“For years, I believed emotions were nothing more than ingredients—things I could spend or discard whenever a recipe required them.” My fingers brushed the faded parchment before I lifted my eyes to his. “But loving you has taught me something different: a feeling matters because of what we choose to do with it. I loved you when I kissed you, I love you now. And if tomorrow I no longer feel this emotion, I can still choose what my love has taught me.”
I thought of our maps spread across the table the day before, each one revealing how often his curse had drawn him near the bakery. How many times our paths had nearly crossed before finally joining. Hope stirred within me, fragile but unmistakable.
“But love isn’t the only thing I’ve regained—now I have hope.” The word felt almost as miraculous as my tender feelings towards him. “The magic may ask for my deepest desire, but it cannot take every truth I’ve learned. Once the emotion it demands has been sacrificed, it can no longer claim whatever feelings follow. I have to believe that even without my love, we could find one another again.”
His expression twisted. “You’re speaking as though we’re already going to be separated.”
“The bakery will move soon.”
Resolve hardened his jaw. “Then I’ll follow.”
“When your curse breaks, you may no longer be compelled to?—”
“I said I’ll follow.” His dark, fierce gaze held mine steadily. Despite everything, the earnest tenderness of his sweet promisepressed through my fear. I reached out a trembling hand to rest it over his heart.
“And if I no longer love you?”
His hand covered mine. “Then I’ll give you every reason to choose me again.”
The answer nearly shattered my resolve. I lowered my forehead to his chest, and his arms closed around me. For a long while, neither of us spoke. We stood wrapped together beside the scattered firewood, holding one another as though love alone might prevent the moon from rising.
He drew back just enough to search my face. “No one sacrifices anything alone. If the recipe must be baked, then we do it together.”
I frowned. “The book has no claim upon your emotions.”
He glanced towards the newly revealed recipe. “Perhaps not, but I’ve served as your assistant over these past few weeks. Nothing can stop me from measuring the ingredients.”
A reluctant laugh escaped me. The sound didn’t erase our shared fear, but it made room for the courage to move forward.
I slipped the stolen page back into the book, fitting its torn edge against the place from which it had been taken, on the page facing the one I’d just found. Light threaded through the ragged fibers, binding them to the page once more.
The words shimmered as the parchment touched the binding, the two pages that were perfect twins, except that mine had a heart at the top while Gabe’s had a shimmery wolf. I bent over the book to read the full recipe:
Ingredients to Create a Homecoming Loaf:
* Ordinary flour
* Milk warmed beneath moonlight
* Honey gathered from a place once called home
* A leaf carried by the wanderer from a place he wished to remember
* A map drawn by the baker of a place to which she wished to return
* Enchanted sugar
* The deepest desire remaining within the baker’s heart
Combine that which was divided.Offer willingly that which the Wolf cannot seize by force.Bake until every wandering road remembers its beginning.
Gabe’s jaw tightened as he read the final line. “If we do this, we stop the moment anything goes wrong.”
“You know recipes rarely permit one to stop halfway through, but I’ll be certain to inform the ancient magic of your conditions.”
His expression remained grim, though a faint warmth entered his eyes. “I promised you wouldn’t have to bake this alone. That doesn’t mean I intend to help you sacrifice yourself more efficiently.”
Something in my chest tightened. For most of my life, enchanted baking had been a solitary act. Granny might have assisted me whenever she felt well, but the final offering had always belonged to me. I’d stood alone whenever each emotion disappeared.
