2. Daisy
DAISY
The bells over the bakery door clang as if I’ve kicked them on my way in. I probably have. The wind always follows me, trailing flour and a whiff of late-October ozone into the warm, sticky air of Hex & Honey.
Clover doesn’t look up from her bench, though, and that’s how I know she’s actually concentrating.
Most days, she’s the first to bark a greeting over her shoulder, even if her hands are wrist-deep in dough.
Today, her dark hair is looped in a precarious bun, and her brow is set in a frown of such surgical precision that it would be overkill to interrupt.
I drop the pastries into the display, sweep the counter with my forearm, and sneak a glance at the wedding cake she’s assembling.
Five tiers. Half finished. Smeared in buttercream so precisely I’m embarrassed by my own attempts.
Anxious to help out, I scrub my hands harder than necessary, trying to chase away the lingering warmth of Enoch’s smile—and the undertow of something that lingers with it.
“Did he like them?”
Clover doesn’t look up when she asks. She keeps her eyes on the cake, but there’s something careful in the way she waits for my answer.
“He did,” I say. “He ate three. I think he inhaled the last one.”
I keep my tone light, but my mind keeps returning to little details: the crumpled parchment paper, the bent spatula, the tea towel with a smear of deep-purple jam.
I catalog my world in details, always have.
Maybe that’s why I noticed the slight tremor in Enoch’s hands, the way he watched me as if I might vanish if he blinked.
Clover pipes another perfect rosette and finally glances up.
“Did he say he understood why I had to cancel? I hate being so flaky.”
I shake my head, elbow-deep in a bowl of honeyed dough.
“No. But he did say thank you. And he invited me to stay for cookies.”
I hesitate.
“He’s... different than I expected.”
I picture the careful way he folded the bakery box, how he lined up the lid with the crease just so. Not monstrous. Not even cold. If anything, he reminds me of the old clock in the bakery: always ticking, never quite at rest, and more likely to break if left without a caretaker.
Clover sighs and wipes her hands on her apron.
“He’s lonely. Not that he’d ever admit it.”
She flexes her fingers—scarred at the knuckles from years of kitchen battles—then gestures at the cake. I get the message and drift over, ready to fetch, roll, or steady a tier if it starts to tilt.
For a minute, it’s just the scrape of spatula against glass, the low hum of the mixer, and the soft pat of my shoes on the sticky tile.
Then Clover squints at me, the way she does when she’s about to diagnose a yeast infection in a batch of brioche.
“You’re thinking too hard,” she says.
Am I?
I try not to. Baking is my way of not thinking, a safe place where everything makes sense. The recipe’s rules are absolute, and I get to improvise only when I’ve earned it.
But today, my mind keeps looping back to Enoch’s face, the heat in my cheeks at the memory of his eyes on me, the way he said my name.
Daisy.
Like he was surprised it had a taste.
“I’m not,” I protest.
But the protest is too quick, so she raises one eyebrow, and I confess.
“I just... I don’t know why you see him every week. You seem like you’ve got it together.”
“Nobody’s got it together,” Clover says, her lips pursed. She seems more amused than offended.
I bite my bottom lip, dusting it with stray powdered sugar.
“He just seems... steady. Like a mountain. I wouldn’t know what to say to someone like that.”
Clover laughs, but then she glances toward the window, her eyes drifting.
The autumn wind smears orange leaves across the glass, and for just a moment she looks softer than the town lets her be.
“He and his brother, the mayor, have been here longer than anyone. Built half the town, in fact. A lot can pile up over a few centuries.”
She draws a line of petals around the cake’s edge, each one perfect, then shakes her head.
“He and his brother helped found Blackthorn Bay back when it was three huts and a drunk selkie.”
I look at her, waiting for the punchline.
There isn’t one.
“He ever tell you about the lighthouse?” she asks.
I shake my head.
I know Enoch lives there. Everyone knows. It’s a local landmark, all black stone and ornate iron, perched on the cliff like a crow with opinions. But I’ve never asked about it.
“The demons built this town,” Clover says. “Stone by stone, after the shipwreck that nearly took half their population.”
She pauses, remembering.
“Some say it’s the only place he trusts himself not to hurt anyone.”
“He’s dangerous?”
“No.” Clover shakes her head. “But he believes he is.”
Silence settles between us, heavy as uncooked dough.
I can’t let it rise.
“Why do you see him?” I blurt, then wince at my own bluntness. “If you don’t mind sharing.”
Clover doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, she looks relieved.
“Because my sisters are impossible,” she says with a fond roll of her eyes. “You know witches. We’re stubborn as hell, and when we fight, everyone has to know about it.”
“Elowen’s passive-aggressive, Drusilla’s a manipulator, and I’m... not much better.”
She starts on the next tier, her movements brisk.
“We are the three High Priestesses of Blackthorn, whatever the hell that means these days, and sometimes I think it’s just an excuse to bicker without consequences.”
“He helps me talk it out. Keeps me from hexing my own family, which is more tempting than I’d like to admit.”
I snort, which nearly sends me nose-first into the icing-covered spoon in my hand.
“Sibling rivalry, but with global consequences.”
“Exactly.”
Clover smiles.
“He’s the only one who listens without judging.”
Her face softens.
“Don’t let the horns fool you. He’s probably the best man in town. If that interests you.”
It does.
More than I want to admit.
But saying it aloud would be as good as conjuring it into being, and I’m not ready for that.
Instead, I reach for the honeycomb, dice it into neat cubes, and dot each cake tier with golden syrup.
I think about how Enoch’s hands looked when they folded the bakery box. How his smile took a second to find, like a pilot light catching after a long cold season.
I think about pity and how seldom it fits the shape of a person’s life.
What I actually felt was something closer to kinship.
“Is he... happy?” I ask, because I want to know, and because I have the sense nobody has asked him that question in a very long time.
Clover leans against the countertop, considering.
“He wouldn’t use that word, but yes. I think he is.”
She pauses.
“He’s made peace with himself, mostly. But it’s a lonely kind of peace.”
She wipes a finger through the honey, then offers it to me like a communion wafer.
“You’d be good for him, Daisy. He’s always happiest around sweet things.”
I decline to answer, though I do lick the honey from her finger, which is less weird than it sounds. In baking, some rituals don’t require thinking. They just are.
The bell over the door tinkles again.
This time, it admits Elowen, her eyes the color of blue frost and her mouth set in a way that means she’s about to deliver news nobody wants.
She ignores me, focuses on Clover, and says, “There’s trouble at the pier. Drusilla’s ward is failing again.”
Clover groans, the sound almost lost beneath the sudden rush of cold air through the shop.
“Can you take over here, Daisy?”
She’s already untying her apron.
“Of course.”
I reach for the piping bag.
“I’ll finish the cake.”
She claps a hand on my shoulder—her version of a hug—and vanishes out the door, Elowen in tow.
I’m left alone with the honeyed air, the ruined dish towel, and a cake that wouldn’t dare collapse while it’s under my care.
For a few minutes, I work in silence, letting my mind wander.
I’m not a witch or a demon.
I am, in all measurable ways, ordinary.
A girl with a love of bread, a tendency to overthink, and a nose for sweetness.
But there’s something about Dr. Enoch Infernalis.
Maybe it’s because we both prefer to listen.
Or because we both know what it’s like to be shaped by expectations, to be told you’re one thing and spend a lifetime becoming something else.
I finish the cake, level the tiers, and set it in the walk-in to chill.
My hands are sticky.
My head is clearer than it’s been in weeks.
On a whim, I grab another box and fill it with the best pastries in the shop, not even bothering to arrange them. I finish it off with a black-and-red bow.
I catch myself humming as I do, a song my mother used to sing when the wind was changing, and new things were on the horizon.
The lighthouse is visible from the doorway—black stone against a dimming sky, its light not yet lit.
I stand there longer than I need to, box in hand, humming.
In baking, you learn not to rush the things that need time.
You learn to trust the warmth, to wait, and to let things become what they’re going to become.
I think about that.
I think about the lighthouse.
Then I pick up the box and head out into the cold.