"Sorry doesn't fix this." He grabbed his coat, his movements sharp and angry. "I'm done, Eleanor. You can look after yourself from now on. Find somewhere else to stay tonight, I refuse to pay for this room for you."
"Dad, please—"
But he was walking toward the door, and I didn't have the strength to call him back.
The door closed again and I was left alone.
CHAPTER 1
ELLIE
The duck was perfect.
I knew it was perfect because I'd plated this dish a hundred times in the last six months. Seared breast, skin crisped to a deep mahogany, fanned over blackberry gastrique that caught the light like dark glass. Crispy kale tucked along the edge. Pomegranate seeds scattered across the top like drops of blood.
Chef had praised it when I first designed it. Customers asked for it by name. It was the kind of dish that should have made me feel something.
It didn't.
The heat from the line pressed against my back. Pans clanged. Someone shouted for more salmon. The exhaust fans roared overhead, but they never quite cleared the air—it was always too hot, too greasy, too thick with garlic and fat and steam. I moved through it all with the kind of precision that came from two yearsof showing up, doing the work, and going home to an empty apartment.
I slid the plate onto the pass and turned back to my station. Three more duck orders. A steak. Two vegetarian mains that needed plating in five minutes. My hands moved without thought, reaching for ingredients, adjusting heat, checking temperatures. Muscle memory. That's all this was now.
It hadn't always been like this.
I used to love the kitchen. The chaos, the precision, the way a perfect dish could make someone's night. Mum had taught me that—taught me that food was love made visible, that feeding someone was one of the most honest things you could do. I'd believed her. I'd built my life around that belief.
Then Nathan had taken everything, and I'd learned that some things couldn't be fixed with a good meal and a warm smile.
"Ellie, you good?" Marco called from the line. He was one of the cooks—shifter, mid-thirties, usually full of energy. Lately, though, he'd been moving slower. His edges looked softer somehow, like something vital had been leached out of him.
"Fine," I said.
He nodded and went back to his station, but I caught the way his hand trembled slightly as he flipped a pan. He'd mentioned being tired last week. Said his wolf felt distant, like trying to hear someone through a thick wall.
"Everyone's tired," someone had muttered.
The conversation had ended there.
I plated the next duck. Then another. The rhythm was soothing in its emptiness—do the work, don't think, don't feel, just move.
In the break room, the TV played with the sound off. Subtitles scrolled across the bottom. Earthquake in Chile—6.8 magnitude. Death toll rising. Another line appeared beneath it. Fertility rates continue historic decline across Europe.
No one was watching. After five years, it wasn’t breaking news anymore.
I finished the vegetarian plates and wiped down my station. Across the kitchen, Sienna—the prep witch who worked part-time—was sealing containers of marinated meat with preservation charms. Her hands moved in the familiar patterns, but the magic flickered. Once. Twice. She frowned and tried again.
On the third attempt, the charm held.
"Bloody thing's been touchy all week," she muttered.
I said nothing. Just filed it away with all the other small wrongnesses I'd been noticing. The supplier who'd called yesterday to say pomegranates were harder to source. The third ingredient this month that had become unavailable. Chef grumbling about costs rising faster than he could adjust the menu.
Little fractures in the world. Little signs that something was breaking. Or maybe it was just me breaking.
Service ended. I cleaned my station, changed out of my chef's whites, and walked out into the Manchester drizzle. The tram rattled past. People hurried by with their heads down, umbrellas angled against the wind.
The sky was grey. It was always grey now, or maybe I just remembered it that way.
