Page 34 of Sugar & Sorcery
“Chouquette’s with Arawn. But where?” I shoot him a deadly glare.
Éclair beckoned us. He dashed down the stairs. I followed at once, Aignan on my heels, casting suspicious looks at the walls that groaned and stretched with the passing wind. Empty frames lined the corridors.
“That damned sorcerer must have done something to Chouquette!” he snarled, half baring his fangs.
My heart clenched. “Aignan… why do you hate sorcerers so much?”
He looked away. “There’s nothing to say.”
He never wanted to speak of the sorcerer who had experimented on him. The floor turned to stone, vibrating beneath our feet as if the structure were floating, barely tethered to the rest of the manor. The walls rose higher, curving toward a pointed ceiling. At the end of the hall was a single door.
Éclair hid behind me and gently pushed me forward. I opened it. A wave of hot air enveloped us, heavy with ancient paper and ash. We were inside a turret. Twisted shelves lined the walls, sagging under the weight of dusty grimoires.
A muffled moan broke the silence, like a sigh torn from the manor’s very entrails.
Chouquette!
My heart raced. I traded a panicked look with my companions and crept forward. “We need to find where it’s coming from.”
My fingers brushed the curled edges of confectioners’ grimoires, centuries old. I had never seen a collection like this. Some spoke of regrets dissolved in sugar pearls. Others of sweets that could restore youth. Most had missing pages. None held Nyla’s gift. But one thing was certain: the sorcerer was utterly devoted to finding that recipe—the one that could kill him.
A sharp odor stung my nose. I turned. Aignan, looking very pleased with himself, had just lifted a hind leg and soiled the reading sofa.
“Aignan!”
He offered me a crooked smile. “I’m a beast, Lempicka. And when a beast is displeased, it marks its territory.”
With one negligent swipe, he scattered loose pages.
“That excuses nothing! Clean it up right now or?—”
A sinister rustle rose behind a little door, wedged between shelves at the foot of the stairway leading to the higher tomes.
“This may hurt,” the sorcerer’s voice echoed from the shadows.
Another wrenching cry from Chouquette.
Aignan stiffened, his fur bristling like a broom of twigs. “Lempicka, don’t go!”
But I was already moving, fists clenched.
He grabbed my skirt, growling between his teeth, “You don’t understand! He’s experimenting on her. He wants to make her a weapon. If you go in there, he’ll?—”
Another moan. I tore free of his grip and flung the door open. I froze.
Chouquette sat in the center of the room, her ear tails lifted high, looking as guilty as a child caught stealing cookies. Before her, a mountain of mismatched objects was sprawled… which she had clearly just spat out. She hiccuped and let out a tiny burp.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came. Arawn was there, a few steps away, impassive, as if I had interrupted the most mundane of rituals.
He crossed his arms. “What are you doing here?”
I blinked, waving vaguely at the scene in front of me. “Chouquette vanished, and… I thought?—”
Arawn raised a brow. “That I was torturing her? Your lack of faith is almost endearing.”
“I was worried about her.”
“Worried about a Cursed? How charming.”
