But it was brief. The ovens settled, heavy and final, against the floor. Kazrian stood there a moment, hand still on the wall, then returned and sat beside her again, leaving the same careful distance between them.
For several moments, neither of them said anything. Outside, the rain went on.
Then a rustling sound registered. Lucie looked up to see several kitchen pixies approaching in careful formation, two carrying between them a golden bottle, the others carrying a small wooden bowl with a lump of marzipan. The bottle’s handwritten label readGentle Calm.
Another laugh escaped Lucie, this one sounding marginally less like a sob. “Yes,” she told them. “Yes, I think I’d better.”
She uncorked the bottle and poured a thin stream of golden light over the marzipan, aware, at the edge of her vision, that Kazrian was watching her. The honey light sank slowly into the marzipan, turning it a warm, luminous gold.
Then she held the bowl out toward Kazrian. “You did say you wanted to try some.”
For a moment, he only held her gaze. Then he took the bowl, broke off a small piece of marzipan, and handed it back. She watched him study the marzipan—its altered color, the faint luminosity—before he ate it.
Lucie placed a piece on her own tongue and let it dissolve.
The effect, when it came, was quiet. Not a rush but a release. The slow, deliberate opening of a fist you had forgotten you were clenching. Beside her, Kazrian let out a low, wondering laugh.
“I feel … it is as though I was carrying something immensely heavy,” he said, “and I have just been given permission to set it down.”
Lucie smiled, leaned her head back against the cabinet door, and shut her eyes. Perhaps it was the overwhelming relief, knowing that Kazrian was fine, or perhaps the calming effect of the honey light had something to do with it, but either way, the walls she usually kept around her memories had come down without her permission. As she sat there with her eyes closed and Balthazar’s rumbling purr vibrating against her side, she could see it clearly: the last time she and Kazrian had sat on a kitchen floor together.
She could almost hear the hum of conversation and laughter, could almost smell the dried tea leaves and blossoms stored in the pantry at The Charmed Leaf. She did not usually work in the evenings, but it had been Lady Rivenna’s annual tea leaf reading. The same event that had sent Lucie into a breathless panic at fourteen, when Lady Rivenna had unexpectedly asked her to show the guests something not long after she had begun working there. But two years later, at sixteen, that same event had found her sitting on the pantry floor with her feet tucked to one side, laughing until her stomach ached as Kazrian recounted some absurd tale of Rosavyn attempting pegasus riding while they were at Rowanhill over the winter.
What had she and Kazrian told Evryn when he’d walked in on the two of them? Discussing the inventory? Quality control? The open bottle of sparkleberry wine was innocent enough—a drink that was safe for fae and humans alike, even children—but their guilty expressions likely told an entirely different story. Still, Evryn had merely backed away with a knowing smile and told them to continue.
Their conversation had turned to quieter things after that. Lucie had told him about something that had happened at her mother’s shop a few days before, on her day off from The Charmed Leaf. She had been helping with a fitting and knocked a tray of pins and pearl buttons to the floor. She had managed to gather them all up before anyone noticed, slipping the scattered pieces back into their compartments while the fae ladies carried on their conversation above her head.
She had laughed as she told Kazrian. “That is the advantage of being human,” she had said lightly. “People look right past you without even seeing you.”
Kazrian’s gaze had held hers for an immeasurably long moment before he spoke. “I see you.”
Lucie’s face, already warm, had burned hotter. But—as she’d beenreminding herself since she first realized she was falling for the boy with the earnest voice and the bright, searching eyes who seemed endlessly fascinated by everything she did—he was fae and she was human, and she knew her place.
So she had laughed and pretended to misunderstand him. “Well of course you do. I am sitting right in front of you, silly.”
Kazrian had paused. A long pause, the kind that felt deliberate. And then he had said, “The first day of the Season. You were wearing a pale blue dress with a cream sash, and you had a sprig of dried lavender tucked behind your ear. Just there.” He reached forward and gently traced his finger over the rounded curve of her ear, sending a shiver dancing across her skin. “And when my careless older brother wandered in and set his teacup down on your recipe book, you lifted it off and moved the book aside without saying a word, so as not to embarrass him. And then you slipped past Orrit’s worktable and drew something in the flour with your fingertip—quickly, the way we always do when he isn’t looking—and carried on as though nothing had happened. And when he turned back and saw it, he tried to look stern and failed entirely and dusted it away before anyone else noticed.”
There had been several moments then in which Lucie and Kazrian had merely looked at one another. Lucie remembered how the world had gone strangely quiet around them, how the air between them had felt close and charged, and she was almost certain they were leaning toward each other even as she had tried desperately to remind herself of all the reasons she should not let this happen:He is fae. He is your employer’s grandson. He is a Rowanwood—so far above you that you may as well have come from entirely different worlds. If anyone discovers this, the scandal will ruin your family!
And then someone else had come looking for Kazrian—he’d been gone from the main room too long by then—and the two of them had scrambled to their feet, and Kazrian had disappeared with an apologetic smile while Lucie thanked the stars for the interruption that had prevented her from making a terrible mistake.
“Lucie?”
Balthazar gave a low hiss. Lucie’s eyes flew open.
“I mean—Miss Fields.” Lucie turned her head and found Kazrian looking at her. “Thank you for the sample.” He nodded toward the bowl of marzipan that sat between them. “What you’ve captured there is trulyremarkable. And I apologize again, for startling you so badly.” His gaze shifted to Balthazar, and he gave the cat a small nod. “My apologies to you too, Balthazar. I realize it distresses you to see Miss Fields upset. I shall endeavor to be more careful from now on.”
He rose to his feet, then reached back to offer Lucie his hand, but she was already pushing herself up. His hand hung in the air for an awkward moment before he withdrew it and brushed it down the side of his trousers as though that had been his intention all along.
“Well, I—I shall continue. With the ovens. Notbeneaththem,” he added hastily as Lucie opened her mouth to protest. “The work I have done from underneath has addressed the conflict. I’ve removed the old polishing enchantment entirely and made some adjustments to the magic in the lattice, so there should be no conflict at all now. What remains is simply a matter of fine-tuning the specific enchantments flowing from the lattice into the ovens themselves, and that can be done from the wall.”
“Well, that is very good news,” Lucie said, brushing her hands down the front of her apron, then picking up the bowl and the honey light bottle.
Rain tapped gently at the windows as they returned to their respective areas of the kitchen—Kazrian to the wall beside the ovens, Lucie to her worktable and the waiting marzipan. Balthazar circled the table twice before settling back on his cushion beside the hearth, though his ears remained angled toward the ovens.
Lucie glanced across the kitchen once, caught sight of the ragged hole in the side of Kazrian’s trouser leg, and had to press her lips together very hard. She shook her head and looked down at her worktable where the marzipan lay rolled flat across a fine dusting of confectioner’s sugar.
The earlier memory surfaced in her mind again.
