Page 10 of Sugar & Sorcery
“I meant your past. To make you so…”Contemptuous. Cold. Careless.“Indifferent.”
“Centuries of darkness, of boredom… and a patience that frays a little more with every indiscreet question.”
He strode toward the door. He was so tall he had to dip his head slightly to avoid hitting the lintel.
“Wait!” I called. “I can’t keep two Cursed here! The villagers would never understand.”
The two creatures’ shoulders sagged, as if wounded by my words, before they went back to their work with less spirit.
The sorcerer turned back, his gaze narrowing faintly.
“You refuse my gift?” he said, his words brushing like a blade against skin. “They’re harmless now. At worst, Category Three or Four. You have nothing to fear.”
“Tell that to the village,” I muttered.
The sorcerer crouched by the doorway, laying a hand on the frame while murmuring words of incantation I couldn’t catch. The shop gave a soft creak, as if something had just been added to it. Then he dusted off his hands and his eyes fell on the notice pinned to the door—the one about the mysterious Mist Sorcerer.
A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Ridiculous.”
“You know him?” I dared to ask.
“The author of this absurdity? Oh yes,” he said, voice sharp, each word laced with biting scorn. “If he’s not already dead, he deserves to be for this farce.”
Farce? I opened my mouth, searching for what to say, but he was already leaving. And though he seemed careless with his own life, I couldn’t help but call after him:
“Your magic isn’t restored yet! If you keep using it without feeding it, you’ll end up?—”
“I’m not looking for a confectioner,” he cut in, cold as steel. “I believe I’ve already compensated you for your trouble.” His smile tugged slightly wider, tinged with mocking irony. “Unless you have a specific request? But don’t ask me to make someone fall in love with you. I don’t do that sort of magic.”
I clenched my fists, heat rising to my face. Did he just imply I was a spinster?
“I didn’t save you, hoping to get anything in return,” I shot back, furious.
The sorcerer frowned faintly, as though the idea itself was incomprehensible to him. “You’d best forget our meeting.”
“Wait!”
But it was already too late.
A sudden gust burst in, shoving me back inside. The door shut behind him. In an instant, he vanished into the mist.
I no longer had a shred of doubt: I had just met the abominable Mist Sorcerer.
4
When a confectioner’s heart falters, it becomes vulnerable to the frost of curses.
LEMPICKA
Never would I have thought I’d say this one day, but having those two Cursed in my shop had, in the end, proven… useful. Even if, let’s be honest, I still had no idea how one was supposed to manage them.
“We should leave,” said Aignan, hiding from the Cursed in the debris of the counter split in two.
Yet, they weren’t so terrifying anymore. The one who looked like a lump of clay topped with a lopsided mushroom brought me what I needed, or at least, he tried. I would still have to teach him how to tell flour from dust and find a way to deal with the moss stubbornly growing across the backs of his hands.
As for the smaller one, she had settled herself between the spice shelves, letting out little satisfied gurgles. Her tails, like violet ribbons, wiggled happily as she sorted jars of edible flowers—though she took the opportunity to slip a few petalsinto her wide mouth along the way. I noticed she seemed rounder than when she’d arrived, but I moved on.
“Nyla asked us to take care of the shop, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
