Page 7 of Sugar & Sorcery
“What a temper. She and her lamb threw me out like I was filth!”
I stopped. The leather of my gloves creaked under my clenched fists. A drop of blood slipped from between my fingers, falling to the ground.
“She should sweep her own doorstep! The place is a pigsty, I tell you! A disgrace! No wonder she lives alone… With that kind of?—”
I slowly turned my head toward her.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her pupils flickered. Her face drained of color.
“They say,” I murmured, “you can survive with a rotten heart. But you, madam, I suspect you have nothing left but mold.”
She fainted and crumpled to the ground at once, like a poorly tied sack of flour. I stepped over her without breaking stride.
Click. Clack.
This time, the flame held. A butterfly of mist escaped, its wings beating. I followed it with my eyes as it cut through the fog, flying straight ahead.
For once, it knew where it was going.
The little bakery appeared, a splinter of light in the mist.
I passed under the lintel, head low. The bell fell from its hook and landed at my feet. The sun had deserted the broken windows, but not the mushrooms, which spread thick over thebeams. My shadow broke over the shards swept into a corner. The confectioner had her back to me, fingers clenched on a warped broom. A ribbon slipped from her pink strands.
“We’re closed,” she said without looking at me, her voice like a hard candy.
I raised a hand. Behind me, the Cursed shut the door. “I see. Not surprising. Everything that draws me has the elegance of being out of reach.”
I snapped the lighter.
The butterfly took its last breath, then disappeared the moment it brushed the confectioner’s shoulder.
3
The kingdom was divided into three regions: the mountains of the Wish Witch, the royal city of the Prince, which included the village of BoisJoli, and the Forbidden Forest of the cursed Mist Sorcerer.
LEMPICKA
Aman stood in my shop, his head nearly brushing the ceiling.
Not that having male customers (or customers at all) was so unusual—but he was nothing like a customer. His eyes were drowned in shadow, his expressionless face sending a cold jolt straight down my spine. There was also that scent, sharp nettle and green tea. His coat hung from his shoulders like shards of winter sky, that kind of blue-violet that warns of a coming storm. His hair was dyed the shade of faded lavender, dipped in an indigo too shy to be called blue. Around his gloved wrists, blood—or rather, a thick violet liquor—beaded before dripping to the floor.
For the blink of an eye, I thought I saw dark spikes burst from one of his arms, like thorns, tearing through his shirt witha slow, splintering crack. I swallowed hard. Aignan tugged at my dress, trying to pull me back, but I stayed frozen. Behind him, the two Cursed from the night before, smaller now, trembling.
I lifted my battered broom toward the man and his creatures. “You don’t think you’ve done enough already?”
The man tilted his head slightly, revealing sharp cheekbones and features honed like a blade. A cold smile flickered briefly on his lips. Without a word, he reached out and took my broom. Under his fingers, it crumbled to ash.
“I have doubts about the efficiency of that weapon.”
I stepped back.A sorcerer.Aignan bolted out of the shop faster than I ever thought possible for him.
“You’re the one who sent them, aren’t you?” I said, my voice breaking.
The sorcerer raised a hand, indicating the two Cursed. “You will be bound to this shop, at the peril of your souls. Clean. Protect. Once your task is done, you are free to flee and snuff out your miserable existence, if you wish.”
The Cursed froze like broken puppets, their yellow eyes going wide. The smaller one, purplish, rose slightly off the ground, its many tails gripping shards of glass while its fennec-like ears twitched. The larger—a mass of greenish clay with a mushroom sprouting from the top of its head—stepped forward to set the cauldrons back in place.
The sorcerer took a step, crushing a bottle under his heel without so much as an apology.
