Chapter 20 Winnie
The tavern is different.
Not new. Not unfamiliar. But…more.
The hearth glows faintly even when the fire’s gone cold, like it remembers warmth so deeply it refuses to let it go. Shelves hum under my fingertips when I pass them, soft and low, like a cat purring. The mugs we stack dry themselves before the towel can reach them.
And the stew?
Still bubbling, hours after the heat’s been snuffed out.
“All right,” I murmur to the cast-iron pot, narrowing my eyes. “That’s enough of that.”
It still tastes good. Too good, honestly. Fleur says the thyme might’ve been laced with residual spell work, and I pretend to believe her, but deep down I think the tavern itself is cooking now with a hunger to care for people again.
I catch myself moving slower, listening more.
Running my hands over beams that once only held dust and now thrum with memory.
I find things—little things. A drawer that clicks open only when I speak aloud.
A cracked teacup that always ends up back on the shelf, no matter where I leave it.
A broom that insists on leaning toward the front door like it’s waiting for someone else to arrive.
And maybe the strangest part is, none of it scares me. Not like it should. Rather, it feels right. A settling into place.
Maybe this tavern has always been more than just a home.
Maybe it’s a haven.
I don’t know what that means yet—not really. But as I step behind the bar and feel the wood hum under my palms, I let the thought stay.
Because it doesn’t feel like I’m just running the tavern anymore.
It feels like I’m part of it.
I find her sitting by the hearth, not because she’s trying to look picturesque—though she does—but because it’s the warmest spot in the whole tavern, even without flame.
Jinx is curled at her side, stretched like a prince who knows he earned his keep.
The shadows flicker soft gold across Fleur’s face, catching in her hair and painting her in quiet light.
I settle across from her on the worn rug. Neither of us speaks right away.
We don’t need to.
Not at first.
But eventually, my fingers toy with the hem of my sleeve. “You ever think we weren’t supposed to make it this far?”
Fleur’s gaze lifts. Gentle. Unflinching. “I used to.”
Her hand drifts out, not quite touching mine, just hovering. Close enough to feel the heat. “I thought magic like this…only ever ended in loss.”
My throat goes tight. “Maybe it did. Before.”
Her hand finally settles over mine, light but steady. “But not this time.”
I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath since the storm broke—and maybe I have, at least on a soul level.
Jinx shifts beside her, purring like the hearth itself is singing through him. The glow of the fire paints everything in tones of amber and honey, like the world’s been softened at the edges. Like it’s safe to be fragile here.
“I don’t think I knew how to want something before you,” I say quietly. “Not really. Not without bracing for it to be taken.”
Her thumb brushes the side of my hand. “You still want it?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
A pause.
Then I look up at her. “Do you?”
Fleur doesn’t answer at first.
Not with words.
Instead, she shifts closer, closing the space between us until our knees bump. Her fingers tighten around mine. “It’s not that I don’t want to stay.”
I wait. My chest already knows what she’s going to say.
“It’s that I can’t. Not now. There are things I have to finish. People who’ll come looking if I don’t.”
I nod again, but slower this time. Heavier. “How long?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice is soft. Honest. “But I’ll come back, if—”
“If I want you to…”
She gives a half-smile. “You keep doing that.”
“I listen.”
“I know.”
We sit there, two women, held together by a thread that feels stronger than it should be after so little time, but maybe that’s what magic does. Maybe it compresses what matters. Sharpens it. Burns off what doesn’t.
Jinx lets out a low, contented sigh and nestles deeper into the rug.
The sigil above the hearth pulses again. Steady. Peaceful.
I look around the room—noticing, for the first time, that it’s changed because we have. Not just the way the hearth glows or the shelves hum or the soup spoons stir themselves when no one’s looking—but the way it feels alive.
Like it’s always been waiting for someone to choose it back.
I glance at her, tucked into the firelight.
“I’ll keep the fire going,” I say.
Her eyes shine. “Then I’ll find my way home.”
We stay there long after the light dips low, holding hands across the space where nothing else needs to be said.
I don’t walk her to the end of town.
I help her pack instead. Quiet things. Folded layers. A jar of dried herbs she ground herself and insisted she might need for spell work, and I happily give it to her without concern, though I suspect it’s more about carrying a piece of this place with her.
We’d already fetched her things from the cellar that morning—the basket she’d stowed when she first arrived, tucked away like she never meant to stay long. I carried it while she dusted off the cloak she hadn’t worn once while she was here.
Well, with the exception of her venturing out into the snow, but that feels like years ago somehow.
Jinx watches from the stairs. His tail flicks.
We don’t talk about that. About how he doesn’t want to go.
Fleur doesn’t call to him. Doesn’t ask.
She just lets him choose.
And when he stays perched on that step, head high and unblinking, something passes between them—quiet and sure. An assumption that he knows she’ll come back, as if he’s anchoring her to this place…and maybe he’s always been.
Fleur adjusts the strap of her satchel, then hesitates by the door, hand on the worn wood like it’s something sacred. Maybe it is now. Maybe everything she touched is.
“Will you be all right?” she asks.
“Eventually.”
Her brows draw together. She should know better than to offer soft reassurances that can’t hold weight. She sighs, stepping closer to brush her thumb against my cheekbone.
“I’ll come back,” she says.
“You said that already.”
“And I meant it.”
I nod. I even smile. Because she deserves that. The good part. The belief.
But when the door shuts behind her, something inside me closes too.
I don’t cry at first. I do the dishes. Wipe down the counter. Pretend I’m exhausted. As if I didn’t just let the first person I’ve let matter in a long time walk out of my life with only a promise and a kiss goodbye.
The hearth crackles behind me. Not loud. Not comforting.
Just there.
My hands are trembling halfway through stacking a set of clean plates. I tell myself to breathe, to just focus. But the edges blur. My fingers slip.
The plate falls.
It hits the floor in a sharp, cracking burst, and I break with it.
I drop to my knees like the sound knocked the breath out of me. My vision blurs. The shards scatter across the floor like teeth, like bones, like something torn open too fast.
I can’t breathe right. I can’t think.
Tears blur my sight before I even feel them. My throat closes, a hot, choking knot of pressure I can’t swallow down. I press a hand to my chest, but it doesn’t help—it feels like something inside me is caving in, folding sharp and sudden behind my ribs.
The hiccup of breath that leaves me sounds too loud. Too animal. I try to swallow it down, but it comes again, raw and involuntary. A sob—not loud, but deep. Ragged.
The tavern is quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the echo of what I’ve just broken.
And me.
I’m what’s left in the silence.
She said she’d come back.
She meant it.
But life doesn’t always let you keep what you mean to.
Jinx pads over quietly, presses against my side. I curl a hand into his fur and bury my face in it like I’m ashamed of how badly this hurts.
“I don’t know if she will,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer. Just purrs. Steady and warm.
The hearth glows behind us, its light flickering across the broken ceramic.
And I stay there for a long time, on my knees in the middle of my kitchen, grieving something that’s not gone—just not here.
Not anymore.