But Gabe had hidden the recipe knowing it might condemn him to wander forever—choosing my heart over his freedom—a sacrifice that extended beyond a mere feeling.
A small, wounded part of me still whispered that he should have trusted me enough to let me make that choice for myself. “I wish you had told me.”
“I know, but I was afraid.” The words escaped him almost before I had finished speaking. He lowered his gaze to the page in my hands. “I’ve come to know you too well not to realize that the moment you discovered how to free me from my curse, you would have given anything to make it happen.” His voice caught. “Knowing the price…I couldn’t ask that of you.”
“But your curse…” I whispered. “You’ve spent years searching for a way to stop wandering.”
A sad smile touched his face. “I spent those years believing freedom was the only thing I wanted.” His eyes found mine again. “And now that it’s within reach…I can’t seize it, not when reaching it costs me you.”
“You would still have me.”
His expression crumpled. “No, Cecelia.” His voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “I wouldn’t.”
The words pierced more deeply than I expected. For the first time, I truly understood the cruelty of the recipe book’s bargains. It had never simply taken emotions—it had taken relationships, stealing every invisible thread that bound one heart to another,leaving behind only memories devoid of the feelings that made them precious.
Tears blurred my vision. Gabe reached for my hands. This time, I allowed him to take them. “You might still remember me,” he said softly. “You might remember every map we drew together, every meal we shared, every ridiculous stream I drew flowing uphill.”
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitched.
His thumbs brushed across my knuckles. “You would remember all of it…yet you would look at me and feel nothing after the recipe robs your deepest desire from you.”
“My desire to be with you isn’t the only part of me.”
“No,” he agreed quietly. “But it's part of the heart you’ve only just begun to reclaim.” His fingers tightened around mine. “I would rather wander forever than ask you to become empty again.”
My throat tightened. The freedom he had once wanted more than anything lay folded between us, yet he was willing to close the book upon it forever…for me.
But he wasn’t the only one willing to sacrifice for the other. Slowly, I slipped my hands from his grasp and pressed the parchment against my chest. “What if I choose to bake it?”
“Then you’ll lose your love for me.”
The words hung between us. The faintest creak sounded behind us, where Granny remained silent in her chair, her knitting forgotten in her lap; even the fire seemed to have quieted. I imagined waking tomorrow and finding him beside me—the same thoughtful eyes and quiet smile, the same worn journal resting beside the maps we’d been creating together, the gentle rhythm of kneading dough beside him.
Everything exactly as it had been…except that my heart would remain still. No warmth. No longing. No quiet happiness at his pleasant companionship, his footsteps descending thestairs each morning, or the soothing sound of his voice. The thought frightened me more than the bakery’s departure ever had.
But another truth quietly rose beside the fear: the maps I had drawn were never the forests themselves; Gabe’s pressed leaves were not the meadows from which they had fallen. Yet both preserved the truth that somewhere, once, beauty had existed.
If the magic took my love, it couldn’t undo the fact that I had loved him, nor could not erase what he had taught me or every choice I had already made because of him.
I looked back at him. “Even if I lose the feeling, I won’t lose what I’ve come to know about you. I’ll still know you’re kind, even when you pretend to be gruff.”
A faint, reluctant smile touched his mouth.
“I’ll remember how you notice when Granny grows tired, the way you carry the flour sacks before I ask. I’ll remember that you secretly prefer the pastries with the most sugar, no matter how often you deny it.”
His smile deepened enough to soften his eyes.
“I’ll remember that you press leaves because you can’t bear to let beautiful places disappear entirely. That you make me laugh. That you make me want to stay.” Emotion tightened my throat. “And that when you finally found the freedom you’ve spent years seeking, you hid it because you would rather remain cursed than hurt me.”
“Cecelia…”
“If the magic takes my love tomorrow, I’ll still know why I loved you today.”
Looking stricken, he gathered me into his arms once more, this time holding me so tightly I could feel each shuddering breath, his muscles trembling with determination. “I refuse,” he murmured against my hair, “I won’t become a memory you have to consult like one of your maps.”
“You wouldn’t only be a memory, because love is only one part of what I feel for you.” The words came quietly now, as though I were discovering them even as I spoke. For a long moment he simply looked at me, as though seeing me anew.
Afraid getting lost in his gaze would weaken my resolve, I looked down at the stolen page resting between us.
