Page 112 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

Tell him I’ll visit—as soon as Starlight is safe.

Her chest tightened. She tucked the words away and didn’t reply—not because she had nothing to say, but because ‘thank you’ felt too small when everything else felt too large.

The next morning, another raven landed on the rim of her mixing bowl.

Have you eaten? And by eaten, I mean something that wasn’t part of a baker’s dozen.

A golden orchid carried her answer:

I ate an entire scone while reading your message. Does that count?

That depends. Was it one of the good ones?

They’re ALL good ones.

My sincerest apologies. I forgot who I was speaking to.

She smiled at the counter like a fool and didn’t even care. Between customers, she packed a basket of sausage rolls and sent them to Aegis & Ash with a delivery charm. No note. She figured three men working through the night on legal filings and procedural challenges deserved to eat something that wasn’t stale bread from a corner shop.

A raven arrived twenty minutes later, but it wasn’t alone. It carried a small crimson winter poppy in its beak. The flower fell onto Cassia’s palm as the bird disintegrated into script.

Rhodes already ate four. Caius insisted he’s only had one. I’m hiding the rest inside a drawer at my desk. Thank you.

The mark flared warm as she read it—a brief, bright pulse, as though his gratitude had traveled through the bond itself. She touched it without thinking, fingertips pressing the spot where his mouth had been, and her cheeks heated at the memory of how it got there.

She twirled the poppy and began to write How’s the case?—then stopped.

At that moment, she realized: She was afraid of the answer. Afraid that whatever he wrote back would shatter this small, soft warmth in her chest—this cozy, trivial exchange that had come to mean everything. She wanted to hold on to the hope, to shield this fuzzy, fragile feeling from the freezing rain.

Just a little longer.

Time. That was all they had: borrowed time, stretched thin across legal challenges and favours called in. She thought of the children setting the table for supper tonight, of Mrs. Thimble and Matilde serving food, of the Memory Wall with its generations of faces. All of it balanced on a knife’s edge.

So she deflected, wrote a joke, and tucked the poppy into her apron pocket. She carried it with her all day, right beside the little green pouch that held a lock of near-black hair.

On the day of the Yulefrost Ball, Cassia closed the bakery early. Opalina and Lilibeth arrived at her house just past noon, arms full and ready for war.

The hours that followed were a familiar campaign—pins and silk and the steady chatter of friends who knew that armour didn’t always look like steel. They’d dress her as if for battle, even if the battlefield was a ballroom.

When they finished, Cassia turned to the mirror. The woman looking back at her was a stranger. Frost-blue silk caught the lamplight. Opalina’s beadwork glinted along the bodice like scattered frost. Shoulders veiled in organza so thin they might as well be bare. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, with small crystal beads threaded through the waves.

This wasn’t the woman who hid rejection letters in her apron pocket and smiled through the sting. This was someone she hadn’t dared to imagine in a long time.

Lilibeth appeared behind her in the mirror, hands settling gently on Cassia’s shoulders.

“Chin up, my love,” she said, and kissed Cassia’s cheek, careful to not ruin the makeup. “It’s finally your time to shine.”

Cassia’s throat tightened. She thought of her mother, who had never owned a dress like this. Who had poured her life into flour and magic and other people’s children, and never once asked for anything beautiful just for herself. She wished, with a fierceness that burned her eyes, that her mother could’ve seen her now.

She gave a silent nod.

Opalina’s voice drifted from the next room. “Arkenoth said the carriage will be here in twenty minutes. Put your heels on so I can check the hem again.”

Cassia did as she was told, and for the first time since they struck the bargain, her excitement eclipsed her dread.

The minutes ticked by in a blur of final adjustments and nervous laughter. Ten minutes before Ark was meant to arrive, the snow began to fall. It came soft and steady, dusting the rooftops and cobbled streets of Little Mineola. The world looked softened, suspended in a hush of white and silver.

A soft knock came at the door.