Chapter 2
Two
It had been a week since Sugar High Bakery opened its aggressively cheerful doors, with its bricks slathered in pastel paint and windows permanently smeared with what looked like fake promises of sugar and starlight.
It was like getting punched in the face with a birthday cake.
Every morning, as Maude flipped the sign on her door to “Open,” the stench of freshly baked bread and sickly sweet pastries assaulted the street, clashing with the earthy scents of her herbs and potions.
Thankfully, she’d managed to avoid the owner. She usually strolled into work at a leisurely nine a.m., and the overly enthusiastic baker across the street was already buzzing around his shop, doors wide open and looking welcoming, as if he’d been baking and being annoyingly chipper for hours.
She knew little about the man—only that he was blond, male, and unmistakably Oli’s type. It was likely the sole reason Oli had betrayed her by granting him a loan.
He was probably the type to do push-ups while baking muffins and flashing a nauseatingly perfect smile. His cutesy shop would’ve fit better on Market Square, not Blightbend. No way he’d attract customers here.
Maude was practically counting down the minutes until his inevitable crash and burn.
She positioned her chair just right, ensuring a clear view of his shop, the “Opening Day” banner waving pathetically in the early autumn breeze.
Slowly, her shoulders sank.
Minutes. That’s all it took for a line to appear in front of his shop the second he stepped outside, a tray of free samples in hand like some sort of pastry-pushing Pied Piper.
Where the hell are all these people coming from?
Maude bolted from her chair and dashed to her window, pressing her face against the glass to see crowds spilling over from Market Square. These people never wandered down Blightbend. The sneaky bastard must have put up a sign or something.
Mrs. Haddingham was shuffling down the street, and for a second, Maude felt a wave of relief.
Finally, something predictable.
But then, shockingly, the woman did a sudden about-face, lured by the intoxicating scent of cinnamon and cloves. No!
Maude watched in horror as Mrs. Haddingham drifted toward the bakery as if she was under some sort of spell, snagged a free sample, and actually smiled—smiled!—before disappearing inside.
Betrayal—thy name is pastry.
She shook her head, refusing to let the circus outside ruin her day.
She had more important things to focus on—like the spell Bailey had left half-written on a piece of parchment before he died.
It was the one thing she’d thrown herself into, the one thing she allowed herself to obsess over so she didn’t have to face the crushing reality of how empty everything felt without him.
Maude turned from the window, shutting out the bustling bakery across the street. She slumped into her chair and unrolled the worn parchment for what felt like the millionth time, each word in Bailey’s precise hand twisting her heart a little tighter.
Bailey had been a genius, easily the brightest wizard in all of Mistwood Hills, and likely the entire realm.
Why he’d ever settled in this sleepy village was beyond her, but she was eternally thankful.
If he hadn’t, he might never have stumbled upon her—might never have rescued her from the Wilds, and who knows who she might’ve ended up with.
Every few years, a wizard or witchling babe would emerge from the wilderness that surrounded Mistwood Hills, cloaked in moss and mud, speaking the language of the forest.
That was how Bailey found her—shivering and muttering beneath an elder tree like some swamp creature. He watched her for a while, as if to make sure she wasn’t a goblin, and then, apparently deciding she was human enough, took her in.
Bailey had become everything to her. In his eyes, she wasn’t a wild oddity but a treasure—a continuation of magic as old as the stars.
Grumpy and eccentric, he often muttered about the “good old days” of magic as if they were lost love letters.
He adopted her, and for years it was just the two of them, the quiet of his old house filled with the crackle of firewood and the scent of simmering potions.
But wizards don’t live forever, no matter how many rejuvenation potions they down.
He had passed, as all must, leaving her the keeper of all his worldly possessions: a crumbling apothecary on the outskirts of town and a house that felt too big without his grumbling echoing through the halls.
She supposed she should feel sentimental about inheriting his possessions, but really, she just felt mildly inconvenienced and panicked by the responsibility of it all.
Now, she ran the apothecary, brewing potions that would make Bailey proud—or at least keep him from haunting her for messing it all up.
The shelves still smelled faintly of him, a mix of sandalwood and sage that lingered like a whisper in the air. It was fitting, really, for someone like her—rooted in the solitude of the outskirts, surrounded by relics of a man who had been as much of an oddity as she was.
Maude trailed a finger along the nearest shelf, dust smudging her skin.
Her hand shook once before she stilled it, pressing her palm flat against the wood as if she could pin the ache in her chest there instead of letting it spill out.
For a moment, it was easier to imagine Bailey stepping back into the room, muttering corrections over her shoulder.
But he wasn’t here. And the spell waiting on the worktable didn’t care how much she missed him.
It looked simple enough on paper, but she wasn’t Bailey. Despite years of shadowing him, picking up his tricks, she hadn’t quite mastered his wizard-level knack for wrapping up spells with a wild guess or whipping up antidotes from just a lick of potion.
The spell’s runes curved the same way they had in the sabotage spell he’d crafted years ago to short out a magistrate’s wards, only bent sideways, twisted toward something else. She felt the echo of it like a bruise in her memory. Sabotage, yes—but turned into…what?
It unsettled her—his last piece of work. Which was exactly why she was hell-bent on cracking it. Even if it bit back.
Maude spread out the ingredients on the counter: ironvine, blackthorn bark, sprigs of rosemary, bloodroot, yarrow, moondust caps—and, most importantly, shadowbell flowers.
Bailey had figured out that much before he left the spell unfinished.
Disruption, corrosion, collapse. But it was missing some crucial bits—like a couple of ingredients and maybe a line or two to wrap it up.
She spun around, snagged some bloodroot, and tossed in a few ethically sourced fairy wings for good measure, grinding them into her poultice. Just as she was getting into the groove, the door to her shop groaned open, the familiar scrape against the floor yanking her gaze away.
Her breath hitched as a sunny-haired giant strode into her shop, all broad shoulders and annoyingly handsome with an unfairly tan complexion that screamed, “I spend my weekends at the beach.”
He scanned the room, and his gaze didn’t so much as flicker at the shrunken heads dangling in the corner like twisted ornaments—making him either impressively brave or incredibly stupid.
“Can I help you?” Maude asked, drawing his attention from the bubbling cauldron, its fumes reeking of eternal regret—her own invention.
He turned and flashed her a dazzling smile. “Just came in to introduce myself. Name’s Wesley Rivers. I opened a bakery across the street.”
“Oh wow, I didn’t even notice.”
The corner of Wesley’s lip twitched upwards, and he sauntered closer until only the worktable separated them.
“Right. I wanted to say hi to my neighbor and give you a few of these.” He set down a box tied with a red ribbon.
Even covered, the scent of butter and lemon wafted through, obnoxiously pleasant.
Maude set her mortar down and finally looked up at him, her sea-green eyes locking onto his with an intensity that could wither plants.
“What is that?”
He looked momentarily confused, and she couldn’t help but enjoy the way his face scrunched up. “Oh, it’s what I whipped up for the shop this morning. Cardamom teacakes and lemon-curd shortbread.”
“Sounds nauseating.”
“Pardon?”
“Great. Sounds just great.”
He stood there quietly for a moment before laughing outright in her face.
“What is so funny?” she snapped.
“Just—you, you’re funny. Though I’m not sure what I expected coming into a shop like this,” he said, his laughter subsiding into a chuckle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I don’t mean to be rude. Just that I don’t know why I expected anything other than what you’re throwing at me from the woman who owns the scariest store in town.”
“My store is scary? Your store is the one scaring away all of my customers!”
He glanced around her empty shop.
Maude bristled. “Well, maybe if your bakery didn’t look like a unicorn threw up on it, my customers wouldn’t be so distracted.” She shot a glare toward the window, where the cheerful Opening Day banner fluttered.
Wesley snorted. “You never stopped to think that your lack of business has anything to do with…” He gestured vaguely toward her, his hand sweeping through the air as if to encapsulate her entire being as the issue.
She ground her teeth. “My clients prefer a harder touch.”
“Right, because enforcing a ‘no smiling’ policy is the key to business success,” he quipped, the smirk on his face growing.
Maude’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “It sets the mood, Wesley. My shop, my rules. If people want glitter and rainbows, they can prance over to your Sunshine Bakery.”
“Sugar High Bakery,” he corrected, his grin fully formed.
“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Her boots clicked against the worn wooden floor as she strode toward the door. She flung it open, and the bell above chimed—a low, ghostly sound she’d picked because it reminded her of a horror show. “Run along; I’m sure you have dough to knead or egos to feed.”
He took the hint and headed toward the exit, but not without tossing one last jab over his shoulder. “Already did both this morning. Unlike you, I’m productive before noon.”
Maude slammed the door so hard the bell gave a startled, angry jangle before it snapped off its hook and clattered to the floor.