KAITLYN
I’m sure I’m being watched.
Except I’m in the middle of the busy bakery, Gloriana is pulling a fresh batch of bread from the ovens at the rear, and the shop at the front is thronged with patrons. I don’t think I’ve stopped since we opened.
“Here you go.” I hand over a package to an elderly witch. “Three loaves, one with caraway, and do you want anything sweet today? We have meringues, muffins, hinnies and…” I pause deliberately. “…a few melbas left.”
Her eyes light up, her face losing ten years at least.
“Peach?”
“Always.”
“You are an absolute temptress, Miss Kaitlyn.”
I lean over the counter. “Takes one to know one, Miss Mary.” I wink.
She laughs as I pop a peach melba, a small cream- and peach-filled pastry topped with fondant into a small box and add it to her order.
Once she’s paid, I move onto the next customer and collect the items they want.
So all eyes are on me, or at least there are plenty of witches and warlocks looking at what I’m doing, as well as chatting among themselves, so of course I’m being watched. Still, I can’t take the prickling feeling up my back which suggests someone, somewhere is creeping on me, rather than waiting in line for some baked goods.
By the time we get to mid afternoon, I’m exhausted and very pleased to turn over theclosedsign on the door.
Gloriana bustles through, looking as fresh as always, despite her stints with the hot ovens. Her blonde hair is in tight coils and she has a bright red apron, the same as mine, wrapped around her. Only hers is covered in flour and dotted with grease spots.
“Well done,” she says, surveying the mostly empty shelves.
“Hey, this isn’t me. It’s down to you and your talents,” I say with a smile.
Gloriana was the witch cook to Lord Guyzance, producing proper food not magical conjurings for those who he didn’t need to impress, before he met his fate at the hands of the Barghest, the black dog of death who took souls for the Reaper and who is now mated to my human friend, Wynter.
I don’t think I’ve seen a happier couple, and I have her to thank for releasing me from the enforced servitude at the foul hands of the Faerie Lord, allowing Gloriana to set up this shop and to employ me as her assistant.
“You might say that, but I see we have none of the sweets left,” Gloriana says, her sharp blue eyes missing nothing. “You told me they’d be popular, and they are. You have a talent for baking even if you won’t admit it.”
My cheeks colour at the compliment. I’ve never been spectacular at taking praise, and my pale skin coupled with my auburn hair means I blush at every opportunity. Sometimes there doesn’t even need to be a reason.
“I’m just good at selling,” I say.
“But if you weren’t good at baking, they wouldn’t come back,” Gloriana trills as she walks away through the bakery to the room at the rear, our parlour.
I follow her because the feeling of being watched grows stronger the second I’m alone. Once we’re in the room, I close the door and silently release a sigh of relief.
My friend climbs the stairs to her room, and I hear the creaking of the ancient floorboards as she moves around upstairs while I take off my apron and hang it up before swinging the big, heavy cast iron kettle over onto the hot plate of the squat black range in order to boil some water for tea.
Gloriana comes back down in a clean red and white spotted dress just as I’m pouring out water into the teapot, and she drops into one of the squashy armchairs with a happy grunt.
“Just a quick cuppa for me,” she says with a smile. “I have to go out.”
I look a bit closer and see the dress she’s wearing isn’t any old thing—it’s one of her best.
“Suppliers?”
“Sort of.” She gives me an almost girlish smile. “I need to get a better rate on our sugar supplies.”
It’s impossible to know how old Gloriana is or hazard a guess at any of the witches’ or warlocks’ ages here in the Yeavering. Their innate earth magic means they can pick and choose how they want to appear to the world, even if they need spells to perform most other magical tasks.
