Page 1 of Sugar & Sorcery
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Golden apples are harvested at the first breath of winter, when they are at their ripest and brimming with magic.
LEMPICKA
It wasn’t the first time I burned myself with the sucre d'or, but it was the first time that tears filled my eyes.
The sugar had bitten me, hot and sticky, right between the fingers. The spatula had slipped from my grasp, and the cauldron had answered with an outraged growl. It hissed steam. Chunks of caramelized apple pulp burst at the surface, far too dark a gold.
“You have a heart too big for such clumsy hands.”Nyla.
I turned, trying to hide the counter where the precarious tower of cream puffs was threatening to collapse. The cream ran like melted wax. Even the ovens groaned, metallic and judgmental, as if they were holding a grudge.
I never should’ve attempted acroquembouchetwice my height.
Nyla didn’t say anything, just pulled a bandage from her apron pocket, like there had always been a corner reserved for my mistakes. She wrapped my reddened fingers, the fabric smelling like her: lavender and flour. If Nyla left, who would remind me that these little blisters weren’t failures, but a confectioner’s kisses?
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“If you keep this up, one day you'll disappear… like a burnt soufflé. Sunken and hollow,” she said, though I didn’t dare meet her ice-blue gaze. “Like the boy in the story, remember?”
I shook my head, throat tight.
She pinched my chin and gently lifted it. “A confectioner so brilliant he baked his own heart into a sugar dough. He shared it with the whole world, but they all wanted more. So he gave them every piece of himself until the last bite was gone. Until nothing was left of him.”
“Sorry I disappointed you,” I mumbled, puffing my cheeks to stop the tears from falling.
Nyla plucked the sugar stuck to a strand of my pink hair. I’d once thought about cutting it short like her brown pixie cut, hoping it’d be enough to convince the villagers we were family. But I’d never dared, especially after all those years she’d patiently taught me how to tie it up.
And there she was, moving behind me, wiping down the counter with a cloth, cleaning everything all over again. “Did it hurt that much?”
I shook my head, quietly wiping a tear away with the edge of my sleeve. It wasn’t the burn. Not that one, at least. It was the other one. The one pressing against my heart. I wanted to keep that one forever, as it would always remind me of my last day with Nyla.
She crossed the shop to fetch her grimoire from the shelf. Hers was so heavy and old. The leather was cracked, and its gold-embossed title was nearly gone.
“Do you remember the first recipe every confectioner’s grimoire contains?” she asked, dropping it onto the counter with a heavy thud.
“It’s not like I have a grimoire of my own…” I coughed, the dust rising into my nose.
Nyla tapped me on the head with a spatula before reciting the story I’d heard a thousand times. “There was a tree with white and golden apples, blessed by frost and light. From that tree was born the first confectioner, with a heart as pure as snow, and the gift to extract from those apples the very essence of the sucre d'or. But…”
She brandished the spatula at me like a sword.
“Cracks in the heart let curses seep in,” I recited.
“A confectioner is nothing without a strong heart. And do you know why? Because raw the sucre d'or is lethal. It can burn the soul. Only our confections and pastries can bind the magical and the mundane, because…”
I crossed my arms. I didn’t care about sorcerers. All I ever wanted was to bake for people. To bring them a little joy. Just the tiniest bit of magic. If sorcerers didn’t exist, Nyla wouldn’t have to leave. But Nyla did care.
“Sorcerers need sucre d'or pastries to restore their mana and fortify their spells. We, the confectioners, extract the sugar from golden apples and trap the magic inside. We are essential to them.”
That’s why the Wish Witch had summoned Nyla to become the royal patissière. A great honor. Yet, deep down, all I wanted was for nothing to change.
“Magic always has a price,” she declared, rummaging through one of the wooden drawers scattered throughout theshop like they’d found their own places. “I’ve seen sorcerers turn hollow from abusing it.”
I nodded. This was my last lesson, after all.The last one.
“Sorcerers and confectioners have always been two halves of the same whole,” Nyla continued, pulling out a second grimoire. “Light and darkness, bound in balance and?—”
