For three full seconds, nobody moved or spoke. Then Barnaby screamed like someone had stabbed him. “The cake! Not the cake!”
He threw himself at Brok with the desperation of someone trying to save a drowning victim. His body crashed into Brok’s leg hard enough to stagger him. “It’s ruined,” he wailed. “Completely destroyed! It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my entire life, and you made her throw it!”
By now, I was used to Barnaby’s attachment to my baked goods. I’d grown accustomed to his dramatic tears. But I’d never seen those tears streaming down fur. I’d never seen him tugging on his long rabbit ears.
I’d never realized that my favorite client was a giant anthropomorphic rabbit. He was wearing a lavender sweater vest and light-up sneakers, sure, but he was a rabbit just the same.
Brok wiped frosting from his eyes with the back of his hand. His green, clawed hand. The motion smeared carob across his cheek in a wide stripe. “Barnaby, I didn’t do anything. She just—”
He made a vague motion and looked at me, with utter confusion on his carob-stained, green face. Something in my chest that had been wound tight for weeks suddenly loosened.
I started laughing.
It started as a small sound. A giggle that bubbled up from somewhere deep in my stomach. It built into something bigger. Something I couldn’t control even when I pressed my hand over my mouth.
“Oh my God.” I gasped for air between laughs. My stomach muscles were cramping. “There’s frosting in your tusks. It’s everywhere.”
I couldn’t finish whatever thought I’d been trying to form. I leaned against the counter to keep myself from falling. If I laughed any harder, I might very well pee myself in the middle of my own kitchen. It was so unhygienic. I would never live it down. I didn’t care even a little bit.
Barnaby huffed, and his pink nose twitched with indignation. “This isn’t funny, Hazel. That cake was art.”
“I know.” Another laugh forced its way out of my throat. “I’m the one who made it.”
It took me a while, but in the end, I managed to get my giggles under control. I straightened up slowly and wiped tears from my eyes. My mascara came off on my fingers in black smudges. I probably looked like a raccoon who’d been through a car wash. But the anger that had been haunting me for weeks was just gone. Vanished like it had never existed. Replaced by this strange floating lightness.
I took a shaky breath that hurt my overworked ribs. The shop still smelled like chocolate and carob and something else now. Something wild and earthy that I couldn’t quite identify. The familiar chocolate smell grounded me. Reminded me this was my space. My work. My shop that I’d built from nothing.
My life had apparently just gotten significantly more complicated than perfecting ganache ratios. But that was all right. This type of secret I could deal with.
“Okay,” I somehow managed to croak out. “I think I have half my answer already, but I’m going to ask the question anyway.”
Bracing myself, I took the final leap into insanity. “What in God’s name are you? What the hell is going on?”
13
The Kitchen Table
Brok&Hazel
“So what you’re telling me… Barnaby is the Easter Bunny. And you’re his personal trainer. And my friend Vixen is… Barnaby’s nemesis. This… Reynard, in disguise.”
I nodded, barely managing to suppress a flinch. Everything inside me screamed this was never supposed to happen. But now that the glamor had fallen, we really had no choice but to explain. We owed Hazel that much.
Barnaby wrung his paws, shaking. For once, he seemed to have completely forgotten about sweets. “We’re sorry, Hazel. This is the way things have always been. Between our two worlds. We didn’t mean to lie.”
“You absolutely did mean it.” Hazel shot us both an unimpressed look. “But it’s all right. I understand.”
Relief crashed through me. It was more than I’d ever thought I could get. More than I’d expected. More important than Hazel herself perhaps realized.
Barnaby let out a shaky exhalation that sounded suspiciously close to a sob. “Thank you. Thank you for being so nice.”
Hazel reached out and patted his fuzzy head gently. The tender gesture made something in my chest tighten. She had every right to rage at us for the deception, to throw us out of her shop and her life. Instead, she offered comfort to the trembling magical rabbit who’d torn her world asunder.
Gods help me, I love her.
Barnaby’s ears twitched. He glanced between us, then pulled away from Hazel. “I should… I think I need some air. Clear my head before tomorrow.”
The rabbit had always been kinder and more perceptive than he looked. But I supposed that came with being a Top Five magical entity. After all, it was his heart, not his speed, that had once helped him beat Reynard.
