And suddenly, the heart no longer bled.
Silence fell. The march of sucremort stopped. I wrapped his heart in a cloth, pressing it against me. I had done it.
“I’m sorry for this pain. I’m coming. Please, wait for me.”
I clamped the lid onto the cauldron, but the moment I released it, it shuddered. The evil inside was trying to escape. The sucremort rebelled, and the metal vibrated, ready to burst.
“Oh no, you stay put!”
I set a heavy flour jar on top, raising a brow. The lid stopped rattling, though a few agitated ripples still pulsed beneath the surface. I was about to plunge into the last step when the door creaked behind me.
“Listen to me, both of you,” Aignan grumbled from the bottom of the stairs, his voice filtering through the wood. “If you want the respect of humans, you have to demand it. Martine never dared question me again after I ate those famous cupcakes right in front of her…”
I stifled a laugh.
“Aignan is true to himself. Blunt. Stubborn. But adorable,” I said, turning toward Yeun in his human form. I knew why he was there. “You are his first happy memory as a human, but what his heart had to sacrifice left him with a void. And a heart always knows how to demand what it’s missing. The recipe… You don’t have to?—”
Too late. He cut me off, laying his wing on the counter. “Before you ask if I’m sure, Master is my best friend. It’s time his heart remembered.”
He set a hand on my shoulder before turning away. I followed him with my eyes until the door closed behind him.
I lowered my gaze to the wing. Gently, I placed it in a fresh cauldron. I melted the raw sucre d'or slowly. Too hot, and it would shatter into sharp shards. Too cold, and it would stay grainy. I let it caramelize until it turned translucent. The fairy’s wing dissolved into it slowly, fragmenting into iridescent dust.
In a stoneware bowl, I beat the sucre d'or snow. The only sugar able to resist moisture and strong enough to imprison the coulis. With it, I shaped little hollow spheres, white as frost pearls, then, with the tip of my fingers, carved out their centers, sculpting a delicate cavity.
I lifted the lid and drew out the Coulis of the Bound Heart, black as a starless night. It slid into the hollow of the shell. The dark ink nestled there, dense and velvety, blooming against the sucre d’or like a shadow spreading over snow.
I sealed the candy, and let it rest in my palm.
Deceptive. Beautiful. Deadly.
An alchemy of sucre d'or and death.
I had succeeded where Nyla had failed. But the hardest part was yet to come. Would the confection be strong enough to heal his heart? Would mine be strong enough to face it?
“Lempicka!” Aignan shouted from below. “I think we’ve arrived!”
I rushed to the terrace, the candy tucked in the pocket of my skirt.
The shop slowed, its roots cracking beneath it.
But all I could see… was mist.
35
The Cursed are ranked from one to ten according to how dangerous they are. At level ten, all that remains is a hungry howl and a twisted carcass too warped to remember ever having been alive.
LEMPICKA
The confectionery groaned, its roots clawing at the rocky earth, struggling to cling to the steep mountainside. Pebbles tumbled into the void, and if it kept on like this, the house would follow.
The air was thick. Metallic. Laced with a rancid stench of rot and cinders, heavy and sticky, seeping down my throat. I clung to the railing of the terrace, leaning over the vast expanse of gray mist, my pulse hammering against my temples.
Somewhere out there, Arawn was waiting.
A flight of black birds tore itself out of nothingness, fleeing into the sky. A massive shadow emerged, surrounded by a swarm of Spirits that circled him like a storm of ravenous darkness. There were too many—far more than in the forest.
My fingers clenched. “Arawn creates Spirits when he loses fragments of his humanity. They’re supposed to obey him. If he’s lost the last spark?—”
