Chapter 17 #3
“For years, I believed emotions were nothing more than ingredients—things I could spend or discard whenever a recipe required them.” My fingers brushed the faded parchment before I lifted my eyes to his.
“But loving you has taught me something different: a feeling matters because of what we choose to do with it. I loved you when I kissed you, I love you now. And if tomorrow I no longer feel this emotion, I can still choose what my love has taught me.”
I thought of our maps spread across the table the day before, each one revealing how often his curse had drawn him near the bakery. How many times our paths had nearly crossed before finally joining. Hope stirred within me, fragile but unmistakable.
“But love isn’t the only thing I’ve regained—now I have hope.
” The word felt almost as miraculous as my tender feelings towards him.
“The magic may ask for my deepest desire, but it cannot take every truth I’ve learned.
Once the emotion it demands has been sacrificed, it can no longer claim whatever feelings follow.
I have to believe that even without my love, we could find one another again. ”
His expression twisted. “You’re speaking as though we’re already going to be separated.”
“The bakery will move soon.”
Resolve hardened his jaw. “Then I’ll follow.”
“When your curse breaks, you may no longer be compelled to—”
“I said I’ll follow.” His dark, fierce gaze held mine steadily. Despite everything, the earnest tenderness of his sweet promise pressed through my fear. I reached out a trembling hand to rest it over his heart.
“And if I no longer love you?”
His hand covered mine. “Then I’ll give you every reason to choose me again.”
The answer nearly shattered my resolve. I lowered my forehead to his chest, and his arms closed around me. For a long while, neither of us spoke. We stood wrapped together beside the scattered firewood, holding one another as though love alone might prevent the moon from rising.
He drew back just enough to search my face. “No one sacrifices anything alone. If the recipe must be baked, then we do it together.”
I frowned. “The book has no claim upon your emotions.”
He glanced towards the newly revealed recipe. “Perhaps not, but I’ve served as your assistant over these past few weeks. Nothing can stop me from measuring the ingredients.”
A reluctant laugh escaped me. The sound didn’t erase our shared fear, but it made room for the courage to move forward.
I slipped the stolen page back into the book, fitting its torn edge against the place from which it had been taken, on the page facing the one I’d just found. Light threaded through the ragged fibers, binding them to the page once more.
The words shimmered as the parchment touched the binding, the two pages that were perfect twins, except that mine had a heart at the top while Gabe’s had a shimmery wolf. I bent over the book to read the full recipe:
Ingredients to Create a Homecoming Loaf:
* Ordinary flour
* Milk warmed beneath moonlight
* Honey gathered from a place once called home
* A leaf carried by the wanderer from a place he wished to remember
* A map drawn by the baker of a place to which she wished to return
* Enchanted sugar
* The deepest desire remaining within the baker’s heart
Combine that which was divided. Offer willingly that which the Wolf cannot seize by force. Bake until every wandering road remembers its beginning.
Gabe’s jaw tightened as he read the final line. “If we do this, we stop the moment anything goes wrong.”
“You know recipes rarely permit one to stop halfway through, but I’ll be certain to inform the ancient magic of your conditions.”
His expression remained grim, though a faint warmth entered his eyes. “I promised you wouldn’t have to bake this alone. That doesn’t mean I intend to help you sacrifice yourself more efficiently.”
Something in my chest tightened. For most of my life, enchanted baking had been a solitary act. Granny might have assisted me whenever she felt well, but the final offering had always belonged to me. I’d stood alone whenever each emotion disappeared.
This time, Gabe stood beside me. “Together,” I promised.
We set to work. I measured the flour while Gabe sifted, though his first attempt sent a pale cloud billowing across the table and dusted the front of his shirt.
I bit back a smile as he looked down at himself with mild indignation.
Nutmeg helpfully whirled around him, fanning sparks at him in a vain attempt to help, which only made him sneeze as flour went up his nose.
As we mixed the dry ingredients, Granny warmed the milk on the stove while I fetched the last jar of honey we had gathered near the northern village where the bakery had remained three years ago.
Gabe removed the pressed fern from his journal with reverent care, holding it as though it were something infinitely more precious than a dried leaf. “This came from one of the first places I remember wishing I could return to.”
I brushed a fingertip along its fragile edge. One of the places where our paths had nearly crossed, long before either of us knew of one another.
For my offering, I retrieved the map we had drawn in the hidden meadow. The parchment still bore the faint impression of our hands, and there, winding cheerfully across the page, flowed the ridiculous stream Gabe had first insisted should travel uphill.
My chest tightened. Then, before sentiment could change my mind, I tore a narrow strip from one corner and laid it gently into the bowl beside his leaf.
The fern crumbled beneath the spoon. Threads of ink rose from the torn parchment like glowing wisps of golden smoke, lifting into the air before weaving themselves through the dough. As Gabe folded the mixture together, green and gold spiraled beneath his hands.
Nutmeg leapt onto the table and dragged the jar of enchanted sugar, her tiny body straining against its weight. “You are not eating any,” I warned.
She fixed me with a deeply affronted stare. Then, with an indignant chirp, she gave the jar a final triumphant shove into my hands. The dough shimmered with warm golden light as I sprinkled a careful spoonful into the bowl.
We shaped the dough together. His hands were larger than mine and far less practiced, yet he followed every instruction with unwavering concentration. Whenever the dough resisted, he simply pressed harder, as though sheer determination might convince the ancient magic to cooperate.
I laid my hands gently over his and his movements immediately stilled. “Softly,” I murmured. “Bread responds much better when it isn’t treated like an enemy.”
His thoughtful gaze lifted to mine. “Does magic?”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, even as I felt tension gathering inside me. “I suppose we’re about to find out.”
Together we folded the dough until the streaks of color disappeared beneath its smooth surface. At last, only the final ingredient remained—the deepest desire within my heart.
I drew a slow breath and reached towards the dough. Before my fingers could touch it, Gabe’s hand settled firmly over the loaf, his expression firm with resolve. “If the magic requires a desire, it can have mine.”
“Gabe—”
His eyes met mine, fierce with quiet certainty. “You’ve spent your life giving up parts of yourself for others. It’s my turn to do that for you.”
Before I could stop him, he pressed his palm against the unfinished loaf. The dough began to glow. Silver light slowly climbed his across his skin, threading around his wrist like living ivy.
For one hopeful heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the light flared violently. Gabe gasped as an invisible force hurled him backward. He struck the edge of the table before collapsing heavily to one knee.
“Gabe!”
Panic surged as I rushed towards him, but he lifted one hand before I could reach him. “I…I’m fine.”
I slipped beneath his arm and helped him to his feet. The silver glow vanished from his skin as though it had never been there.
Across the recipe, a single line blazed crimson: The bargain may claim only what has been bound to it.
Gabe frowned at the words. “It appears the magic won’t accept me.”
“No,” Granny said, her face pale with understanding. “You inherited the wandering, but you never willingly entered a bargain with the magic.”
As though in silent confirmation, the unfinished loaf began to collapse.
Its golden veins darkened, and the sweet fragrance filling the kitchen soured into something bitter, like honey scorched too long upon the fire.
It slowly split down the center, causing darkness to seep through the crack.
Though I’d never seen a physical manifestation of the magic, I recognized the shadow that hungrily reached out of the loaf.
The bond between us tightened like an unseen thread wrapped around my heart. It recognized me. The book had reached into me so many times that it no longer needed to search for a path—it knew the way by memory alone.
Joy rose first—the memory of Gabe enjoying my baked confections for the first time.
Then affection—the quiet comfort of his presence beside me.
Hope—the maps spread across the table, proving his curse had been closely following the bakery’s route.
Fear that the bakery would soon move. Grief—every farewell I had tried to escape by convincing myself not to care.
And then finally…love. Warm, bright, terrifying love. It surged through me all at once, so powerful it stole the breath from my lungs. I gasped. My knees buckled beneath me, and Gabe caught me before I could fall.
“Cecelia!” The room blurred around him. The magic patiently waited for the desire I had promised.