Chapter 20
The air in Enchantresso felt thinner today, as if the very walls were holding their breath.
Goldie moved with robotic precision, her hands scrubbing a counter that already gleamed.
She was alone—truly alone this time—having scrubbed Ellie’s presence from the shop with a ferocity that left her muscles aching and her soul hollow.
The silence was a physical weight, broken only by the distant, rhythmic thumping of Nibbles in the rafters.
He had been soaring just out of reach all day, sensing her inner turmoil.
She continued to clean, feeling the heavy, prickling sensation of being watched.
She didn’t need her magic to know who was standing by the door.
After several agonizing minutes of silence, she threw the damp rag onto the mahogany with a wet slap and turned to face him.
Her vibrant green eyes, rimmed with the exhaustion of a sleepless night and a restless day, locked onto Lucian’s golden-brown gaze.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly under the strain of her own defenses.
“Just came in for a drink,” he muttered, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the small space. He looked tired, his leather jacket smelling of the crisp autumn air and the faint, lingering scent of myrrh.
Goldie rolled her eyes, letting out a dramatic, weary sigh that made her shoulders sag.
Then, a sharp pang of guilt hit her. She knew Luke was struggling with his Claw Tremor treatments; Lucian’s father had probably sent him in to fetch some relief.
She felt her mama-bear defenses soften for the older man, even if they remained razor-sharp for his son.
“Does your dad need another Steady Tea?” she asked, her tone shifting to something more professional.
Lucian shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Then what does he want?” she pressed.
“I don’t know what he wants,” Lucian replied, stepping closer to the counter. “I’m not here for him. What drink do you recommend for me?”
Goldie paused, her heart performing a treacherous, familiar skip.
She searched his face, wondering if this was a new level of torture or if Ellie was somehow in on a new, cruel joke.
Rubbing her palms over her eyes, she felt the sheer weight of the last twenty-four hours pressing down on her.
She didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore.
“Second Chance Chai,” she replied, the name a bitter irony that tasted like ash on her tongue. Let him and Ellie go have a second chance at betraying me.
“Alright,” he mumbled. “I’ll take that.”
She turned away, focusing on the hypnotic rhythm of the steaming milk and the spicy scent of cloves and cardamom. She poured the liquid into a to-go cup and shoved it toward him across the mahogany, avoiding his touch.
“Aren’t you going to check me out?” he asked as she tried to retreat.
She huffed, turning towards the register.
She rang up the order with jerky movements, and as he handed her cash, his fingers brushed against hers.
The contact was electric, a sudden, sharp spark of the old magic that made her pull her hand back as if she’d been burned.
He shoved his hand into his pocket, his face unreadable as he picked up the drink.
Goldie stared at the counter, waiting for the bell to chime his departure, but he didn’t move.
She finally looked up, a snarky retort dying on her lips when she saw him lift the cup and take a long, deliberate sip.
Her breath hitched. He was drinking something she had made—the first time in ten years he hadn’t treated her offerings like poison.
“Are you going to the festival tonight?” he asked, his voice low.
“No,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper. She watched as he took another sip, the tension in the room vibrating like a plucked string. Finally, the question she’d been holding back spilled out. “What are you doing here, Lucian?”
Goldie watched him, her eyes wide, waiting for the familiar scoff or cold retort.
But he just stood there, the to-go cup in his large hand.
He didn’t answer her directly. Instead, he took a third, deep sip of the chai.
The silence stretched, weighted by a decade of accusations and heartbreak.
Goldie could only focus on the cup. He was drinking something she had made.
After years of treating her magic like venom, he was willingly consuming her drink.
Lucian finally lowered the cup, his golden-brown eyes fixed on her.
The usual cold suspicion was gone, replaced by a raw, devastating sorrow she had never seen before.
He didn’t smile, nor did his ear twitch with the usual hostility.
“I came here because I needed to taste your magic,” he said, the words sounding heavy.
Goldie blinked, reeling from the shift in his tone. “Taste my magic? What are you talking about?”
He took another deep breath. “I spent ten years believing you poisoned me, Goldie. Believing my feelings for you were fake, manufactured. I needed to try one sip of your magic to prove it wrong.”
She shook her head, confusion warring with a dangerous, fragile hope that she tried to snuff out. “And? Did it?”
He met her gaze, the raw emotion in his eyes making her knees weak. “It tasted like home. It tasted like everything I destroyed.” His voice cracked on the last word, like saying it aloud finally made the weight of it real.
Goldie felt a wave of dizziness, steadying herself against the counter.
For one impossible second, she saw flashes of the boy beneath the oak tree—the one who used to kiss sugar from her fingertips and promise her forever.
“You destroyed it because believing a lie was easier than believing me,” she managed, the words laced with old, bitter pain.
“You destroyed us because you refused to believe me.”
He shifted, running a hand roughly through his hair. “I know,” he rasped. “That’s why I’m here. I didn’t come for my father’s tea this evening. I came here from Ellie’s house.”
Goldie froze, the name a fresh spike of betrayal.
Her hand instantly went to the smooth, clean mahogany, bracing herself for the inevitable next blow.
This has to be a joke, he and Ellie cooked up to humiliate me more.
“What about Ellie?” she whispered, dreading the answer.
But she knew she needed to see this through, joke or not.
Lucian’s eyes darkened, the gold suddenly cold and furious.
“She lied,” he said simply, the finality of the statement echoing in the quiet shop.
“The texts—the proof you never saw? It was a lie. She used a memory spell to make me think I saw it. I was at her cottage, and I found the grimoire.” He swallowed hard, the confession coming out in a torrent.
“I saw the tabs marked. Illusion. Memory spell. Goldie, I… I never should have left. I destroyed the most important, the most real thing in my life because I was too blind and too arrogant to believe you.”
“She told you all these things? Then she what decided to stay my friend? Come work in my cafe after she lost her job?” The words tasted bitter as she said them. It’s not too late to run, she told herself even as her legs felt weighed to the floor.
He leaned forward, closing the remaining distance between them, his large frame looming over the counter.
“I destroyed us because I let someone else’s jealousy poison my heart,” he pleaded, the remorse in his voice genuine enough to make her heart ache with impossible sorrow.
“I’m sorry. For ten years, I hated you because of her actions, and I’m unsure how to mend that lost time. ”
Goldie stared at him, the rage and the betrayal colliding with the overwhelming, traitorous relief of hearing the truth.
The tears she thought she had cried out last night and this morning welled up again, but these were different—not tears of sadness, but of a decade of painful vindication.
“You don’t,” she stated, her voice trembling but firm.
“You don’t get to ruin my life, accuse me of being a monster for ten years, and then walk in here and apologize. That doesn’t fix anything.”
“Every time you looked at me since I came home,” he whispered, “you looked like I was breaking your heart all over again. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
She picked up the crumpled receipt from the register and slammed it in front of him, her movements sharp and decisive. “I’m closed, Lucian,” she said, pointing a shaking finger toward the door. “I need you to leave.” The dismissal was not a question but a final, brittle command.
He looked devastated, his shoulders slumping under the weight of her rejection. “Goldie, please—”
For one horrifying moment, she wanted to forgive him. She wanted to step into his arms and pretend those ten years had never happened. But the memory of standing beneath that oak tree, begging him to believe her, still lived like broken glass beneath her ribs.
“Leave,” she repeated, cutting him off, her heart hardening against the raw look in his eyes. She finally had her truth, but it came at too high a price and she would not let him see her break again.