Chapter 5 The Sorcerer, The Baker, And The Burnt Bread
By mid-morning, Nigel Talbot had learned three things about village life.
Customers were relentless, flour got into everything, and a goose could hold a grudge for hours.
Old ladies from the upper row houses came for their morning gossip—spun scones; the blacksmith’s apprentice trotted in for his daily loaf of Hearth-Rye; and the village schoolteacher always bought a bag of Memory-Clearing Mint Drops.
Today, however, the front room of the bakery was charged with a buzzing, whispered curiosity.
Nigel stood behind the long oak display counter, feeling extraordinarily exposed.
The front doors had been temporarily patched with sturdy pine planks—courtesy of an early-morning carpenter Faelyn had bartered with for a tin of Chamomile Salve—but the morning air still carried a crisp autumn chill.
Nigel, however, was burning up.
He was wearing an oversized linen shirt borrowed from a local weaver’s trade pile, his violet hair tied back lazily with a strip of leather, and his waist bound by Faelyn’s spare floral apron.
Without his high-collared velvet coat, silver-threaded vest, and dark spellcaster’s mantle, he looked... ordinary.
Or at least, as ordinary as a ridiculously tall, handsome sharp-cheekboned man covered in faint traces of flour could look.
"My, my, Faelyn," cooed Mistress Gable, the village herbalist, leaning over the glass display case to peer at Nigel through her brass spectacles.
"Where did you find this... handsome, quiet young man? Is he from the lower valley?"
Faelyn smiled warmly from behind the hearth, transferring a tray of fresh cinnamon rolls onto a cooling rack.
"This is Jules, Mistress Gable. He’s my new kitchen assistant. A bit clumsy with the trays, but he’s a hard worker."
Nigel’s jaw tightened.
Jules.
He hated the name. It sounded like a mild-mannered sheep farmer who spent his afternoons pressing flowers.
"Oh, he looks like a shy lad," Mistress Gable beamed, sliding two copper coins across the counter. "Look at him, so reserved! Welcome to the village, dear Jules."
Nigel stared down at the copper coins, his violet eyes narrowing slightly.
Shy? He was the Royal Alchemist! He had commanded legionary battle wards! He had stood before the High Emperor without bowing!
"I am not—" Nigel began, his voice dropping into its natural, rich baritone.
Faelyn instantly swooped in, dropping a paper bag of lavender rolls onto the counter and nudging Nigel sharply in the ribs with her elbow.
"He's very soft-spoken!" she interrupted loudly, shooting Nigel a lethal glare that silently promised him no dinner if he opened his mouth again.
"Thank you, Mistress Gable! Have a wonderful morning!"
Once the bell over the door chimed and the old woman shuffled out into the street, Nigel turned his glare onto Faelyn.
"Shy?" he rasped under his breath, leaning over the counter so only she could hear. "She called me shy, Faelyn. I am a master of sorcery! I am not 'shy.'"
"Out here, you are Jules, and Jules is a quiet country boy who doesn't talk back to customers," Faelyn whispered back, a mischievous glint in her golden-brown eyes as she wiped down the counter.
"Now stop pouting, Nigel, and go check on the dough."
Hearing his real name fall from her lips—soft, low, and meant only for his ears—sent a strange prickling warmth down his spine.
He cleared his throat, adjusting his apron straps to hide the sudden heat in his cheeks.
"The dough is fine," he grumbled, turning back toward the kitchen. "Dough is merely yeast, water, and grain. It requires no supervision."
That was his second mistake of the day.
Twenty minutes later, Faelyn walked into the back kitchen to find Nigel staring in absolute horror at the central baking stone.
"Nigel..." Faelyn said slowly, stopping dead in her tracks. "What did you do to the Hearth-Rye?"
Nigel stood with his arms crossed, staring down at a loaf of bread that looked less like food and more like a tactical siege weapon.
It was blackened on top, dense as a cobblestone, and had expanded sideways until it completely swallowed the metal baking paddle.
"I merely applied a speed heating spell to accelerate the crust's caramelization," Nigel defended weakly, though he took a cautious step back from the smoking oven.
"It... appears the grain structure lacked the structural integrity to contain the elemental heat."
"You burnt it to a crisp," Faelyn said, picking up a wooden spoon and tapping the top of the loaf.
It sounded like iron striking an anvil.
Faelyn let out a breathy, quiet laugh, shaking her head as she leaned against the prep table.
"Nigel, you can't force bread to bake with magic. It needs patience. It needs time to rise, time to rest, and gentle heat. You're trying to battle the dough instead of coaxing it."
Nigel stared at the ruined black brick, his pride taking a severe beating. "I do not know how to 'coax' grain," he muttered, looking away, his dark lashes casting long shadows over his high cheekbones.
"In the capital, things are commanded. They obey, or they break."
"Well, in Petal & Brew, we don't command," Faelyn said softly.
She walked over to him, gently reaching out to take the heavy iron paddle from his tense fingers. "We nurture."
Nigel looked down at her. Up close, in the warm light of the ovens, her skin glowed like sweet cream, and the scent of cinnamon and lavender clung to her apron.
His chest ached with a sudden, suffocating tightness.
He wanted, with an intensity that terrified him, to lean down and press his forehead against her shoulder, to let her soft hearth magic wash over the jagged, ruined pieces of his life.
Instead, he stiffened, his body reacting to the sudden wave of emotion in the only way it knew how: with violent, chaotic resistance.
A sharp, agonizing pain flared beneath his ribs.
Nigel gasped, clutching his chest as a sudden wave of freezing air burst outward from his body.
The temperature in the warm kitchen plummeted in an instant. Frost spider-webbed across the wooden prep table, and the glowing embers in the hearth flickered, turning a dark, sickly violet.
The dark-magic spell rot was flaring.
