Page 67 of Sugar & Sorcery
“His heart. It still beats. You can saveus.”
The boy looked at me one last time. His body broke apart into a rain of translucent moths. It was like each fragile wingbeat erased a fragment of his pain.
“But I didn’t give you your sugarplums! I didn’t keep my promise! You can’t go now, you?—”
“You already did,” he whispered. “You’re the one who healed me.”
And he was gone.
White snow covered the ground, stained with red. I shivered, my breath fogging in the frozen air. The two bodies of his parents lay curled in the snow. Their hands clenched still around cursed apples, pressed so hard that the pulp had burst between their fingers. In their hollow sockets, worms crept without hurry. His mother no longer had a face. Only a lighter remained.
“She isn’t waking. She’s crystallized!”
“Lempicka!”
Arawn? Aignan?
The boy was still alive. He crawled toward the lighter, his blackened fingers trembling. He clutched it to his chest, thenslipped it beneath his skin. His gaze fixed where the snow crunched. A figure approached in the white, dragging a long fur cloak. A red carriage, gilded with gold, waited behind her. A scent of poppy and ashes.
The Wish Witch.
“So it’s true,” she said, disgust curling her voice. “The tree has been corrupted. Pitiful humans. Too cowardly to face me, they chose to kill themselves instead.”
She stopped before the kneeling child. He hadn’t lifted his head. He seemed nailed to the spot, his legs unable to move, his brows furrowed with pain, as though the tree behind him had driven its roots into his back, keeping him captive.
“Oh… a survivor?”
The wind slapped me, whistling between my ribs. It wanted to tear me from this place. The memory was slipping. I reached out, but I was pulled away. No. I dug in my heels, arched back against the gale, teeth clenched. I would not leave. Not until I had seen everything the Spirit meant to show me.
I had promised to save him.
“The apple should have killed you long ago,” Zelda breathed, pulling aside the tatters of the boy’s clothes to reveal his chest—there, his human heart beat faintly, besieged by the curse that had left a violet mark across his skin.
The boy stared at her, his throat dry. “I want… to live.”
“Live? For what?”
“Revenge.”
The witch draped her heavy fox-fur cloak over his trembling body. “How could two wretches like them ever have birthed a boy as marvelous as you? A boy with a soul so resilient?”
His eyes widened, as if no one had ever spoken to him that way. As if no one had ever given him affection or respect.
Arawn, no…
I staggered back, tears floating in the air, my vision dimming.Just a little longer. Just a little more.
“I lost my family once too,” the witch said, unrolling a parchment, sealed with a feather, which she held out to him. “Perhaps you could join mine? I can grant your wish. If you become my apprentice.”
The boy started, gasping. “And what do you want in return?”
The witch burst into laughter. “I will save you from your miserable fate. I will teach you everything you must know. And then, you will become my right hand. My protector. With your curse under my command, you will become so powerful that all who cross you will tremble. But the price will be far greater than you can imagine. You must renounce your humanity and endure suffering beyond anything you have known.”
The boy pressed his lips together before weakly biting the enchanted feather, too frail to hold it in his blackened hands. The witch’s smile deepened as the child signed the parchment.
“The day your fragile human heart submits, and your dark heart takes its place entirely…” She traced a finger across his chest, where two black hearts tangled together, beating at different rhythms.“…You will remain at my side for eternity. More powerful than you could ever dream.”
The witch lifted him into her arms, and before the abyss swallowed me whole, her final words rang out:
