On the worktable before her, Bailey’s old parchment lay pinned beneath a pestle, the half-finished scrawl catching the lanternlight. She traced the final, broken sigil with the edge of her nail, humming under her breath.
“Well,” she muttered, “you won’t mind if I finish it for you.”
She’d seen him cast something similar once—a curse disguised as decay. A whisper of entropy, nothing more. Maude spread the ingredients across the counter, lining them up in neat little rows: ironvine, blackthorn bark, sprigs of rosemary, bloodroot, yarrow, moondust caps—and the shadowbell flowers, their petals still dark with dew. Those were his. The foundation.
The bones of the spell.
Then came her touches: a touch of nightshade to lure in the rats, belladonna to soften the wood, and just a drop of myrrh oilfor that lingering note of decay. It was the kind of thing Bailey would have called “quiet sabotage.”
Steam rose in thin, silvery ribbons as Maude measured each ingredient with a practiced hand. She crushed the yarrow between her palms, the scent sharp and clean, then scattered the shadowbell petals across the surface. The potion caught instantly, shimmering like liquid dusk. Leaning over the parchment, she copied Bailey’s runes along the rim of the cauldron, her chalk strokes clean but impatient. The last line—unfinished in his hand—she filled herself, twisting the rune just slightly, the way she imagined he would’ve. Her own flourish. Her own proof that she could do this too.
Maude could already picture the bakery bastard trying to fix the “mysterious” problems, blissfully unaware of the spell weaving itself into his walls. The thought made her lips curl into a smile—one that grew wider as she ground a handful of herbs into powder.
She paused, glancing out the window as the square stirred, the faint sounds of carts creaking and vendors setting up for the day reaching her ears. Her smile didn’t falter as she muttered to herself, “Good luck baking your way out ofthis, Wesley.”
Revenge, she decided, smelled faintly of smoke and resin, with just a hint of malicious glee.
She reached for a moondust cap, grinding the gnarled piece into powder between her fingers. The fine dust shimmered in the air before falling into the cauldron, where the liquid darkened to a murky gray. The cauldron began to hum. Softly at first, a low vibration she felt in her fingertips. Maude frowned and gave the mixture another slow stir. The color deepened from gray to violet, then to a shimmering gold that caught the light like sunlight on oil.
“That’s… different,” she muttered.
The hum grew louder. The parchment quivered against the counter, the ink glowing faintly. Her stomach turned cold.
“Wait—”
The potion flared and the brew boiled over, spilling across the counter and onto the floor.
“Shit.” Maude staggered back as the light intensified. The hum split into a crack, and before she could move, a pulse of magic burst outward, rippling through the shop like a wave.
The floor pitched beneath her. Shelves rattled violently, jars shattered, and books tumbled in a chaotic cascade. Maude lost her footing and hit the ground hard, the breath jolted from her lungs. The walls shimmered like water around her, bending and warping as if the entire shop were being rewritten.
Then, the surge stopped.
Silence pressed in, broken only by the faint hiss of the cauldron, its contents collapsed into an iridescent sludge. Maude stayed sprawled on the floor, chest heaving, palms stinging where she’d caught herself.
That’s when the smell hit her.
Sugar.
Overwhelmingly sweet, cloying—so thick in the air it made her stomach turn. Her eyes widened, and she scrambled upright, heart hammering.
The shop had changed.
Her dark, brooding sanctuary of potions had been horrifically fused into something unholy—neither hers nor his, but both. Shadowed shelves gave way to pastel trim. Her jars of herbs sat beside trays of glittering cupcakes.
The Elixir Emporium and Sugar High Bakery had become one.
Maude’s breath quickened as her gaze darted around the room. The smell of lavender and damp wood fought desperately against the saccharine aroma of cinnamon rolls. The air felt…confused, like it didn’t know what it was supposed to be.
The counter she’d been leaning on had transformed, the rustic wood of her workspace now clashing violently with the polished marble of his. Her cauldron had somehow fused with his massive mixer, the two machines grotesquely intertwined, gears andenchanted runes spinning together in a chaotic union. Even the walls had changed. Where her shelves had once displayed neat rows of tonics, tinctures, and bottled charms, they now curved into racks of baked goods—tarts stacked in pastel towers, truffles dusted in edible gold, and bread loaves piled high. Her small, cracked window was gone, replaced with his massive display case, now stuffed with a horrifying blend of cursed trinkets and cheerful, frosted madness.
And then she spotted him.
Wesley stood beneath the row of shrunken heads that used to dangle ominously from her rafters. Now they were strung together with pastel ribbons, swaying gently like some grotesque parody of party décor. His mouth hung open as he surveyed the shop.
“What did you do?” Wesley’s voice broke through the suffocating silence.
“This is not real,” Maude muttered, dragging a hand down her face.
