Page 31

I’m something new. Something in between.

The loaves come out perfect again. Golden. Crackling crust. The kind of bread that makes people stop on the sidewalk and inhale like they’re drowning.

I set the tray on the cooling rack and wipe my hands on my apron. Malak returned and through the doorway, I see him in the back office, hunched over the ancient desk, going through something. Building permits, maybe. Or the property records I asked him to dig up.

He looks less hollow than he did three days ago. Still dangerous. Still wrong in a way that makes my hindbrain sit up and take notice. But there’s color in his skin now. Substance. Like he’s filling back in from the inside out.

I look down at the bread. At my hands, dusted with flour.

The memory hits me sideways.

That first morning. The rush. Nerida standing at my counter with her glass-sharp claws and freezing-ocean eyes. The way she’d inhaled deeply, studying my face, then the bread.

“Deep magic,” she’d murmured. “Shadow and sorrow. You have been claimed, baker.”

And then, as Jack led her away, that knowing smile. “Feed him well.”

I’d thought she was talking about the baby. About the thing growing inside me that pulses with Malak’s heartbeat.

But she wasn’t.

My knees go weak. I grab the counter to steady myself.

She was talking about the bread.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

Malak appears in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

I stare at him. At the way he’s standing straighter now, shoulders less hunched, movements less careful. Three days ago, he could barely manifest his glamour for more than an hour. Now he’s wearing it all day without strain.

“You’re getting stronger,” I say.

“Some.” He’s watching me with those black eyes, reading something in my expression. “The bond is stabilizing. I’m pulling less from you, keeping more of what’s mine.”

“That’s not it.” I look at the bread. Back at him. “You’ve been eating my bread.”

A pause. “Yes.”

“Every morning. I make breakfast. You eat it.”

“Yes.”

“Toast. With butter and honey. Two slices. Every single morning.”

His jaw tightens. “Where are you going with this?”

I pick up a loaf, still warm, and hold it between us like evidence. “My bread is feeding you. Not just physically. The magic in it. Your essence that’s tangled up in mine. It’s in everything I bake now, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. I can see the truth in the way he won’t look at the bread, won’t look at me.

“That first morning,” I say slowly, working it through. “After you... after we... Everyone went crazy for my pastries. They were eating them like they were starving. Because they were full of your magic. Your power. The part of you that you gave me.”

“Yes.”

“And now, every time I bake, I’m putting that power back into the food. And when you eat it—” My voice cracks. “I’m feeding you. Literally feeding you pieces of yourself.”

“Kaia—”