Page 116 of Sugar & Sorcery
I pulled my coat tighter, hiding my face, and flicked my lighter. A butterfly of mist escaped. It didn’t dissolve. Not like usual. Worse, it flew toward her. For the first time in my life, I did something unthinkable.
I fled. Far. As far as I could.
As though she were the most dangerous adversary I had ever faced.
I flew to Zelda. To her kitchen, in search of solitude. But there I found Nyla, working on a confection that looked much like the girl’s, this one shaped like a star.
“What’s that?” I asked.
She raised her brows. “Velvet stars. And you’re covered in branches.”
I ignored the remark, bit into one, waiting for the same sensation. But nothing unusual happened this time. It wasn’t the same. “Not as good.”
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Or to admit the truth: sorcerers forged a unique bond with a single confectioner. A bond for life. And I had, against my will, just found mine. I had condemned myself.
Fortunately, Nyla slapped me for insulting her pastries.
My cursed side judged it better to erase that memory from my mind.
And I had. Until now.
The butterfly of mist, however, had not forgotten.
It brought me back to her, again and again, until my hearts—blind and reluctant—finally surrendered and admitted she was the one I had been calling for all along.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Two hearts beat in unison.
Something inside me had broken. Or rather, been freed. My cursed heart had yielded to my human heart, and somehow, against all odds, the two had found balance.
I opened my eyes. Lempicka was falling. Her body drifted through the air, arms slack, her hair scattering around her like a spectral halo. Too far. Too fast.
I dove. I was no longer a stag dragon. Nothing of that remained—except for this fragment, this last vestige that refused to die. I forced my heart to give way, to burn what little sucremort was left in me. My wings cut through the air. Not as vast as before, not as strong. But enough.
I caught her midair. My arm locked around her at the last second, my other hand sliding behind her head, pressing her against me to shield her from the impact. Too late to slow. I twisted, turned my back to the ground.
The earth rushed up to meet us. My wings shattered. The mist broke apart. Pain exploded down my spine, flaring into every nerve of my body. The ground swallowed us in a crash, lifting a wave of dust and rubble.
A crushing weight pressed against my chest, something strange, unknown, making me feverish and weak. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t magic. It was my human heart. Beating too hard. Too fast. An uncontrollable tide. I wasn’t ready. Everything was too sharp, too real. The colors burned my eyes, the sounds deafened me. And against me…
Lempicka.
My breath hitched. I pulled her tighter, as though I could carve her into my skin, make sure she would never vanish, and that she was real. Her loosened strands scattered against my chest, soft and unruly. Their scent, a mix of sugar and cotton, enveloped me, and it was as though all of me twisted beneath a new kind of pain.
I turned her gently and pressed my forehead to hers before laying her down on the ground. I knelt beside her. She made me feel something I would never master. Something immortal. I didn’t know what to do with this heart. With these beats that made me feel like I would implode every second I looked at her. I wanted to kiss her, cherish her, lose myself in her presence again and again.
“Foolish human,” I murmured with a thin smile. “You’ve saved me again, when it should be my role.”
But she never followed the rules. Lempicka had tamed my Cursed heart. The one that was supposed to be untamable. It still beat, but it had yielded to her. The sucremort had bowed beforethe sucre d'or. Before her. And my magic, it had not abandoned me. It had simply come to terms with me.
I lifted my gaze. No more Spirits at my side. Only Zelda’s Cursed, bowing before me. Freed from her grasp, freed from the sucremort. They would be reborn.
“That’s impossible,” Zelda hissed from the ground. I had nearly forgotten her. “You can’t… the curse?—”
Sorcerers had no power over the soul. But confectioners did. We had always underestimated their gentle magic.
“I’ll send you to the prince. He’ll know what to do with you,” I declared coldly. “Farewell, Zelda.”
