Chapter 19
Piper
Morning settles over my shop like warm fog—gold filtering through frost-dusted windows, cinnamon incense curling upward in sleepy spirals, and my enchanted kettle rattling impatiently on the back counter because it hates being ignored.
The moment I open the shop door, a gust of cold air slides around my ankles, nibbling at the hem of my black velvet skirt.
My crescent moon earrings jingle softly, catching the light.
My hair—clipped back on one side with a silver star pin—spills over my shoulder in a glossy cascade that smells faintly of lavender oil.
The amethyst pendant at my throat thrums once. A quiet warning, signaling the curse is awake.
“Great,” I mutter. “Good morning to you too.”
Inside, everything looks exactly as I left it—shelves lined with amber bottles and herb bundles, jars of glitter that absolutely do something, a candle wall flickering like a rainbow of tiny spirits, spellbooks stacked neatly beside agate bookends, and potted evergreens decorated with enchanted ornaments that occasionally blink.
Underneath all of it, I feel the pulse of my magic the way some people feel the weather changing—low, insistent, tugging at the edges of my ribs.
I shrug out of my coat, hang it on the antler hook by the door, and go about flipping open blinds. The sunlight catches dust motes and makes them glow.
My magic stirs—hearth magic, warding magic, the kind of power meant for protection and binding and keeping the world stitched together in invisible seams. Unfortunately, it also likes to flare under stress…
react to attraction… misfire around Christmas decorations…
and occasionally summon demons into my living room.
So. You know. A mixed bag.
I smooth the front of my charcoal-gray top, tuck a stray curl behind my ear, and whisper to the room, “Let’s please avoid any disasters today.”
The garland above the counter rustles—mockingly.
And I just know, I’m in for a long day.
***
By ten a.m., the kettle whistles and I have a mug of rosemary-black tea warming my hands. I walk the shop floor barefoot—and check the wards, soft socks be damned. The wood floors vibrate better with skin contact.
A faint shimmer curls around the doorway. Good. The shelf of moon salts hums contentedly. Great. The enchanted mistletoe stays in the drawer where I sealed it. Excellent.
Then the front bell chimes, and Mrs. Alderberry floats in on a wave of peppermint perfume mixed with faux-fur dignity. “My dear Piper,” she says, taking one long look at me, “you’re positively glowing my dear.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “For the love of all things holy...”
“Oh don’t be dramatic. It’s a nice glow. Like candlelight and secrets.”
“Perfect,” I mutter. “I always aim for secrets.”
She buys lunar tea and asks zero suspicious questions, which might be the most alarming thing she’s ever done. The rest of the morning drifts by in slow ripples, questions about potions, requests for charms, curious tapping on the enchanted snow globes.
Nothing levitates, or bursts into flames. Nothing sings at me. For two blissful hours, life feels… stable.
Then it hits me. A hum beneath my skin, followed by a tightening just behind my sternum. Heat blooming across the bond like a sunrise.
Slade.
I whisper, “Of course.”
The bell rings, and there he is.
Slade Athalar fills the doorway like something carved out of shadow and old myths—tall, sharp, wrapped in a dark charcoal coat with obsidian buttons, hair tousled in that unfair way that says he probably just raked a hand through it and moved on with his life.
His forest-green eyes find me instantly.
My pendant warms, and my magic sparks. A jar shivers in response to the connection between us.
He steps inside, the air bending around him—heat first, then ozone, then something sweetly dangerous.
I hate him. I hate that I don’t actually hate him.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he murmurs, voice low, like he’s allowed to say things like that.
I lift my chin. “You’re early.”
“You look ravishing, little witch.”
“STOP SAYING THAT.”
His mouth curves slowly, wicked. Delighted, even. He moves through my shop with the fluid confidence of someone born to walk marble halls and make mortals lose their minds. Customers stare openly, some blushing, one nearly dropping a jar of enchanted sugar.
Slade ignores all of it. He stops in front of me, fingertips brushing the counter. “You felt it,” he says.
“Of course I did,” I snap. “My magic is basically a hazard light right now.”
“The Ninth Court is whispering about you.”
My pulse stutters. “Me?” I squeak.
He leans closer. “Your invocation. The bond. The archives. Veda. They felt everything.”
The lights flicker. The snow globes hum a chord of disapproval. My pendant heats until I swear it leaves a violet glow on my skin. I exhale shakily. “This was supposed to be a normal day.”
Slade’s eyes soften—just enough to make my stomach swoop. “For you, normal is gone.”
And as my shelves tremble with quiet magic and the curse winds tighter around my ribs, I realize… He’s right. Normal is gone. And something in the air is shifting—toward danger, toward truth, toward him.
And toward whatever the hell Veda Bellamy awakened last night.
***
Slade lingers in the shop long after the last customer leaves, leaning against my counter like the room was built around him.
I’m very aware of how I look under his gaze, my black velvet skirt brushing my knees, my curls clipped back on one side and tumbling down my back, and the damned amethyst pendant warming against my skin—again.
Too aware.
His voice slips under my guard. “Come with me.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he says, narrowing those gorgeous verdant eyes in my direction.
“I am working.”
“You’re done,” he says simply. “And you haven’t eaten.”
I open my mouth—but the truth is, my stomach betrays me first, rumbling like I swallowed thunder. He smiles—slow, knowing. “We’ll go to the market. You choose what you want. I’ll cook.”
That should not sound sexy. It absolutely does. I try to put steel in my spine. “Why do you want to cook for me?”
His answer is maddeningly simple. “Because I want to feed you.”
Oh gods. My magic flickers along my ribs, reacting before my mind catches up.
And maybe it’s the curse. Maybe it’s the bond. Or, maybe it’s simply the fact that my entire world has been breaking open for days.
But I close the shop early. And Slade looks at me like I just handed him something precious as we walk out the front door.
The winter air hits us first—crisp, pine-tinged, full of chiming bells from the Christmas stalls lining the square. Lanterns flicker along the walkways, casting a honey-gold glow over wreaths and rows of seasonal vendors. But everything around us shifts subtly as we walk.
Lights flare brighter. Shadows curl away from him. People part without thinking.
Slade isn’t doing it on purpose. Power just… moves for him. I shouldn’t find that attractive either. But I do. Gods, I do.
He takes a basket from a stall, offering it to me without ceremony. “Start picking.”
I try. But every time I reach for something, he plucks a better version from the display.
“You’re impossible,” I mutter.
“And you have terrible tomato instincts,” he counters.
I grab a bundle of basil. He replaces it with one fuller, fresher. “Stop interfering,” I hiss.
“I’m helping.”
“You’re bossy,” I argue, biting back laughter.
“You like it.”
I nearly fling a package of pasta at him. Instead, I grab the homemade fresh noodles—soft, flour-dusted, smelling faintly of rosemary. He approves with a low, pleased sound.
We walk the aisles like this—bickering, bantering, brushing hands more times than either of us acknowledges—until the basket is filled with rich reds, deep greens, warm spices. It feels strangely intimate, and dangerously normal.
On the walk home, Slade walks close enough that the heat of his body melts every chill before it touches me.
I pretend I don’t notice. He pretends he doesn’t know that I noticed.
Which… makes for a very quiet but charged walk home. Snow starts falling, little trickles of flakes at first, that somehow seem to get thicker and denser the closer we get to the apartment.
By the time we cross the threshold of the small alcove the building manager has the audacity to call a lobby, it’s coming down really hard.
Slade takes the lead, and I follow him up the stairs trying to ignore how right this feels. The moment we step inside my apartment, Newt rockets across the floor like a sentient puffball and vaults onto the kitchen island.
He stares at Slade. Then meows—twice. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the brat rubs his entire face against Slade’s forearm.
“Unbelievable,” I say.
Slade scratches under Newt’s chin. “He has impeccable judgment.”
“Traitor,” I whisper at the cat.
Newt blinks slowly. Translation? You’re welcome.
Slade rolls up his sleeves—forearms cut from marble, faint runes glowing under the skin like embers—and starts cooking with terrifying competence.
He moves like the kitchen belongs to him.
Oil sizzles. Garlic blooms fragrant and golden.
Tomatoes soften in the pan until they release a sweet, bright steam.
He even slices basil with the kind of precision that suggests he’s gutted a demon using similar technique.
I lean against the counter, trying not to stare and failing miserably.
“You’re watching,” he says.
“You’re cooking,” I counter. “Maybe, I’m checking to make sure you didn’t poison the food.”
He grins, “Liar.” He scans my face. “And you’re flushed.”
“It’s warm in here.”
“It isn’t.”
I shove him with my eyes. He laughs—the deep, dark kind that curls into my spine. “Sit,” he says.
I obey.
He plates the tortellini delicately, drizzles something intoxicating over the top, and places the steaming dish in front of me with all the gravity of a vow. I take a bite. It’s sinful how good this is.
It’s like fucking magic.
Slade leans his hip against the counter, watching for my reaction. I hate how my eyes flutter closed, how a tiny sound escapes my throat, and how he hears it.
He comes closer. His voice a low rasp. “I like watching you eat, your expression always shows exactly what you’re thinking. It’s… sexy.”
“Stop saying things like that,” I groan, flushing from head to toe all over again.
“Why?”
“Because they work.”
His smile burns all the way through me.
We eat by candlelight, close enough that his knee brushes mine under the table, close enough that the bond hums with every uneven breath I take.
Talking comfortably for what feels like hours.
He tells me tales of what it was like growing up in hell—news flash, it’s no picnic—and all the embarrassing shit you usually save for your fourth or fifth date. You know, like a month of dating.
After dinner, we rinse and soak the dishes, laughing and joking like it’s the most natural thing in the world. When we’re finished, I insist on a movie.
Slade insists on sitting beside me. Newt insists on sitting in Slade’s lap. Traitor.
We settle on The Holiday because I refuse to lose that battle and Slade refuses to admit he enjoys watching Jude Law be charming.
Halfway through, the room shifts. Warm. Quiet. Lights twinkling across my walls in soft gold. My curls falling forward until he gently sweeps them back behind my shoulder.
His fingers linger. My magic sparks — soft, pink-gold, fluttering beneath my skin. The garland above the window rustles. The lights flicker in a low pulse.
Slade notices. Of course he does. “Your magic’s responding,” he murmurs.
“I can’t help it.”
“You don’t want to.” I turn my head to argue, but he’s already watching me. Really watching me. Like I’m somehow heat, gravity, and inevitability all wrapped into one.
His hand lifts, brushing the curve of my jaw—slow, reverent, with a restraint that shreds me. “Tell me to stop,” he whispers.
I can’t. I don’t. So he kisses me. And gods—it’s nothing like the accidental first kiss. The charged, frantic thing we clung to between worlds.
This kiss is deliberate. Slow enough to unravel me. Deep enough to ruin me.
He kisses like he knows exactly how I’ll taste. How I’ll melt. How I’ll feel. Slade’s mouth coaxes heat out of my bones, his hand cupping the back of my neck, thumb stroking the line of my throat.
I gasp. Slade swallows it.
My magic surges—lights flaring, ornaments shimmering, the whole room tuning itself to the sound of my pulse.
When he finally draws back, my chest is rising too quickly, my cheeks flushed, my lips tingling, my pendant blazing hot against my skin like a warning I want to ignore.
Slade rests his forehead against mine. “You let me in tonight,” he says softly.
I want to deny it. I can’t. “Maybe,” I whisper instead.
His mouth curves—a dark, devastating smile. Newt meows impatiently, reminding us he exists.
I laugh shakily at his rudeness. Slade chuckles against my cheek. And for the first time since this curse began, I feel something warm, steady, dangerous—hope. Want… Trust.
And maybe I am just a little bit… his.