Chapter 10 Fleur
Winnie leaves the hearth with a mumbled excuse, something about cleaning the kitchen, making herself useful, and needing to move. She disappears through the swinging door. The weight of the cards lingers even after she’s gone.
I don’t follow her right away.
They’re packed safely back in their pouch, my cards, pressed to my chest like a second heartbeat, and still, I can feel them.
The Lovers.
The Moon.
The Ten of Wands.
I sit in the stillness a little longer, trying to quiet the tension curling behind my ribs. But the tavern is holding its breath again. That heavy silence from earlier, like the walls are listening—only now, it feels like they want something. Like they’re waiting for someone to say it aloud.
And then I hear it.
A clatter. Then a low, sharp crack. Metal against stone.
I’m on my feet before the echo fades.
The kitchen door swings easily beneath my hand, but the moment I step through—
The air shifts.
Magic hits me like a wall. Not cruel, not cold, just wrong. Untamed, bursting at the seams.
Inside, the kitchen is chaos.
A thin cloud of flour hangs in the air, catching the lamplight in lazy, glittering whorls.
The herb bundles strung from the rafters whip side to side as if caught in an invisible wind.
A tin of cloves rattles itself open on the high shelf and spills its contents in a peppery scatter across the prep table.
A long-handled wooden spoon spins like a weather vane on the floor.
And at the center of it all, near the hearth, smaller than the one in the main room, flame roaring regardless—Winnie.
She stands rooted in place, her eyes wide with panic, her hands half-raised like she means to catch the whole room if it falls apart.
The iron kettle above the fire is boiling hard enough to spit.
The fire beneath it flares too high, bright and hot and hungry, nearly licking the bottom of the hanging pot beside it.
She looks at me with that same wild panic in her gaze. “I didn’t touch anything. I was just—just throwing kindling on the fire and then everything—everything—”
A clay jar shatters across the flagstone floor, and she flinches.
And that’s enough.
I cross the room in two steps, boots kicking through spilled herbs and flour.
My hand closes around her wrist.
The moment we touch, the room pauses.
Not in fear, not in retreat, but in recognition.
The air holds steady.
The flour begins to settle, drifting like snow. The kettle quiets, the flames shrink back to their proper place, crackling soft and warm instead of raging.
Even the shadows along the stone wall retreat to their usual corners.
Winnie stares at me like I just pulled her out of a storm.
And maybe in some ways…I did.
Her breath comes quick and shallow, but she doesn’t pull away. My hand is still wrapped around her wrist, our fingers barely brushing. I can feel her pulse—a staccato rhythm that begins to slow as mine finds its match.
“I didn’t mean to,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“It just…happened.”
I nod once. “That’s usually how it starts.”
There’s silence between us again, but it’s not the same as before. It’s softer. Heavier. The space between us crackles with something that feels suspiciously like fate.
“You—” She swallows. “When you grabbed me…everything stopped.”
“Not stopped,” I murmur. “It listened. We told it to stop, and it listened.”
Her lips part like she wants to speak, but no words come out. Instead, her eyes drop to where my hand still cradles her wrist. Her skin is warm, dusted with flour, the smallest smear of ash trailing up one forearm.
I should let go, but I don’t.
Instead, I take half a step closer. The hem of her apron brushes my skirt. My other hand lifts, hesitates, then gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, trailing flour across her cheekbone.
She doesn’t flinch; she leans into it.
And that’s when I know.
This isn’t just magic reacting to emotion—it’s not wild energy leaking out of the tavern’s bones.
It’s ours.
Two currents, tangled. Two sparks finding each other in the dark.
“I think,” I say quietly, “that whatever lives in this place…it’s been waiting.”
She looks up at me, eyes searching. “For what?”
“For this.”
I don’t wait for permission. Not because I want to take something she won’t give—but because I already see the answer written across her face.
When our lips meet, it’s not a rush, not a firestorm.
It’s a grounding.
The kiss is slow and searching, reverent like the lighting of a candle in the dark, the flicker of the hearth. Her hands hover at my waist before settling, unsure but not unwilling. Mine rise to cup her jaw, and the second our mouths find rhythm, the tavern exhales.
The hearth quiets, the herbs stop rustling, and the silence returns—not heavy this time, but whole.
When we pull apart, it’s by inches.
Her eyes are closed, brow resting gently against mine. Not one of us speaks.
Because we both feel it now.
The tavern isn’t quiet or off; it’s alive…and aware.
Her brow rests against mine for a breath longer before she pulls back, just a little. Enough for the air to slide back between us, enough to feel the chill of the room creeping into the space where warmth had just bloomed.
Winnie’s eyes flutter open slowly.
She looks at me like she’s still trying to understand what just happened, like she’s not sure if it was real—or if maybe she is.
“I…” she begins, and then stops. Clears her throat. “Well.”
That breaks something loose in my chest.
I let out a breath that’s half a laugh and step back just enough to give her room.
She immediately scrubs a hand down her face—forgetting, apparently, that her fingers are covered in flour.
When her hand drops, there’s a pale smear across her cheek, and her expression goes from flustered to downright mortified.
I bite my inner cheek to keep from smiling too widely.
She groans. “I look ridiculous.”
“You look…” I trail off, not because I don’t know what to say, but because I do and I’m not sure it’s the right thing to say out loud. Not yet. “Like someone who just wrestled a kitchen back from a temperamental spell.”
She rolls her eyes, but her shoulders relax—just barely. “Do they usually throw flour about like that?”
“No, that part’s new.”
She lets out a breath that might be a laugh, or a sigh, or both tangled together. Then, her eyes flick to mine, before quickly darting away. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and glances around like she suddenly remembered the state of the room.
Which, frankly, is a mess.
Herbs strewn across the floor, flour still drifting down like lazy snow, an entire drawer open, its contents half-spilled. And the broken jar—some kind of dried fruit, I think—scattered in sticky shards across the floor.
“I should…” She gestures vaguely toward the nearest mess.
“Yeah,” I say at the same time. “Of course.”
We both move, and of course we step in the same direction.
And of course we stop short, too close again, eyes meeting before immediately darting away.
Winnie makes a strangled little noise and pivots toward the hearth. “You handle the herbs. I’ll…do everything else.”
“Deal,” I say, and crouch beside the dropped sage bundle like it’s the most fascinating object I’ve ever seen.
Silence stretches between us, filled only by the soft sounds of movement. The clink of glass shards dropped into a tin pail. The rustle of fabric. The whoosh of the fire settling lower.
Every few moments, I catch her glancing my way when she thinks I’m not looking.
I do the same.
It’s stupid, really. We just kissed; we touched magic and made it listen. The tavern itself bowed to the shape of us.
And now we can’t seem to speak.
Eventually, she breaks the silence. Her voice is quieter than usual. “That wasn’t just…about the magic…was it?”
I lift my head slowly. “No,” I say, honest and unflinching. “It wasn’t.”
Her gaze holds mine, and something eases in her face. Not all the way, not yet, but enough.
And if I didn’t know better, I’d think I see a flush.
“Okay,” she says softly.
She doesn’t smile.
But she doesn’t have to.
The warmth between us is still there, thrumming quiet and low. The kitchen may be a disaster, the air still tinged with the scent of scorched rosemary and clove, but something’s shifted.
Not broken. Not lost. Just…opened.
A door we didn’t mean to knock on.
But one we both stepped through.