Page 46 of Sugar & Sorcery
The instant I lowered my guard, my heart spat every memory back at me like poison. Every emotion. Every flaw. Exploited.
Remember. What they did to you. What they destroyed. What your parents?—
I shifted into my Cursed form and shattered the window to escape.
When I was a monster, I didn’t hear them anymore. The void had that advantage: it felt nothing. Unlike a heart that had only suffering to share.
A heart that was nothing but sucremort.
Part III: The Sorcerers’ Market
16
The sorcerers' market stood unmatched—dangerous, ungoverned, and irresistibly brimming with forbidden wonders.
LEMPICKA
The golden caterpillars crawled up my thigh, slow and slimy like trails of syrup badly poured.
“Go away,” I whispered, half begging, the fresh batch of black donuts wobbling at the top of my hand.
I lifted one leg, trying to keep some scrap of dignity while the entire forest treated my picnic like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Ants. Bees. Crows. Most of the guimauve eyes on the donuts had already been pecked out.
A caterpillar was staring at me from my collarbone. I could’ve sworn it was smiling.
I was alone. Truly alone. Éclair was busy playing architect with acorns, focused as if he were building a temple of earth and twigs across my blanket. I don’t know where Aignan had taken Chouquette—probably to loot the manor or set it on fire.
All I wanted was a picnic in the woods, to at least try to celebrate my birthday with these moody Spirits and my friends (with no guarantee they’d even show up).
“Planning to feed the whole forest, or just its deadliest inhabitants?” His voice. Low. Dragging. Like a strand of black licorice coiled down my spine.
Arawn, draped in a black tunic, mask covering his nose and mouth. Golden chains, a hood shadowed with silk, embroidered panels swinging at his hips—prince and assassin all at once, with gold epaulets on his mantle.
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes lingering on the caterpillars clinging to my leg. “Sugar draws them. You’re a walking confection. Of course they want you.”
He spun his lighter between his fingers. Same tic. Same gesture. Same flame that always died instantly, like a missing breath.
I swallowed my pride. “Could you… help me?”
“Well, well, she finally asks,” he breathed, mock-tender. “Next time—” He crouched, one knee to the ground. His dusk-colored eyes locked on me from below. “Ask for help. Spirits are lazy. Don’t feed them if they don’t deserve it, Confectioner.”
He caught my thigh, settling it onto his. My boots smeared dirt over trousers that looked woven from midnight sky. My cheeks burned.
“What are you doing?” I panted.
He lowered his mask, and I glimpsed a smile. The lighter vanished into a fold of fabric. “Just don’t drop the tray.”
His fingers touched my skin and slid up my thigh. One by one, he plucked the caterpillars away, carefully. They left shimmering trails, and he left a burning frost in their wake. His breath brushed the inside of my leg, and my fingers locked tighter around the tray. He didn’t waver, igniting tiny crackles inside me. I had to think of something else.
“You always keep that lighter. Sentimental?”
“Sentimental?” He arched a brow. “It’s ugly, broken, and the charm’s long dead. I keep it to remember why I don’t want to feel anything anymore.”
I swallowed hard. His words were cold, like a splinter left buried in the heart. A scar still raw. But hate was never the absence of feeling—quite the opposite.
His hand slid higher, slowly lifting the fabric of my long skirt, exposing skin inch by inch, only for his other hand to tug the cloth back down, draping it carefully across the top of my thigh like a protective curtain.
Dangerously methodical.
