Her stomach dropped.
Not blades. Not grass at all.
Her hand sank into the ground like a sponge, sweet stickiness clinging to her skin.
“Marshmallow,” she muttered, her voice shaking with disbelief. “The grass is marshmallow.”
Her heart stumbled, then kicked into double-time. She shot to her feet and bolted down the road, sprinting toward her shop. By the time she barreled onto Blightbend Way, she stopped so abruptly her teeth clicked hard enough to sting.
Oh.Fuck.
Her stupid curse—her spectacular disaster of a curse—was spreading. And it was so much worse than the nightmare reels her brain had been running.
On Wesley’s half, everything was turning edible. Cobblestones gleamed like sugar cubes. A wheelbarrow slouched against the bookshop wall, now pure chocolate, already sagging. Even the streetlamps glowed in candied amber, their poles glossy like hard caramel.
Her half? Worse.
Where her curse touched, things died. Grass shriveled to brittle gray husks. Trees twisted in on themselves, branches clawing as if they wanted to crawl out of the soil. The cobbles cracked and crumbled, rotting as if centuries had passed in hours.
Half candy-land, half graveyard.Entirely her fault.
Grim.
She shoved through her shop door, wood groaning as the half-rotted frame scraped against its new chocolate trim. She didn’t stop to take in the grotesque disaster—her focus was singular.
“Grim!”
The silence was deafening.
Then—paw prints. Tiny. Leading across the dusty floor, faintly sparkling like someone had powdered them with confectioner’s sugar. They trailed straight toward the backroom. Her chest tightened. She followed, pushed the door open—and there he was.
Sitting like a smug gargoyle in the middle of frosting carnage, calmly licking his paw.
Maude sagged against the doorframe, a long, shaky breath tearing out of her.
But then he looked up at her. His ears glowed. His nose was bright candy pink.
“Saints.”
She scooped him up, heart clawing at her throat. His fur was hot against her hands, his nose twitching like nothing was wrong while she fell apart.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his fur, guilt hitting like a gut punch. She carried him outside, crouched low, and set him carefully in the grass. “Stay,” she said firmly, even though Grim had never once in his life listened to her.
Maude dropped to her knees beside him, fingers shaking as she yanked her pack open. Yarrow. Bloodroot. Anything that might buy time.
She should’ve done this before she left. She knew better.Bailey would’ve hexed her ears off for forgetting containment. She grabbed a rock, muttered a low incantation, and twisted it into a crude cauldron. Herbs crushed under her palms, bitter smoke rising as she worked. The mixture glowed faintly; the light swirled like tiny embers caught in a breeze.
This spell was an old one. Bailey had taught it to her back when she’d been a walking disaster of magical accidents, and it had saved her more times than she could count. She hadn’t needed it in years, but her hands moved instinctively, the motions etched into her muscle memory.
When the glow brightened and the spell felt stable, Maude stood and cast it toward the shop. A shimmering dome of energy sprang to life, enclosing the building in a protective barrier. The sickly, decaying air within seemed to pause, the creeping curse halting in its tracks.
Maude stared at it for a long moment, waiting for any sign of failure. When none came, she let out a shaky breath, wiping her damp hands on her skirt. For once, something worked.
Grim sprawled beside her, tail flicking, ears still faintly pink. She ran her fingers through his fur, murmuring a detection charm. No deeper curse. Just surface level.
Maude lay back beside him, the ground cool beneath her, the dome humming faintly over her shop like a heartbeat she didn’t trust.
This wouldn’t hold forever. She knew it. The curse was a bomb, ticking louder every second. If she didn’t find shadowbell—soon—half of Mistwood Hills would go down with her mistake.
