Page 63 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

And for what?

The prize money, it turned out, couldn’t even shave a sliver from the hospital debt, let alone fund the experimental surgery the doctor had suggested for her father. It couldn’t save him, or bring him back.

It was just paper.

She opened her eyes and smiled at her parents’ photographs. “I met someone.”

Her fingers raked through her hair, the curls bouncing, and she let out a shaky laugh. “I’m not sure what we are, or what he really wants. But he’s kind. Infuriatingly clever. He doesn’t smile often, but when he does, it feels like being let in on a secret.” Her voice caught. “He says things like he means them.”

She paused, pressing her fingers to her lips.

“And tonight, when I needed someone, he was there.”

Cassia reached out, her fingertips touching the wooden frame of the photographs, the glass, the smiles frozen in time.

“I think you’d like him.”

The room was silent, just the sound of her own breathing and the faint crackle of the bread crust settling. Her eyes landed on her mother’s photograph. Celestia had been a natural-born Kitchen Witch, self-trained in Starlight’s halls. As a young widow, she had shouldered the orphanage, the gruelling effort of starting a bakery from scratch, and a grieving daughter. Cassia still remembered the deep, unnatural fatigue that clung to her mother in those difficult years.

She hadn’t understood what was happening—not until it was too late.

“You never let us go hungry. You never turned a child away. You continued doing it, knowing what it’d do to you.” Her voice softened. “I used to wonder why you tired so easily, why you’d smile through supper and then excuse yourself, barely making it down the hall.” She traced the edge of the shelf. “Now I know. You were paying a terrible price for every meal.”

A single tear traced down her cheek. “You made me promise never to do the same. And I’ve kept that promise so far.”

She looked from her mother’s face to her father’s. “Now I’m making a different kind of bargain with a demon to save the home you both loved. I just hope . . . I hope it’s enough.”

Cassia stayed there, knees tucked to her chest, arms wound around herself like a shield she couldn’t quite hold up anymore. The grief came soft at first—an ache in her ribs, a tightness in her throat—but it deepened with every breath until the tears slipped free. Silent. Unstoppable. She pressed her forehead to her knees, curling inward as if she could fold herself around the hollow space they’d left behind. She knew this hollow intimately. She had long since learned to inhabit it.

But it never quite got easier.

Eventually, the tears slowed. The shuddering breaths evened out. With a final, shaky exhale, she wiped her face with her hem and carefully closed the hutch doors, sealing the altar and its ghosts back into the silence.

Afew hours later, Cassia stepped out into the pre-dawn dark. The air was cold and damp, the kind that seeped into bones. Little Mineola slumbered beneath fog, cobbled streets slick with melted snow. She wrapped her scarf around her neck and headed to the bakery.

Inside, The Witching Flour smelled of sugar and spices, the counters clean and cold. The space hummed with the quiet anticipation of another busy day—the kind of morning that felt like a promise. She lit the oven with a flick of her wrist, blue flame catching beneath the metal.

The sourdough starter had bubbled overnight, its surface domed and ready. She scraped half into a mixing bowl, added flour and water, and stirred until the dough began to tighten. She worked through the ache in her shoulders, the familiar drag of too little sleep. Spice jars floated down from the shelf as she reached for them. The honey spoon hovered, waiting for her to dip it. Her hands moved through the familiar rhythms—measuring, kneading, shaping—and slowly, with each task completed, the tightness in her chest eased.

By the time the sky blushed pink over the rooftops, her back ached and her knuckles were raw, but a dozen loaves proofed beneath linen. Scones cooled on the rack. Cinnamon rolls puffed up inside the oven, filling the bakery with the smell of butter and yeast and sugar caramelizing.

She poured herself a cup of tea and took a roll from the tray. The first bite was still too hot, the sugar sticky on her fingers.

The memory of last night surfaced without permission. Ark in her sitting room, cradling the mug. Ark staring at her while she bandaged his hand—lashes lowered, expression unreadable. A line had been crossed. A door left open. They hadn’t spoken it aloud—maybe because it was only in her head, just the performance bleeding into real life. But beneath it all, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed.

She finished the roll and set down her cup.

Part of her wanted to retreat—step back behind the easy sarcasm, the teasing Flora Notes, the wry smile that said this doesn’t mean anything, not really. Because if she didn’t pull back now, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.

And they had a bargain to fulfill.

Cassia pushed off the counter and reached for her Flora Note tin. She plucked a delicate paper shaped like a tiger lily and tapped a pen against her chin.

She would send a light message. Familiar, but not too much. Just enough to remind them both where the boundary used to be. A casual banter with no openings for sentiment.

Good morning, fellow early riser,

I sincerely hope your hand remains intact. I hear coat buttons are dreadfully unsympathetic to the one-handed.