Page 62 of RAKEish

“Watch your step as she shows you around,” the shopkeeper said.

Each step Lux took seemed to echo with a soft heartbeat, as if the wooden floor beneath her feet lived. A sensation that bordered on eerie…or magical, depending on your mindset.

The cat jumped and landed on a heavily laden table, nearly toppling an ornate box off a pile of haphazardly stacked books.

It then turned toward Lux and mewed.

“Oh. You want me to pick that up?” Lux said, as if conversing with a cat was the most natural thing in the world.

The cat nudged the box with her head.

Lux picked it up and discovered it had a knob on its backside; realizing it was a music box, she wound it and then opened the lid. A haunting melody filled the room. One she didn’t recognize, but the shopkeeper must have because he started humming along, his voice rich with nostalgia and unspoken stories.

Inside the box, under a cockeyed faux bottom, Lux discovered a folded showbill. She pulled it out and opened it. Her heart stopped beating as her brain spun in circles.

The showbill was from a Shiretopian performance. No way could this be a coincidence.

Lux flipped over the aged paper, almost expecting to see that a Landshire had performed in the musical, only to discover a recipe had been scrawled there. A recipe for love knots.

Love knots.

Interesting. The curse had spoken of the one who unknots his loveless heart.

“Is this the antidote?” she asked Ms. Princess, who sat licking her paws as if well-pleased with herself.

When the cat didn’t reply—because of course she didn’t—Lux took a picture of the recipe and tucked the showbill back into its secret compartment. Now what was she supposed to do? She replayed the curse.

‘This curse I cast upon thee can be broken by a loving heart deed.

But she who unknots his loveless heart will never win his forever heart.’

Would the loving heart deed be accomplished by simply giving Scott the recipe? Or did it require her baking cookies for him?

To be on the safe side, she’d do both. And then Scott would read the recipe, eat a cookie, and boom…the curse would be broken, and his heart would be free to love anyone but her.

“Which is what I want,” she said to the cat, which was busy giving Lux judgmental eyes.

When Ms. Princess continued with her look of reproach, Lux added, “Not that I expect you to understand, but for the good of my long-term happiness, I need all temptations of Scott to be removed from my life choices.”

Ms. Princess continued to judge.

Sighing, Lux took a step toward the door, only to stop in her tracks when the cat meowed quite loudly. Lux turned and glanced at the animal, who still stood next to the box. “What?”

The cat meowed again.

“She wants you to buy the trinket box,” the shopkeeper said. “Within it lies the answer to what you search.”

“How does she know I’m searching for anything in particular?” Lux asked, her suspicions on full alert.

The shopkeeper shrugged. “Ms. Princess long ago went through her nine lives. She’s now living in the second veil, where’s she’s been assigned the job of helping those like you.”

“Like me?”

“That is all I’m allowed to know, but I trust you know the rest, or you would have never attracted her attention. She’s quite finicky about whom she associates with.”

“And how do you know she’s a ghost?”

“I’ve seen her walk through walls. The question you’re really asking is how I know Ms. Princess has a job in the second veil. I received that information from a medium who stopped in one afternoon not too long ago. A lovely woman. I believe she said her name was Molly.”

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