Page 91 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

They let the night take them. Cassia moved beside him, a tense, silent force. Panic radiated from her in waves—a focused, terrifying dread that made her breaths shallow and her steps too quick. Her entire world had narrowed to the path leading to The Witching Flour. Anuck’s pawprints were clear in the fresh snow, leading from the doorstep and down the street.

They moved swiftly, the night pressing in thicker with every step, their breaths misting in front of them. The walk felt like hours, though Ark knew it couldn’t have been more than five minutes. Little Mineola’s main shopping street—usually bustling with shoppers and gossiping vendors—felt suspended. The wooden shutters were drawn, the hanging signs swaying, the sound creaky in the hush.

They rounded the corner and skidded to a halt.

A shape slumped on the pavement outside The Witching Flour—a large black-and-white bird, wings bent at awkward angles, magic barely clinging to its ruined form. They hurried. Ark crouched beside it, recognizing the same feathers. But beneath the Agmon sigil on its chest, a second glyph pulsed with a sullen red heat. A bolt of fury lanced through him.

He looked up at Cassia, the words like ash in his mouth. “It’s Agmon’s.” He pointed to the maker’s mark, then traced the line down. “This is new. A destruction glyph.”

Colour drained from her face. Her breath caught. “He sent it to destroy the bakery.”

But the magpie hadn’t made it far. It hadn’t even touched the window before a larger predator crushed it against the pavement. His gaze lifted, catching on a pair of yellow eyes gleaming from beneath a chalkboard easel that still read ‘All Baked Goods Half-Price After 2PM.’

Anuck’s tail was coiled primly around his paws. The cat blinked, slow and unimpressed, as if taunting him: ‘And you just got here?’

Anuck then proceeded to clean himself. One paw lifted. Lick. Lick. Pause. Lick again.

Ark murmured, “Hello, you.”

The cat looked directly at him, then yawned wide and licked his mouth. Not in a cute, ‘post-nap’ kind of way, but in a ‘finished-my-meal’ kind of way.

Ark kept staring. He hadn’t heard a fight, hadn’t sensed the use of magic. Whatever had happened, Anuck had dealt with the apparition with swift, silent, and lethal precision.

As the Construct’s remains dissolved into the cobblestones, his attention returned to Cassia. Her gaze was locked on the bakery’s door. She rushed past him, a key appearing in her hand. The violent shake in her fingers sent a jolt of alarm through him. This was more than fear; this was a tremor in her very foundation.

“Cassia?” He moved close.

“I need . . . I need to see,” she choked out. “I must see.”

The door swung open, revealing the dark, silent sanctuary within. The scent of flour, butter, and sugar—the very essence of her life’s work—hung in the air. She hurried inside. Her hands went to the clay jar of sourdough starter first—fingers pausing on the lid as if feeling for a heartbeat. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed in deeply—not just smelling but sensing, testing the air for the magic woven into the foundations.

Now, in the absence of daylight and customers’ chatter, he sensed it clearer than ever: the Memory Magic. Her mother’s magic. She was checking to ensure it was still intact. Had the Construct entered the bakery and destroyed it as it meant to, all traces of that energy would’ve been burnt away.

His fists tightened. His burn flared. He didn’t care.

Her inspection complete, the strength seemed to leave her at once. She deflated, leaning heavily against the wooden counter as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. A single, ragged sound escaped her, quickly stifled by a palm to her mouth. She pressed her forehead to the counter’s edge, shoulders trembling.

Ark rushed to her. Every instinct screamed at him to shield, fix. “It’s safe,” he murmured, his hands on her shoulders. “Nothing’s been touched.”

The words felt impossibly thin, a blanket offered against a blizzard. When she finally looked at him, her eyes were glazed. The vulnerability in them was a blade twisted in his gut.

“After my father died, the lean years hit us hard,” she told him, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “The bakery, the orphanage, the house—there was never enough food for all of us. So my mother did something forbidden.”

He waited, watched as her chin trembled.

“She used . . . multiplication spells on the pantry ingredients,” Cassia continued. “A handful of flour became enough for a week’s worth of bread. A single sack of grain fed the orphanage for a month. Milk, butter, beef, everything.”

She swallowed, her tearful eyes lifting to meet his. “But you know magic like that doesn’t come free. Thirty-five years, Ark. The spells cost her thirty-five years of her life. She died young because she chose us over herself.”

He couldn’t find the words. All of them were useless, hollow things that couldn’t touch the weight of what she’d just laid bare. Instead, he pulled her into his arms, as if he could shield her from decades-old grief through sheer proximity. She came willingly, her face pressing into his chest. One hand cradled the back of her head, the other wrapped tight around her waist. He held her there in silence as she trembled, his cheek against her crown, his hand rubbing her back.

He couldn’t change what had happened. But he could embrace her while she grieved her mother’s passing all over again.

A soft mrrrp from the doorway broke the moment. Anuck sat there, tail-tip twitching, his yellow eyes fixed on Cassia. He sauntered in and wove a figure-eight around her ankles. Without a word, she scooped him up and tucked him inside her unbuttoned coat, cradling him against her chest. She rested her chin on his head, drawing a comfort from his warmth that Ark knew he couldn’t offer.

He was witnessing the ecosystem of her survival. The bakery was the sanctuary, the cat its guardian, and she was the resilient heart at the centre of it all, protecting and being protected in turn. He had never felt more like an outsider, yet more determined than ever to earn his place within these walls.

Yellow irises blinked back at him—unbothered, calm, watching. Whatever else he might be, Anuck certainly wasn’t rattled.