Chapter 14
Fourteen
Opaline light spilled through the shop windows, turning dust to glitter and cracks to character. Even Blightbend Way looked polished instead of crumbling. Maude stood at her counter, hands wrapped around a steaming mug, and tried not to think about how wrong the quiet felt.
The curse had lifted—but only the way a shadow lifts when a candle gutters.
The shop sounded whole again: jars settling on their shelves, the faint chime of glass in the draft, wood groaning softly in reply.
Across the street, Sugar High gleamed like fresh paint over a wound.
No grotesque fusion. No marshmallow cobblestones.
Just two shops, separate again, as they were meant to be.
She should’ve felt triumphant. Instead, her chest was a hollow drum.
The shadowbell petals she’d jarred sat on the shelf, deceptively still. Bailey’s scrawled note gnawed at her thoughts. Interlock. The word branded itself on the inside of her skull.
When the first knock rattled the glass door, she nearly dropped her cup.
It wasn’t the magistrates, or Wesley, or even Oli—worse. It was a customer.
Then another. And another. By midmorning, the Elixir Emporium sounded like festival day—murmurs, laughter, the scrape of boots across its uneven floorboards. Her newly found sanctuary was officially breached.
And they weren’t here for what she actually made.
No one asked for Bailey’s calming tonics or the lung draught he’d perfected after weeks of testing on himself until he coughed blood.
No, they came clutching Sugar High’s greasy little paper bags, faces glowing with excitement, chirping requests that made her teeth grind.
Can you just sprinkle something on this?
Make it sparkle? Maybe make it wiggle, like it’s alive?
At first she tried the death-glare-and-wave-off approach, perfected over years of discouraging the cheerful.
But then came the sound—coins clinking against the counter, one after another, a metallic waterfall.
Each drop felt like an accusation, like the stack of unpaid bills in her drawer whispering, “Take it, you coward.”
Maude pinched the bridge of her nose, muttered a curse at the universe, and finally sighed. Against every better instinct she had, she agreed.
A charm of floating candles woven into a croissant. A sugared rune that made eclairs sing—off-key, but the crowd howled with laughter. Cupcakes that whispered compliments when bitten. The shop transformed into a theater of edible mayhem.
Every time someone clapped or gasped, Maude’s stomach sank further. This wasn’t Bailey’s legacy. This wasn’t what he’d built, what he’d taught her. He hadn’t spent years turning weeds into salves and superstition into medicine just so she could enchant muffins to moo like cows.
But the coins piled high, glittering with promise.
By noon, Wesley appeared in her doorway, sleeves rolled to his elbows, flour still dusting his jaw. He took one look at the crowd, then at her, and had the audacity to grin. “So this is what success looks like.”
“Careful; your smug is showing,” she muttered, binding another eclair with a shimmer of sparkle-dust.
He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, watching her work. After a beat, his brow furrowed. “Have you eaten lunch?”
“I’m busy,” she said, not looking up.
“Well then,” his tone turned infuriatingly light, “you won’t be wanting this.” He produced a small paper packet from behind his back, unfolded it, and revealed a still-warm cheese roll, crust blistered, edges flecked with rosemary.
Maude froze, gaze darting from the roll to his face. He raised an eyebrow, waiting. She snatched it, bit down, and nearly burned her tongue.
“When was the last time you ate, Harrow?”
She chewed, swallowed, ignored him. The bell above the door chimed again—loud enough to slice the air.
Town magistrates.
The crowd parted instinctively, murmurs swelling like storm clouds. Three officials swept inside, gray coats buttoned to the throat. At their head was Alderman Veyne—gaunt as a crow, with a nose too long for his face and eyes that seemed permanently damp.
His gaze moved like a blade over the shelves stacked with jars, over eclairs still faintly glowing from her last spell, over the children smiling with sugar and delight. Then, at last, to her.
“Curious,” Veyne said, his voice soft but cutting, like the scrape of steel on stone. “Last week this street sagged under blight. Today it feasts.”
Maude’s fingers twitched toward the hem of her sleeve, nails worrying the seam.
“Excellent work, Rivers.” Veyne clapped Wesley’s shoulder. “The street hasn’t looked this lively in years. A remarkable turnaround.”
Another inspector scribbled in a ledger, his gaze flicking toward Maude. “This was nearly a disaster. You’re fortunate no one ended up dead. Next time, we’ll shutter these doors before you can light another candle.”
Her teeth clicked together, biting down on words she wanted to hurl.
“We understand.” Wesley’s voice was smooth, too smooth, like a balm poured over boiling water.
Then he turned, his eyes bright as sea-glass as he added, “But let’s be clear—this wasn’t my doing.
You owe the stability of this street to her.
I mixed what she told me to mix. Drew lines where she pointed.
That’s not a partnership—that’s me following orders. ”
Veyne’s quill stilled above the page. “The fact remains—the collapse began with your hex, Maude. Are we to praise the arsonist for dousing her own flames?”
He wasn’t wrong. But Maude was feeling petty.
“Better an arsonist who puts out her own fire than a bureaucrat who starts one and leaves it to spread.”
The room shifted. Murmurs rippled through the crowd still lingering near the door. Even Veyne’s pinched expression faltered, his gaze burning. “Careful, witch. Insolence doesn’t erase culpability.”
Maude’s jaw locked, but before she could spit something out, Wesley spoke—voice smooth as honey. “Then perhaps you’ll judge us by outcomes. The street is standing. The people are safe. That’s what matters.”
The magistrates shifted, unsettled, but Wesley’s calm was a current they couldn’t quite fight. Veyne sniffed, scribbled something into his ledger, then snapped it shut. Without another word, the three swept out, robes trailing in their wake.
The crowd scattered, chatter filling the silence like bees stirred from a hive. Coins clinked, footsteps retreated, and soon only a few stragglers remained, reluctant to leave the spectacle.
Maude stayed rigid, every muscle coiled tight, her pulse refusing to slow.
She should’ve been grateful—he’d deflected, shielded, drawn their righteous anger off of her.
But instead it felt like he’d stripped her bare in front of half the town, her failures and triumphs paraded together under their judgmental stares.
Maude sighed. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You did the work.” Wesley shrugged. “Credit belongs where it belongs.”
The words slipped under her defenses, unsettling in their simplicity. For a breath, she almost said thank you. The words hovered, fragile and feathered, aching to take flight. She swallowed them whole instead, the taste bitter.
The bell above the shop door rattled as the sun slid toward the horizon, its last light bleeding copper and red across the crooked glass panes.
Maude nearly sloshed the simmering pot of Willow’s Rest Draught—her own sleep elixir that slowed the pulse and coaxed even the most restless mind toward dreams—when Oli’s voice came sweeping in before him, warm and unapologetically loud.
“Pack it in, darling witch. We’re abducting you.”
She arched a brow as she capped the jar on the counter. “Hard pass.”
The door swung open, revealing Selene trailing Oli, cheeks pink from the cool evening. Maude hadn’t seen her in days, and something uncoiled in her chest at the sight. Saints, she’d missed her.
One corner of Selene’s smile quirked, like she already knew the protest by heart. “We’re going out. Just one night. The Silver Thistle. There’s food, and cider that’s allegedly worth selling your soul for.”
“I already have food.” Maude gestured toward the shelf of powders that could kill or cure depending on her mood. “I already have a drink. And I already have you two.”
“Exactly.” Oli swooped closer, grin wide. “So why not combine all three into one glorious evening of my company in public?”
“Because that sounds like punishment.”
Selene giggled behind her hand—warm, conspiratorial—and Maude’s sulk cracked just a little. “We’ll be back before midnight. Promise.”
A sigh escaped her as she uncorked a bottle and sniffed the contents. “Fine. But if this involves dancing, I’m putting warts somewhere creative.”
“Excellent.” Oli clapped once, delighted. “Nothing says friendship like threats of bodily harm.”
The Silver Thistle was older than half the town, built low and crooked into the roots of an ancient tree. Lanterns dangled like fruit from its branches, green flames guttering inside glass globes etched with runes. The door creaked like a coffin lid when Oli shoved it open.
Inside, the gloom gave way to warmth. A hearth blazed against one wall, its smoke curling through gaps in the stonework like lazy phantoms. Tables crowded close, each one scarred with old knife marks and burn rings, sticky with spilled cider, yet softened by sprigs of lavender tucked into jars at their centers.
A fiddle played somewhere near the back, threadbare notes weaving around bursts of laughter.
At one table, a cluster of nixies played cards with a centaur whose hooves clicked irritably against the floorboards each time he lost. In another, a banshee hunched over a cup of black liquid that shimmered faintly while goblins heckled her hair.
It was dark in all the ways Maude preferred—shadowed, strange, and thick with the sense that if you blinked wrong, you might catch a glimpse of something you’d regret.