Page 49 of Little Witch

Even Dad had helped bake that morning, kneading dough with a focus that had turned quickly into genuine enjoyment, flour dusted through his greying hair by the time we'd finished. He'd taken to the bakery faster than any of us expected, claiming it reminded him of something steady in a life that had otherwise flipped entirely upside down in the space of a few short weeks.

Cian had enrolled at the local college, determined to carve out something new for himself rather than just picking up exactly where he'd left off years ago. It wasn't easy — adjusting to a world that had moved on without him, learning to use a phone properly, discovering that half the shops he remembered had closed and been replaced twice over. But the town had folded around both of them with more warmth than I'd expected, the whole Hollow apparently more than willing to welcome back two men everyone had quietly mourned for years.

We'd make sure they got the best out of whatever came next. That one day the years they'd lost would feel like a footnote instead of the whole story.

"Yakob! There you are." A woman's voice cut through the stall noise, warm and familiar, and I looked up to see Mrs. Hartley making her way over, ginger cookie already in hand from some other stall, cheeks pink from the cold. "I saved you a seat at the cider tent. You still owe me that story about the football league you've apparently decided to obsess over."

Dad's whole face lit up in a way that made my chest do something complicated and really fucking weird. "Right. Yes. Give me two minutes, I promised Amber I'd finish this batch first."

"Take your time." Mrs. Hartley winked at me, entirely unsubtle about it, before heading back toward the cider tent with a spring in her step that hadn't been there the last time I'd seen her ordering ginger cookies alone.

I turned to Dad the second she was out of earshot. "Since when do you and Mrs. Hartley have plans?"

He went slightly pink, which was frankly delightful to witness on a grown man who'd spent years trapped in a magical tree. "She's been very welcoming. Showed me how to use the self-checkout at the grocery store without setting off an alarm. We've had coffee a few times."

"Coffee," Orias repeated, deadpan, appearing at my shoulder with far too much interest in this development. "Coffee-coffee, or coffee like a date."

"I don't see how that's relevant."

"It's extremely relevant. Also, fun fact, she's Aria's aunt." I said. "A seer."

Dad blinked. "The seer? The one who—"

"Talked to Amber's mum's spirit, yes, that Aria." Orias grinned wider. "Small town. Everyone's someone's aunt."

"That's—" Dad cleared his throat, looking genuinely flustered for the first time since we'd gotten him home. "That's good to know."

"Go," I said, gently shoving his shoulder. "We've got the stall. Go be flustered about a nice woman who apparently likes you."

He hesitated another second, then untied his apron and handed it over. "You're sure?"

"Dad. Go."

He went, and I watched him cross the square toward the cider tent with a slight spring in his own step now, and felt something warm settle deep in my chest watching it happen. He deserved this. Deserved every ordinary, wonderful, slightly awkward thing this town could give back to him after everything it had already taken.

"Do you think we'll sell out of those muffins?" Orias asked, leaning on the counter beside me, arm brushing mine in that easy, familiar way he'd perfected over the last few weeks. "Because I'm debating taking half of them home before your dad wanders back with Mrs. Hartley and eats through our profit margin out of sheer nervous energy."

"We better sell out," I said, watching a group of kids eagerly eyeing the tray. "We're Halloway's Hearth. We always sell out."

"I could make you muffins at home," Rowan offered, entirely unhelpfully. "I'd need supervision. And ingredients. And possibly a fire extinguisher on standby, but the intention would be there."

"You are both banned from unsupervised baking, permanently, effective immediately."

"Harsh," Orias said, though he was grinning too widely to sound remotely wounded by it. "Your baking is magical. We just want to be part of the magic."

"You want to eat the magic."

"That too." He grinned.

We worked through the rest of the day together, all three of us, serving pies and muffins and bread to festival-goers, chatting with locals who stopped to admire how well the town had bounced back. Dad returned an hour later looking thoroughly pleased with himself and smelling faintly of spiced cider, refusing to elaborate on any specifics no matter how hard Orias pressed.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in pink and purple, we finally started packing up. The festival would run late into the night, music and dancing carrying on well past when we'd have any energy left for it, but our part was done. Cian stopped by to grab a muffin on his way to study, stack of textbooks tucked under one arm, grinning at all of us before heading off toward the library.

"Ready?" Rowan asked, coming up behind me as I packed the last tray into the basket.

"Ready," I said, and Orias slung an arm over my shoulders as we started the walk home, the sounds of the festival fading gently behind us.

We'd all moved into the Thorne mansion together after everything settled — the three of us, redecorating room by room over the last few weeks, turning something that used to feel cold and abandoned into somewhere that actually felt lived in. It was still technically a mansion. It just didn't feel like one most days anymore. It felt like ours.