AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No need to trouble yourself with that, m’lady. I’ll see that he’s dealt with appropriately.” An angry glint in the baker’s eye told me that there would likely be a beating involved.
“I insist.” I let a trace of Cole’s all-commanding voice slip into my voice, lending the demand of authority I lacked. “What did he steal?”
People paused to watch the spectacle, but I kept my gaze fixed firmly on the baker until he looked away, submitting. “Show her, boy. Don’t shame yourself further.”
The boy didn’t look at me. He just raised a shaky arm in front of me and unclenched his fist.
Bread. All he’d taken was a bit of bread.
“Is this all?” Anger seeped into my words. “It’s barely a mouthful of bread. You chased him forthis?”
The baker took a step back. “It’s the principle, you understand. You let them get away with these bits of mischief and they’ll get up to all sorts of issues. Gotta discipline them.”
The only reason I didn’t growl was that I thought it might scare the child.
Instead, I turned my attention to the kid, kneeling down in front, relaxing my grip on his arm. “What’s your name?” I asked, keeping my voice soft.
The boy worried his lip with a tooth before answering. The baker looked about ready to bark an order at him, but I shut him up with a glare. “Dario.”
“Dario. That’s a nice name.”
The boy gave me a tentative smile, but it fell off his face the moment he glanced back toward the baker.
“I’m Avery,” I said, refocusing his attention on me. “Can you give this man back the bread you stole?”
Dario cast a mournful glance at the mouthful of bread he’d swiped. His stomach growled, and my heart broke. How was it there were rooms of enchanted food in this realm but the boy was starving? But Dario did as I asked, and the baker swiped the scrap of bread up immediately.
“You can go now.” My voice was cold as winter nights when I addressed the baker.
He hesitated only another moment before trudging off.
“I’m sorry I stole,” Dario spoke with a slight lisp.
“Nothing to be sorry for.” I couldn’t bring myself to chide someone for taking care of themselves.
It reminded me of all the times I’d come back to my house in Moon-Ghost. The fridge was empty, more often than not. My mother never bothered to pick up our allotted rations, not concerning herself with needing to provide for me. The scant container of orange juice that taunted me more than once came to mind.
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right what had happened to me, and it wasn’t right what had happened to Dario.
An idea took shape. I could taste the citrus on my tongue.
Dario’s eyes went wide. I released his arm, closing my eyes to focus, but he didn’t run.
“Avery, is that you doing that?” Daphne gasped.
I opened my eyes a moment later.
There, in the middle of the marketplace, was a fruit tree. It was taller than a normal tree, towering over us by at least thirty feet. People had to move back to give it space. I’d have felt bad if not for the fact that the market seemed to constantly rearrange itself. It could handle doing so around a random tree. The ring of onlookers stared at the tree.
Hecate would be proud, I mused. I hadn’t meant to make an entire tree. I’d just thought about an orange. My magic had acted on its own, finding life deep in the ground and spurring it into a tree. Even now, with my magic, I could feel the roots, the branches, the leaves. The tree was solid, as if it had sprouted in this spot decades ago and had seen several seasons instead of just the bleak red sky of Hell.
I reached up and plucked the freshest orange from a low-hanging branch, and handed it to Dario. His eyes widened at the sight of the fruit, looking back and forth from me to the fruit.
I nodded in permission.
And then he took a giant bite of the orange.
“No, no.” I laughed and showed him how to peel the fruit. “Here.”
