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“That woman knew.” The words come out harsh. “Nerida. That first morning. She took one look at me and knew exactly what had happened. ‘Feed him well.’ That’s what she said. Like it was a joke. Like it was obvious.”

Malak moves closer. Not touching. Just close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. “It’s not a joke.”

“Then what is it?”

“Survival.” The word is flat. Hard. “I gave you my core. My strength. I didn’t mean to, but I did. And without it, I’m nothing. Just hunger and shadow. But when you bake, when you put that magic into the bread, you’re giving it back to me. Not all of it. Just enough to keep me functional.”

I look down at the loaf in my hands. My bread. The thing I’ve been making every morning for three years, the routine that kept me sane after Dan died. The only part of my life that still made sense.

“So I’m not really a better baker,” I say quietly. “The magic is doing it. Your magic.”

“No.” His hand covers mine on the bread. His skin is fever-hot. “The magic amplifies what’s already there. But the skill is yours. The bread was always good, Kaia. Now it’s just... more.”

I want to pull away. Want to throw the loaf across the room and scream. But I don’t. Because underneath the anger and the fear and the overwhelming wrongness of it all, there’s something else.

Relief. He’s not dying. The hollowness I saw in him three days ago, the way he could barely hold his shape, the tremor in his hands when he thought I wasn’t looking. It’s fading. Because I’m feeding him.

Because every morning, when I toast bread and slather it with butter and watch him eat, I’m putting him back together.

“She knew,” I whisper. “Nerida. She knew what we’d become.”

“Yes.”

“What are we?”

His fingers tighten over mine. “I don’t know. But we’re going to figure it out.”

I set the bread down. My hands are shaking. “I need to sit.”

He guides me to the stool by the cooling racks, his hand on my elbow, steadying me. The touch sends warmth racing up my arm, and I hate how good it feels. How right.

“How long have you known?” I ask.

“Since the second morning. When you made me breakfast and I felt the magic in it.” He leans against the counter, arms crossed. “I should have told you.”

“Yes. You should have.”

“Would you have stopped baking?”

“No.” The answer comes automatically. “I can’t. The bakery⁠—”

“I know.”

We sit in silence. The bread cools. The morning light filters through the window, casting shadows across the flour-dusted floor.

“Nerida called it ‘deep magic,” I say finally. “Shadow and sorrow. What does that mean?”

“It means we’re bound in ways that shouldn’t be possible. My kind doesn’t create. We consume. But somehow, with you, I gave instead of taking. And now we’re tangled up in each other so tight I can’t tell where I end and you begin.”

I press my hand against my stomach. Feel the pulse, the warmth, the thing that shouldn’t exist. “And the baby?”

“Is the proof that impossible things happen anyway.”

I look at him. Really look. At the sharp angles of his face, the way his glamour flickers slightly at the edges, revealing hints of horn and shadow. At the hunger in his eyes that never quite goes away, even when he’s just eaten.

“I’m scared,” I admit.

“Good. You should be.”