“Speaking from experience?”
“Obviously.” A crooked grin softened the chaos witch’s features. “I spent weeks pretending I wasn’t falling for Leo. Picked fights with him constantly. Pushed him away every time he got close. Nearly destroyed my grandmother’s legacy because I was too scared to admit I wanted what I didn’t think I deserved.”
“And now?”
“Now I wake up every morning next to a man who makes me feel like the most important person in the world. Who sees all my chaos and mess and sharp edges and chooses me anyway.” Junie’s expression went soft, unguarded in a way Dahlia had never seen before Leo. “It’s terrifying. Every single day. But it’s also the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Avine nodded. “Theo and I were the same. So much between us. So many reasons it shouldn’t work. I was convinced I’d ruin it—that I wasn’t capable of being what he needed, what an alpha’s mate should be.” She reached out, her hand finding Dahlia’s. “But mate bonds don’t care about your fears or your logic or your carefully constructed reasons why it won’t work. They are.”
Marzipan butted her head against Dahlia’s wrist, warm and deliberate.
“Then let him see you.” Narla rose, moving toward the door with her characteristic grace. She paused at the threshold, looking back with those dark, knowing eyes.
She slipped out into the night. Ember hooted softly as they disappeared.
Junie and Avine exchanged a look—that silent communication of old friends who understood each other without words. Then Junie stood, stretching.
“We should go. Let you get some sleep.” She bent to kiss Dahlia’s forehead, the gesture achingly maternal. “For what it’s worth? I think he already sees you. The question is whether you’re brave enough to let him keep looking.”
Avine hugged her tightly, whispering against her ear, “You deserve this. You deserve to want things for yourself. Stop trying to talk yourself out of it.”
And then they were gone, and Dahlia was alone with her cat, her racing thoughts, and the lingering scent of wine and magic and friendship.
THIRTY
DAHLIA
She didn’t sleep.
Instead, she wandered downstairs to the bakery kitchen, Marzipan padding along behind her. The space was dark and still, the ovens cold, the counters clean and waiting for the morning rush. Moonlight streamed through the windows, casting pale patterns across the worn wooden floor.
Dahlia pulled out her grandmother’s recipe journal—the original, hand-written, stained with decades of kitchen spills and magical experiments. She traced the faded ink, the familiar handwriting that had been gone from this world for sixteen years but still lived in every corner of this space.
Magic is love made visible, she’d told Cal, quoting her grandmother’s favorite saying. And it was true. Every charm she baked, every spell she folded into dough—it was all an expression of care. For her customers, her community, the legacy she’d inherited.
But when was the last time she’d baked for herself?
When was the last time she’d let herself want anything purely selfish, purely personal, purely hers?
Marzipan jumped onto the counter, nudging the recipe journal with her head. Dahlia scratched behind her familiar’s ears, watching those keen eyes drift half-closed with pleasure.
“You like him.” Her voice dropped low. “Don’t bother pretending otherwise. You’ve been thinking about him all night.”
Marzipan’s tail swished.He passed the test;the gesture seemed to communicate.He’s acceptable. Now stop overthinking and do a thing about it.
“I don’t know how,” Dahlia admitted, her voice small in the moonlit kitchen. “I don’t know how to want for myself without drowning in guilt. How to let someone in without being terrified they’ll disappear.”
Marzipan bumped her head against Dahlia’s palm.Figure it out,the cat seemed to say.You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for. And braver. Now act like it.
Dahlia laughed—a wet, shaky sound that was half sob. “When did you become the wise one?”
Marzipan’s whiskers twitched.I was the wise one all along. You weren’t paying attention.
The moon shifted, casting new patterns across the floor. An owl hooted outside—Ember, probably, keeping watch from a nearby rooftop. The town slept around her, peaceful and unaware of the storms gathering on the horizon.
Magnus was still out there, plotting. The boundary claim still threatened everything. Cal was still fighting a battle that might destroy him before it was won.
But for the first time in longer than she could remember, Dahlia knew what she wanted.
