Oli raised his cider in a mock toast. “To survival. To power. To scandal.”
“To not hexing you in public,” Maude said, raising her coffee.
“To Bailey,” Selene said softly, her eyes flicking toward Maude.
The name hit her chest like it always did—but it didn’t hollow her out this time. It filled her, steady as the loom’s hum beneath the cobbles.
“To Bailey,” Maude echoed. Her voice didn’t break.
Wesley’s hand found hers on the bench, warm and sure. She let him keep it.
The day rolled on—merchants shouting, Grim stealing, Oli preening, Selene teasing.
Normal. Alive.
When they finally rose to leave, the square was bathed in late light, lanterns glowing like constellations overhead. Wesley handed her a fresh cup of coffee, because of course he had thought ahead. Grim hopped back onto her shoulder like he owned the world.
They walked out of Market Square side by side, still bickering, still themselves. Only now, Maude was smiling.
Epilogue
Wesley’s bakery was bright because he’d made it that way—liked it that way.
He polished every pane of glass himself until the morning light spilled through like honey. Pastel boxes stood in neat rows, ribbons tied straight enough to satisfy even the fussiest aunt in Mistwood.
He wanted it to feel warm when people walked in. Easy. Which was why he burned the first tray of scones every week—“insurance against getting too full of himself,” he claimed—and whistled so loudly in the mornings that the neighbors complained. He made the shop smile for him, even if it meant scrubbing counters with too much elbow grease or slipping an extra dusting of sugar where only the light would notice.
Because to Wesley Rivers, a bakery should do more than feed people. It should trick them, if only for a moment, into believing the world wasn’t quite as cruel as it liked to be.
He checked the ovens twice before dawn. Lined the counters with flatbreads that still sighed steam when torn. He sang while he worked, and when the words slipped his mind, he invented new ones that rhymed badly.
Because Wesley liked bright. He wanted bright.
And yet, his favorite corner in Sugar High Bakery wasn’t bright at all.
He’d carved it out for her—the shadow in the back where the windows didn’t quite reach. A wrought-iron table, black cushions instead of pink, a crooked little shelf of books leaning like conspirators against the wall. A pot of rosemary in place of roses. A candle that burned green instead of gold.
Her place.His witch’s nest, tucked in among all the sugar and cream.
Maude sat there now—hood tipped low, curls spilling loose, a book balanced on her lap while Grim draped himself around the rosemary pot like poured ink. She looked utterly at ease, utterly out of place, and impossibly his.
Wesley’s chest ached with it—this quiet vision of her. He drank her in as though her presence alone might sustain him. Every glance was a feast. Every scowl a prayer. Saints, she didn’t even know.
Maude lifted her head when he laughed, as if the sound tugged her by some invisible thread. Her eyes caught his across the bakery. Green. Striking. And then she glanced away like she hadn’t looked at all.
When she closed her book and rose, his pulse leapt. He tried for neutral, casual, the same face he wore for customers. But this wasn’t a customer. This was Maude Harrow—witch, cursebreaker, sharp-tongued, impossible—the woman who had wound through him like breath, unnoticed until the thought of losing it left him gasping.
“Need a hand?”
He blinked once, certain he’d misheard, then again, because his heart had the audacity to leap. “You—” he said, unable to mask the shock. “You want to help.”
“Yes. Don’t make it a thing.” She crossed her arms, a smile tugging at her mouth. “I’ve spent weeks mocking this place. Might as well see what all the fuss is about before I die.”
His throat worked before he managed, low, “Come on, then,”sweeping the counter clear like he hadn’t been waiting weeks for her to want this.
She stepped up, and the air shifted. The counter glowed faintly in the firelight, dusted with sugar instead of flour. He set a bowl before her: dark chocolate, chopped fine, every shard gleaming like a heap of black jewels in the low light.
“Tempering,” he said. “We’re making truffles.”
