I nodded. My legs still trembled, but I forced them to hold. Tears welled, hot and stinging. I brushed them away with a sleeve. A fragile heart had never healed anything.
“Okay.”
Yeun blinked. “You’re… not afraid? I thought you’d be?—”
“Of course I am. But I’ve seen worse. And so has he,” I said, digging my nails into my palm. “Take me to the orchard.”
The Mist Sorcerer might be my last hope.
But maybe… I was his too.
7
Even the purest magic holds within it a sliver of darkness, shifting the very balance of the world.
LEMPICKA
The purple forest never seemed to end.
My boots sank into the spongy moss like an over-soaked old cake. Yeun, in his fairy form, drifted between gelatinous mushrooms that pulsed like jellyfish on the dew-slicked ground of eternal damp. Persian-blue flowers opened slowly, their hearts releasing orange sparkles that danced in the air before fading like embers. Chouquette bounded after me, mouth open, snapping at glass-winged fireflies that left pearly trails in the shadows.
Such enchantment could only mean one thing: the orchard was close.
“Lempickaaa!”
A rustle in the bushes, followed by a groan that could only belong to one creature. Aignan collapsed dramatically at my feet,one paw over his forehead as if exhaling his last breath. Éclair trotted behind him, looking like a giant ball of green moss.
“I smelled food. I may be at death’s door, but my nose never fails me,” he grumbled. “Bring me something sweet. Mille-feuille, perhaps… or nougatine. Yes, nougatine would bring me back to life.”
I couldn’t help but smile. And here I’d thought, for just a moment, that he cared more about me than his stomach. “You tracked me by dinner’s scent, didn’t you? I can’t smell a thing.”
“He’s right. The banquet is about to begin. You’d better hurry,” Yeun said, his iridescent wings rippling around him like veils of light.
Hurry if I didn’t want to end up on the banquet table myself.
“The little flame’s right. You’ll carry me to the feast?” Aignan batted his long lashes, all sugar and bad faith.
“I have to pick golden apples for the sorcerer, but enjoy yourselves.”
“I told Nyla that the day would come when her sweet, innocent Lempicka would fall for some despicable man and forget I ever existed,” Aignan complained to the two Cursed who had sidled up beside him. “And soon after, she’ll cast me out. I’ll end up thin and miserable, abandoned!”
My cheeks puffed with heat, seconds away from imploding like a brioche forgotten in the oven. “For your information, my standards are far higher than that.”
“Yeah, sure,” Aignan snorted. “But let me manage your love life: no sorcerers. A prince, maybe, or at least a duke?—”
I turned away, lips tight. “Let’s go, Yeun.”
With a beat of his wings, he showed me the way to the weeping willows whose long, dripping branches formed a shifting curtain. Yeun slipped through first, lifting the branches with grace and reverence, as though opening a forbidden door. I followed.
“Lempicka!” Aignan called behind me one last time. “If you die, who’ll make my tarts? LEMPICKAAA!”
The curtain of leaves closed.
“We’re here,” Yeun whispered.
My eyes widened. The orchard looked as if it had stepped out of some forgotten fairy tale. Branches, heavy with clusters of pearly apples, tangled together into a protective vault. Their smooth skins caught the starlight, gleaming as though they’d been dipped in molten sugar. Here, time itself seemed suspended. The apples were already in bloom, brimming with magic.
“It’s not even harvest season yet.” I knotted my apron to make a makeshift basket. “They’re already ripe. How is that possible?”
