"I can't forgive easily."
"You forgave me."
"You're an exception."
"The only exception?"
"The only one that matters."
They left the hall together, walking back through the village as snow began to fall again, soft and silent and perfect. At the bakery door, Marianne turned to him.
"Stay," she said simply.
"Marianne..."
"Not for... not yet. Just stay. Sleep by the fire. Be here when I wake up. Let me know this is real."
"It's real."
"Prove it. Stay."
And he stayed.
In the morning, when she came down to find him still there, covered in a flour-dusted blanket and sleeping by the dying fire, she knew.
It was real. They were real. Broken things could be mended.
And sometimes, just sometimes, they became stronger for having been broken.
The gingerbread heart in his pocket had crumbled slightly in the night, but the piece was still there, still whole enough to matter.
Just like them.
Chapter 20
The letter arrived on a Tuesday morning that had begun like every morning of the past fortnight since New Year's Eve—with Alaric in Marianne's bakery at four-thirty, wearing an apron that still didn't quite fit his tall frame, determinedly trying to master the art of bread-making while Marianne tried not to laugh at his continued failures.
"You're kneading it too aggressively again," she said, watching as he attacked the dough like it had personally offended him. "It's bread, not an enemy requiring submission."
"This dough is absolutely an enemy. It refuses to cooperate with the simplest requests."
"What requests?"
"To become bread-like in texture and appearance rather than resembling something that might be used to repair castle walls."
"That's because you're strangling it with enthusiasm rather than working with it. Here, feel." She moved behind him, her arms coming around to guide his hands, a position that had become familiar over the past two weeks but still sent little sparks through both of them. "Gentle pressure, rhythmic motion. Like a dance."
"We've established I'm terrible at dancing."
"You were perfectly adequate at New Year's."
"Adequate. Your favourite word for me."
"You've been promoted from adequate. You're now approaching satisfactory."
"Such high praise. My heart may not survive the honour."
"Your heart seems fairly resilient, considering it survived being broken by a baker and mended with gingerbread and forgiveness."
