“Do you want to help me?” There, I asked. And now my heart thundered while I waited for his answer.
“I can’t touch the sucre d'or. It would coagulate under my hands.”
“Then just crush the mushroom into powder, like crystal,” I insisted, handing him a bowl and a spatula. “I’ll take care of the sugar. Imagine: forcing the poor cursed confectioner to do everything while you stand there sulking. What a heartless monster.”
He sighed before joining me behind the counter, grabbing the tools without a word. “Fine. But after this, pretend I’m not here.”
“You’d be more efficient if you took off your gloves.”
Arawn stiffened. “I can’t.”
“You never take them off?”
He said nothing. Now that I thought about it, I had never seen him without them.
“Oh… in that case, it’s fine, if?—”
Before I could finish, Arawn ripped off his glove. His fingers were blackened, traced with dark veins like cursed rivers etched into his skin. His nails, long and sharp, gleamed with a black sheen, like claws.
“Now you understand,” he murmured, low and cutting.
I lifted my hand, palm open, facing his. The tips of my fingers were freckled with tiny shining burns, like ice cracking.
“You see this? Nyla called them confectioner’s kisses. I burned myself so many times she said they were marks of perseverance. I even grew to like them.” I smiled. “Yours are a sorcerer’s marks. You shouldn’t hide them. At least, they don’t bother me.”
He stared at his hand for a long moment, swallowed, then shoved his glove back on with a sharp motion. His fist clenched before he crushed the amethyst mushroom between his fingers. Fast. Precise. Merciless.
“Your mentor must have been a remarkable human.”
“You should use the spatula,” I advised, turning to my purple fruit puree to sprinkle in the crystallized sucre d'or. “And she was. She never raised her voice and taught me everything. Even if she didn’t show emotions easily, I know she cared for me.” I wiped my hands on my apron and squared my shoulders. “Nyla died serving Zelda. Whatever she says about her, I refuse to believe it.”
“Zelda clings to confections because they’re all that’s left of her soul.” Arawn ground the mushroom more slowly with the spatula now, his brows furrowed. “Your mentor may have perished, but she saved her soul. There’s a legend that says after a confectioner’s death, if their heart is pure, they become an apple tree. The taller the tree, the stronger its magic.”
I tossed a handful of cranberries into my mix. “Nyla told me that story too. Thanks, let me?—”
I reached for the spatula, but my fingers brushed his. His gaze lingered on me, as though honey were dripping from my face, which, given my curse, wasn’t entirely impossible. He seemed torn between letting the moment stretch or shattering it with a flick of his hand.
The ceiling decided for him with a groan. A chill swept through that crack. Whoever was up there knew how to make themselves heard when they wished. I cleared my throat, caught the spatula, and gripped it a little too tightly.
“Thank you… for your help,” I said, stirring the ingredients, focusing on the repetitive motion. “Zelda… What was she like with you?”
Arawn tensed almost imperceptibly, his shoulders rigid. “She found me.” He paced the kitchen like someone who didn’t know where to stand in a room too narrow. “I slaughtered anyone who stood in her way, never asking questions. With each transformation, I lost more of myself.”
My fingers curled, nails digging into my palms. “She used you. Just like she used Nyla.”
He lowered his head, narrowly avoiding a hanging bundle of herbs. His fingers skimmed the dried leaves with a child’s forbidden curiosity, as if even they might reject him.
“She may be a failure as a human,” he conceded, a subtle contempt in his voice. “But her mana is powerful. Which is both her strength and her weakness. Her body weakens with every use of her magic, and one day her bones will break.”
My hands, until then busy smoothing parchment onto the baking sheet, trembled. To me, Nyla had been a mother. Perhaps she had been that for him, too.
“Our mentors leave their marks on us. They chose us, after all,” I said softly, handing him a spoon. “Make little balls with this, I’ll handle the sugar. If she wanted you at her side, then some part of her must still be human.”
Arawn handed me a perfectly smooth ball, which I rolled into my mix of sucre d'or and crystallized petals before setting it on the sheet.
“The only thing Zelda ever wanted,” he murmured, shaping another ball, “was a child. But her body was never able to carry one.”
I froze. The sugarplum he handed me slipped from my fingers, falling beside the bowl. An unwelcome wave of pity rippled through my chest. Magic demanded the sacrifice of what one loved most. Zelda had wanted to be a mother. She had wanted a son. And she would do anything to get him back. That way, she would mend her weakness and finally possess what she had always craved.
