This is the rest of your proof. I figured out the code. He’s been skimming. A lot. I’m sorry I couldn’t figure it out sooner. I’m sorry for Westminster, for the poisoning, for the scandal, for the market disaster with Father Clement. I’m sorry for every single thing I’ve touched since falling into your garden. You deserve your honor, your title, and your land restored. You deserve happiness. You deserve someone who builds you up instead of poisoning half the royal court.
She set the note beside the ledger, the gesture feeling terrifyingly final.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the first drops of rain pattered against her window like tears she couldn’t shed.
A soft scratching at her door made her look up. “Come in.”
To her surprise, it was Emmot who slipped through, his gap-toothed grin subdued.
“Mistress Rachel,” he said with uncharacteristic formality. “I brought you something.”
He held out a bundle wrapped in oiled cloth that smelled of earth and herbs—and something else, something that prickled her skin.
When she unwrapped it, her breath caught.
The cookbook.
A Treatise on the Mystical Art of Cookery, its leather binding worn soft as butter, its pages heavy with the scent of secrets and journeys that defied every law of physics she’d ever learned.
“Where did you find this?” she whispered.
“Sir Whiskerbottom dug it up from beneath the rosemary bushes,” Emmot replied matter-of-factly. “Been at it for two days, yowling and digging like something called to him. Finally unearthed it yestereve, dirt still clinging like it had been buried for ages.”
Magic calls to magic.The thought chilled her despite the summer air pressing through the shutters.
“Why bring it to me?” she asked, though part of her already knew.
“Because storms like this don’t come natural,” Emmot said, far too old for his years. “And because you’ve been looking at the sky like you’re waiting for something to fall from heaven or rise from hell. Figured you might want this ere whatever’s coming arrives.”
Lightning flashed closer, shadows in her chamber leaping like spirits. The cookbook grew warm in her hands, its pages rustling despite the still air.
“Thank you,” she whispered, though the words felt inadequate. He’d given her a choice.
“For what it’s worth, mistress,” Emmot added from the door, “place hasn’t been the same since you came. Different, aye, but better. Even when things went all to hell.”
Then he was gone, leaving her with the storm and the book and possibilities that terrified her more than any dungeon.
Rain drummed against the stones of Greystone. Rachel opened and blew out a sigh. Recipes. Forget ruby slippers or a yellow brick road—apparently her fate came down to stews and spice blends. No neat instructions stampedReturn to Kansas.
Desperation clawed at her. She drew her eating knife from her belt and pressed it to her finger until a bead of blood welled up, bright as garnets in the candlelight. She let it fall onto the page.
Nothing.
“Come on,” she whispered, pricking again. “Please. Let me go home before I ruin anything else.”
The book absorbed her blood like spilled wine. Thunder cracked so violently the very stones of Greystone trembled.
If the book needed a storm, then this one would have to do.
She seized her cloak and the book and stumbled down the stairs and out the door, heading for the gardens.
The tempest struck like a physical blow, the wind tearing at her, mud sucking at her shoes, rain blinding her. Lightning split the sky, close enough to set her teeth on edge. Perfect.
She went to the rosemary, fell to her knees where Sir Whiskerbottom had dug. Rain soaked the pages, but instead of smearing ink, the water made the script glow faintly, mocking her with its promise of power withheld.
She bled again, begged, cursed, wept—but the magic refused her. The storm raged, then faltered, until only drizzle remained.
Rachel sat back in the mud, sodden and shivering, staring at the book that had become nothing more than parchment and lies. A laugh bubbled up, sharp and cracked around the edges.
