Page 49 of Bound to the Fae Assassin

She nodded slowly, smiling back.

“I’ll just be a moment,” she told him. “A few calming breaths of fresh air, no more.”

She walked outside, heading toward the communal ovens, pretending to examine them as he’d suggested.

The cool air felt good on her skin. She could almost hear the faintest whisper of the grasses greeting her.

It was hard not to think back to the other side of the wall, where the trees practically spoke to her out loud, and she seemed to share a common language with every leaf in the forest.

But it wouldn’t do to think about that, or about Blackthorn, or even about Jericho.

Her own dream was within reach.

She was baking for the King today.

As the reality finally settled on her, she felt her cheeks flush with joy. She grabbed her skirts and rocketed back into the tent, not wanting to miss a moment after all.

Blackthorn was bent over the large bowl, pulling something from his pocket.

“What are you doing?” she murmured.

He turned to her with a guilty expression, and she looked at his hand.

Thistlebaum.

Her mouth dropped open in shock as he shoved the blossom quickly back into his pocket.

“Farrow,” he began.

“I’ve been a fool,” she murmured.

“You’re not a fool,” he said.

“You are the one who brought that cursed flower here in the first place,” she realized out loud. “You dropped it, and I picked it up and nearly killed my best friend with it.”

“You also brought me here to save him,” Blackthorn said.

“That’s why you wanted the flower when we were on your side, why you bargained for it,” she whispered harshly. “No wonder you were so interested in this competition. You never wanted to help me. You were just using me to get close to the King.”

“At first maybe,” he admitted. “But not now—”

She put up her hand, cutting him off as she scanned the tent. The other bakers were all so busy that no one seemed to have noticed their argument.

She knew what she had to do. Loathe as she was to do it.

“I can’t turn you in,” she said softly. “If I do, I’ll be disqualified, maybe even jailed for abetting you.”

“I understand,” he said.

“We will make this cake, with the original ingredients,” she told him. “And when it’s done, all of this is over. Your obligation to me will have been completed. You can go back across the wall. I will never see you again.”

“Farrow—” he began.

“Never,” she told him. “Your obligation to me is met.”

She felt something move at her wrist and looked down to see the bracelet he had placed there first turn back to a flower, then dry and crumble into dust. She thought the very same thing must be happening to her heart as she watched the remains swirl to the ground around her feet.

She applied herself to the ingredients, trying and failing to tune out everything else.

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