Stormhaven’s Rejected Baker

Chapter 5: He Gave Me One Too

“He gave me one too,” a voice whispered in the dark.

I almost screamed.

It was midnight. I had stumbled into the east pantry with the vial in my fist, meaning to hide it in a flour bin and think. The room was small and cold and smelled of cinnamon and wet stone.

I had been standing there a long time already, turning the vial over and over, trying to decide whether a bin of flour was a clever hiding place or the stupidest one in the house.

A shape stood against the far shelf.

“Seraphine?”

She stepped into the narrow slice of light from the hallway. Her sleek black hair was loose. Her face was white as paper. In her palm she held a small glass vial, identical to mine.

“Don’t shout,” she said. “Please.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for someone I can trust.” She laughed, short and bitter. “I’ve been through every room in this house. You were the only one who looked at me like I was a person instead of a treaty.”

I sat down hard on a flour sack.

“He gave you one too?”

“Last night. In my room. With a lovely note.” She turned the vial in her fingers. “For Gideon’s wedding-night wine. A little rest, so he does not suffer.” Her eyes were glittering. “I think the idea is that your cake makes my father’s people sick, and my husband dies in his bed on the same day. It would look as though my family did it.”

Her hand was steady, but the vial rattled faintly against her ring, a tiny glass chime in the dark.

“Oh, my God.”

“Magnus will step in as regent. My father will blame Stormhaven. My brother will want blood.” She pressed the vial to her forehead. “And I will be the poor bride who made it all possible.”

I thought of the quiet man in the tweed jacket, smiling over his poems, and of how he must have looked at Junie’s photograph, if he looked at all: like a piece on a shelf.

“Why would he need you for that?”

“Because the treaty says I must be here, and I must say yes, and I must be at that table on Tide Day.” She looked at me. “He needs everyone in their seats.”

It was a chess game, and Magnus had spent years setting up the board. Every piece had its place: the bride, the baker, the rival Alpha, the grieving nephew. I saw suddenly how small my corner was, and how much of the board I could not see.

I said nothing for a minute. My heart was banging in my ears.

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because I don’t want to do it.” Her voice cracked. “Because I never wanted any of this. I was told to marry the Alpha of Stormhaven to keep the peace, and I said yes, because that is what daughters of Highmark do.” She swallowed. “Because I have been in love with someone else for four years, and he is standing guard outside my door right now.”

“Dax.”

She flinched. “You noticed.”

“He looks at you like you hung the moon.”

“I thought nobody could tell.”

She said it like a confession, and I understood that it was the first time she had spoken of him aloud in this house.

“A kitchen is a very good place to watch people,” I said. “You see who steals the first bite.”

She laughed, a shaky, surprised sound. It turned to a sob, and she covered her mouth.

I got up and put my arms around her. She was stiff as a board for about three seconds. Then she fell against me and cried quietly into my shoulder.

“I don’t know how to be a person who needs help,” she said, muffled. “I’ve been the one who didn’t need anything since I was nine.”

“Then you’re in good company,” I said. “I have been fine for six years. It’s exhausting.”

“We have twenty-eight days,” I said into her hair. “That’s a long time. Longer than anyone thinks.”

“What do we do?”

“We pretend.” I pulled back and looked at her. “We say yes to everything. We let Magnus think we’re frightened mice. And we find out what he’s hiding before the wedding.”

“And the cake?”

“I’ll bake the cake.” I tucked the vial into my apron pocket. “But he’s not going to like the flavor.”

It sounded braver than I felt. My knees had turned to water, and the vial in my pocket weighed as much as an anchor.

* * *

A shadow filled the pantry door.

“What’s going on in here?”

Gideon stood in the hall with a lantern in his hand. His eyes went from my face, to Seraphine’s wet cheeks, to the small glass bottle half hidden in my fingers.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Seraphine.”

“Wedding nerves.” She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and gave him a cool, sharp look. “Ms. Brennan was kind enough to let me cry on her apron. I hope that isn’t a crime.”

He did not look convinced. He looked at me, and his eyes dropped to my pocket, and stayed there. A pulse ticked in his throat.

“Whatever you two are doing,” he said slowly, “be careful.”

“We are always careful,” said Seraphine, and swept past him.

I stood alone with him in the narrow doorway, his lantern throwing both our shadows across the flour sacks. He smelled of salt and cedar and rain. I had to look at the floor.

I tried to follow. He caught my wrist. Gently. His thumb brushed the small oven burn on my skin.

“Nia.” It was barely a whisper. “Whatever Magnus said to you. Whatever he’s holding over you. Tell me.”

I looked at his hand, and at his tired eyes, and the little girl in my chest who had once believed every word he said.

It would have been so easy. I could have laid the vial in his palm and told him everything and let him be the wall and the knife. But the last time I let that man carry something for me, I had walked away with nothing.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because the last time you decided what was best for me, I ended up alone on a sea wall.”

He let go.

His face closed up like a door.

“All right,” he said. “Good night, Ms. Brennan.”

I stood in the corridor listening to his steps fade, and the silence he left behind felt heavier than anything he had said. Twenty-eight days. I had thought that was a long time. I had not yet learned how fast a bad night can burn through them.

* * *

I had barely closed my bedroom door when my phone started to ring.

Marta.

“Nia.” Her voice was thin, wobbling like a plate on a spinning top. “Don’t be angry. I swear on my mother’s grave I only turned my back for a minute.”

“What happened?”

“She was in the yard. Hugh’s men were right outside. She was in her pajamas, playing with a flashlight. I went in to put the kettle on.” A sob broke her voice. “When I came back, she was gone.”

The phone slid in my fingers.

“Gone?”

“The delivery truck from the flour mill. It was parked by the gate. The driver says she must have climbed in the back.” Marta was crying now, full-out. “She said something, before. About a lucky spoon. She said you forgot it. She said she had to bring it to you.”

Our lucky spoon. A battered wooden thing she had loved since she could hold it, the one I stirred every birthday cake with. I had left it on the counter that morning, and my five-year-old had decided that was an emergency.

I couldn’t feel my legs.

I was already pulling on my boots, already reaching for the van keys, already counting the dark miles between Pellam Cove and this house. Hugh’s men had been right outside. Twenty minutes ago she had been asleep behind a locked door.

“Where is the truck now?”

“On the way to Stormhaven,” said Marta. “It was your next delivery.”