Maude sighed long and thin, then placed her hand in his.
They walked together down the emptying square, boots scuffing in the flour dust.
Wesley glanced at her sidelong. “What are you craving?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it.Craving?She couldn’t think of anything. Mostly, she craved sleep. But her stomach made a low, traitorous growl. Her mind scrambled. Something quick, easy, anything to stop him fussing.
“There’s a stall near the edge of the wharf,” she muttered. “Strings of fairy lights.Char & Chime—they do moon-crusted skewers.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Moon-crusted…?”
“Charred meat with star-anise glaze. The fairies sprinkle it with powdered comet-tail.”
“Sounds perfect.”
It was more than perfect. The stall shimmered in the river breeze, fairy lights dancing in a shifting canopy overhead. The lights weren’t bulbs—they were the fairies themselves, small as fists, wings glimmering like stained glass. They darted between the branches and the open grills, trailing sparks that rained down on skewers lined with jewel-bright cuts of meat and vegetables. Smoke curled fragrant and strange: sweet, metallic, threaded with something like lightning. It made her mouth water.
Wesley’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve walked past this place a hundred times. Never stopped.”
“Well, you’re about to discover flavor. Big day for you.”
Wesley nudged her shoulder, the kind of casual contact that felt both right and wrong all at once. She shook it off as they ordered two skewers each, the fairy vendor chittering in a language like bells dropped into water.
Maude sank her teeth into the meat. Comet dust burst across her tongue—sweet at first, then sharp, like biting into thunder. She hissed softly through her teeth.
Her body, stupid thing that it was, sighed in gratitude.
Beside her, Wesley groaned, head tipping back. “Saints. This is better than anything I’ve ever made.”
“You said that out loud.”
“I’ll live with the shame.” He licked honey from his thumb and went in for another bite.
Maude tried not to stare. Tried not to notice how the glittering light threaded through his hair, catching on strands of gold, or how the river wind tugged at his shirt. She told herself he was annoying. A nuisance. But for the first time, she also thought:safe.
Damn it all.
They sat on the low stone wall, steam curling from their food, the black water lapping below. Sparks drifted from the fairies overhead, making the river look star-pocked.
The words slipped out. “What brought you to Mistwood Hills?”
He blinked at her, then chewed slowly. “That’s the first question you’ve ever asked me that wasn’t an insult.”
“Miracles are rare. Consider yourself blessed.”
A laugh escaped him, fading into something quieter. He leaned his elbows on his knees, skewer balanced in one hand as he stared at the water. “I lived in Tarrowfast before this. Big place, all brickwork and smoke, streets so tight with people you could barely breathe. You’d think being packed in tight would make people closer, but it didn’t. Everyone rushing, eyes down, no one knew anyone. I hated it. Felt invisible in a crowd moving too quickly to even look you in the eye. Kitchens there were the same—fast, loud, brutal. Work ’til your bones give, and still no one remembers your name. Everything was about profit margins and perfect plating, not people.
“I wanted…something closer to the earth. Something that mattered.” His gaze slid toward her. “I heard people lived slower here. Thought maybe I could make something I was proud of. I wanted to build a place where the bread on someone’s table wasn’t just another transaction. So far…I think I was right.” His gaze skimmed the square, the fairy lights, the river breathing steadily against the dock. “My mother used to say healing meant giving people back to themselves. Baking feels like that too. Just a sweeter way of doing it.”
Maude tilted her head, studying him. Not mockingly—she didn’t have the energy for it. Just a quiet filing-away of the fact that maybe, for once, he didn’t seem like an idiot. “Sweet,” she echoed. “Very on-brand.”
He smiled, but his eyes stayed on the water.
Maude tilted her head again. “Tarrowfast…I know the one. Big merchant village across the marshlands? I’ve heard the witches there charge fortunes just to steep tea leaves.”
That pulled a low, genuine sound from him, head shaking. “You’re not wrong. Except it’s worse. They’d sell you nettle soup as an elixir if you looked rich enough.”
“So you won’t be returning?”
