have to come. Stay here and watch the shop, alright? I promise I’ll come back.”
Aignan gave a bitter laugh. “I’ve heard that promise before.
” He lifted his eyes to me, hard and unyielding.
“She never came back. And it was my fault. I let Nyla save me. And in return, I was stuck with you. A clumsy, desperate child who knew nothing of life. You were rejected too… so it was hard to hate you.”
My heart tightened. Aignan’s ears twitched.
“A black lamb. A worthless beast, cursed with bad luck.” He sniffed, placing his paw on my hand. “Nyla and you were the only ones who treated me like a living being.”
I squeezed him in return. Aignan was my best friend. My brother. My confidant. Without him, I would never have become who I was.
“I still think your sorcerer is an idiot,” he muttered. “Not a bad idiot, but he irritates me.”
A smile crept onto his muzzle. Arawn had won Aignan’s loyalty without even knowing it.
“You’re all completely mad,” he grumbled, but his voice had lost its bite. “Without me, you don’t stand a chance.” He leaped to his paws and puffed out his chest, tail high. “After all, I’m the lucky star of this house.”
I didn’t give him time to protest and hugged him tight. He smelled like roasted marshmallow, the kind Nyla used to make us.
“And that idiot doesn’t even realize he needs saving too,” Aignan groused, nestling his head into my neck. “Always playing the hero like that. But tell me, how do you plan to get there?”
I sprang up and turned to Yeun. “Arawn already enchanted the shop, didn’t he? If it senses I’m in danger, it can lead me to him. Just like when the witch cursed me.”
Yeun nodded slowly. “It’s possible. It depends on the strength of the bond that remains.”
A fierce smile tugged at my lips as the butterfly of mist landed on my shoulder.
“Perfect. I’ll prepare the elixir. But you…” I grabbed a stack of plates, raised them over my head, and smashed them on the floor. “I order you to break everything until the house reacts.”
“And to think he worked so hard for this.” Yeun sighed.
I hurled another porcelain plate to the ground. “He’ll have all the time in the world to be furious with me later. But right now, I’m going to save that fool from himself.”
In a flash, plates shattered, vials exploded, and chaos flooded the shop.
I dashed up the stairs four at a time, hastily gathering the ostrich egg, his heart, my grimoire, and the remaining sucre d'or (and even mine, the one I had kept from my curse, because in cooking, there were never bad ingredients).
Downstairs was the shop and its kitchen.
But upstairs… Upstairs was a home. A real one.
Every door opened to bedrooms, bathrooms, another kitchen, and a sunroom salon.
I set the ingredients on the counter, then stopped before the final door, higher still, on the top floor.
My name was carved into the wood. I pressed down the handle.
The third floor was a bedroom. A lavender bed sheltered beneath a ceiling of tiny sugared stars glittering above. A terrace hidden behind gauzy curtains that billowed in the breeze. A wardrobe twined with ivy and fairy lights, bursting with dresses and aprons in every color.
And Arawn’s empty frames from the manor but filled now. Frozen in time. Fragments of me and the Cursed in the kitchen, of the festival with Yeun and the Spirits. Everyone except him, as if each picture had been taken through his eyes.
The tears came before I could stop them, hot against my cheeks. I rushed onto the terrace, letting the fresh air wash over me. I gripped the railing, smooth wood beneath my fingers, the wind playing through my hair.