“Decades, really.” Malachar accepted the coffee she poured with mechanical courtesy. “The Dravens and I go way back. Before this curse business started, even.” He laughed like it was a joke. “I’ve watched Alessandro grow from a very angry young man into a very angry older man. Always trying to fix things himself. Never asking for help.”
“I prefer to handle problems on my own.”
“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear. Which is why it’s so interesting to see you here.” Malachar’s gaze slid back toMarina. “Playing house with a baker. Wearing flour on your very expensive shirt. You must be quite special, Miss Pearl.”
The words were complimentary. The tone was not.
“She is,” Alessandro said, and his protectiveness flared against her skin.
“I can see that.” Malachar sipped his coffee, still watching her. “Selkie magic is so valuable. So delicate. It would be terrible if anything happened to it.”
The threat was wrapped in silk, but it was still a threat.
“Nothing’s going to happen to anything,” Marina said, and her voice came out steadier than she expected. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have customers to serve.”
She turned away before he could respond, but she felt his eyes follow her. Cold and calculating and patient.
Malachar lingered. That was the worst part.
He sat at the corner table, Dante’s usual spot, though Dante had conveniently disappeared the moment Malachar walked in, and watched. He asked Marina questions about her baking, about her grandmother, about the history of the building. Each question felt like a probe, searching for weaknesses.
“Your family has been in Sweetwater Cove for generations, I understand,” he said pleasantly. “The Pearls have quite the reputation among supernatural circles. Selkie magic running true through the bloodline.”
“We’re just bakers.”
“Just bakers. Of course.” His smile sharpened. “Though I’ve heard rumors that some selkie families preserve more than recipes. Ancient knowledge. Old ways of working magic that most have forgotten.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” He set the coffee cup down too gently, the way someone might handle something they wanted to seem to handle gently. “Interesting. Because I’ve been researchingcertain… magical phenomena for quite some time. And your family name keeps appearing in the oldest texts. Right alongside mentions of curse-breaking rituals.”
The floor tilted under Marina’s feet.
“I should check on the ovens,” she said, and retreated to the kitchen before he could say anything else.
Alessandro’s conflict bled through in layers: concern for her, obligation to Malachar, confusion about which feeling to trust. He followed her with his eyes but stayed at the counter, playing the gracious host to a guest who was clearly not welcome.
The bell chimed again as Malachar left twenty minutes later, but the chill didn’t fade.
“You’re overreacting.”
Marina spun from the kitchen window, where she’d been watching Malachar’s rental car disappear down Main Street. “I’m not overreacting. Didn’t you feel that? The way he looked at the recipe book? The way he talked about selkie magic?”
Alessandro set down the mixing bowl he’d been pretending to clean. His frustration pressed against her like a wall: frustration at her, at the situation, at his own inability to reconcile what he knew with what he’d felt.
“Malachar has been helping my family for generations. He’s advised us on investments, legal matters, the curse?—”
“The curse that hasn’t been broken in two hundred years? That help?”
“He’s trying. Not everyone who fails is a villain.”
“I’m not saying he’s failing. I’m saying he doesn’t want to succeed.” Marina crossed to him, lowering her voice even though they were alone. “Alessandro. He looked at my grandmother’sbook like it was something he wanted to destroy. He talked about selkie magic like it was a threat to him. Didn’t that feel wrong to you?”
He was wrestling with it. The instinctive part of him agreed with her, the dragon-sense that registered danger even when logic said otherwise. But the part that had trusted Malachar for a decade pushed back.
“He’s odd. He’s always been odd. That doesn’t make him dangerous.”
“He said ‘before this curse business started.’ Like he was there. Like he remembers.”
