I want to step inside. I want to take her face in my hands and tell her that every raid, every strike, every ugly room I enter is because I am trying to build a world where she can unlock the bakery at dawn without fear. I want to tell her I am terrified that each violent choice moves me farther from the man she loves, even as it keeps her alive.
There is no time.
There is never enough time.
“I love you,” I say.
Her eyes fill, but she does not let the tears fall. “Then come back as the man who said it.”
The comm crackles again. Arturo this time. “Kauss. Margrave is moving. Now.”
I step back into the rain.
Behind me, Sweet Tooth remains lit, warm, wounded, stubborn.
Ahead, the city burns.
I turn toward the war I never wanted, carrying Evie’s words sharper than any blade.
Come back as the man who said it.
CHAPTER 27
EVIE
The bakery stays open because people still need bread, and heartbreak is not a valid reason to let dough overproof.
That is what I tell myself at five seventeen in the morning while rain taps against the repaired synthglass and Halo wakes in damp gray layers outside the front windows. The ovens breathe heat into the kitchen, turning the air thick with yeast, butter, coffee, and the bright sweetness of orange glaze. The floorboards creak under my boots. Somewhere behind the wall, the old pipes clatter like they are arguing with the storm. The display case hums unevenly, stubborn as ever, cold enough to keep pastry cream alive because Kauss coaxed it back from the dead with salvaged parts and an expression of personal offense.
Every corner has him in it.
His reinforced stool at the end of the counter. His tools in the bottom drawer. The higher shelf he installed after catching me climbing the flour bin like an idiot. The repaired lock at the rear door. The tiny paper dragon Esme drew him, still taped near the register because I do not have the heart to take it down.
I hate missing him.
I hate it with a pettiness that would be embarrassing if I had energy for embarrassment. I miss his footsteps before dawn. Imiss the way he says my name like it is both warning and prayer. I miss his enormous hand around a coffee mug, his ridiculous seriousness about unsafe wiring, his terrible half-smile when Darlene insults him well enough to earn respect.
I also hate him a little.
Not cleanly. Not enough to stop loving him, because apparently my heart has chosen stupidity as a lifestyle. But I resent the secrets. I resent the suit. I resent the way he keeps disappearing into the city’s darkness with criminals at his shoulder and coming back to me only long enough to say something beautiful before leaving again.
Come back as the man who said it.
I said that to him yesterday.
He went anyway.
Darlene slams a tray onto the cooling rack and narrows her eyes at me through steam. “You’re glaring at the cinnamon rolls.”
“They know what they did.”
“They rose properly.”
“Show-offs.”
“You slept?”
“No.”
