“I have read countless tomes about the shade monsters. I have also been reading about a curse on the house of the elves. On the Undying Lands themselves,” the king pursed his full lips, stepped around the couch, and stood before the fire. The orange flames caressed his face, his strong body, as a lover.
“Myths, legends.” Jel dismissed the words. “What we need is sound science and more research.”
“I thought you worked in magic?” I asked.
“Magic is one word for what I do, but it all follows a system of rules and checks and balances. Everything has to make sense, be researched, and studied. It will take time to study the beast, but I can’t just snap my finger and make a cure out of nothing.”
Bile rose in my throat and I fought it back. I would not be sick. I pulled in breath after deep breath praying to calm my heart. But then the king was there, kneeling by the couch where I sat. He gripped my hands in his large, warm hands. Calluses snagged as a new warmth filled me like melted butter. How did a pampered king get calluses like that?
“Sometimes magic cannot be explained with science. Sometimes it has a will of its own.” The king’s deep voice, so close to my ear from where he knelt, sent shivers through mybody. He was talking about…me. “I will find a cure. I will end this.”
The king’s nearness pulled my mind like spun sugar, all jagged and messy. Though he knelt beside the couch, my hands in his, he still managed to tower over me. I took in a deep breath and allowed the king’s warm hands to calm me, though my heart skittered wildly.
I would not allow this blight or these strange new interactions with the king to control me. I would go back to what I knew, and work from there, step by step, like baking. Some things took time to proof. I needed to gather the right ingredients to solve this curse, but first I needed to find the right cookbook. The right tomes and legends, the right science and numbers and magic to solve this riddle.
This was something I was good at. I had a talent for finding patterns and chasing out different outcomes until I found the one that fit. That was how I’d gotten my peanut butter fudge to work out as well as it had.
“I will work with you, King.” I bowed my head to the Elf King who knelt before me like a knight to a princess in one of my mother’s fairytales. “Maybe together we can find a cure before…”
I didn’t need to finish my sentence because the silence that fell over the small cottage said it all.
The king stood, then crossed his large arms across his broad chest, cocking his head. “What would a human know of a shadow blight?”
He didn’t say it in a rude manner, but curiously. As if he truly wished to know.
I blinked at the change in the king’s demeanor. “I know it has spread into the human lands. I know it threatens my life as well as that of my people. If you have been working for a year to find a cure, maybe you need an outsider, a human, to help find the answers that could have been overlooked.”
I expected him to scowl or scoff at the help of a mere human. But instead, he nodded solemnly. “Very well, Little Baker, we start the day after tomorrow. For now, you are to rest. King’s orders.”
It was my turn to scowl.Little Baker. It wasn’t the first time he’d used this nickname, but it felt like the first intentional time. I could have sworn I saw a gleam in the king’s eye, if only for a second, then he bowed, white hair waving in the small breeze, and left the same way he came.
I slept on the couch for the rest of the night, then spent the next morning under the fierce care of Rafia. Thanks to Jel’s ministrations, my wound merely ached. It felt tingly and itchy.
I couldn’t sit still for long. Anxiety zapped through me like lightning, causing my legs to twitch. Thoughts of shade monsters with dagger-like teeth snapping in a cage somewhere near the castle plagued my thoughts. I needed to move. I needed to calm my nerves. I needed to bake. If I wasn’t going to make it past Christmas, then I would take every chance I had to enjoy holiday baking before the shadow illness ripped through me, turning me into some wraith for all eternity.
My stomach growled. I knew just what I wanted to bake, Daisy’s favorite cookies.
I placed my feet on the floor and made to stand when Rafia clucked from where she scrubbed the hardwood floor.
“Miss!” She groaned. “You aren’t to be doing anything.”
“I can’t just sit here.” I tested my weight on my injured leg. “If I don’t get up and bake, I’ll go mad.”
“Miss, the king doesn’t expect anything from you today, but to heal. Please.”
I huffed as I tested my weight on my leg. It didn’t hurt so much as tingle. As if my leg were half asleep. The cuts on my arms and legs were sore, but clean. A knock sounded from the cabin door and just as quickly, a familiar figure let himself in.Jacob. Worry rimmed his eyes until he caught a glimpse of me standing on my own two feet by the hearth.
He shook the fear from his eyes and nodded grimly. “Seems you’re up and about, Miss Noelle. I heard your leg was injured last night, and,”—he cleared his throat— “well, I made you something that might be useful. Just for when you’re ready. I didn’t know if the king expected…”
“No,” I held up a hand. “The king is not so cruel that he expects me to bake today.”
Had I justdefendedthe king? Again? This infection must be muddling my mind as well.
Jacob nodded, his expression guarded. “Well, this should help you when you’re ready. Gotto.”
Jacob’s lanky apprentice appeared a moment later carrying a beautiful wooden stool. Affixed to the bottom of the hand carved piece were four little round wheels.
“A rolling stool?” I smiled, “How thoughtful.”
