Page 90 of Baking and Angels

“I think you do. You’re afraid of me,” she statedfactually.

He wouldn’t lift his head, but the pressure of her next to him forced him to nod.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Helena cooed softly, once more deigning to touch him, rubbing her hand over the back of his. When he didn’t unfurl, she retreated again. “I get it. After everything you’ve been through, of course, you would doubt me. If I’m honest, I’ve been doubting me, too. But I am still me. I mean, I am still Helena, even if I’m different now. I’m not in hell. I’m here with you. That must mean something.”

He still couldn’t raise his head. He understood what she was saying, but he could feel this all falling apart. The carefully constructed lie he had been trying to build crumbled around him.

Still, she persisted. “Is there any way I can reassure you?”

“That’s just it, I’m not sure,” he said, his voice steadier. The worst of it was out, and if he was honest with himself, he felt a bit better for it. “If you aren’t her, don’t ever tell me. I don’t think I couldbear it.”

“I’m stillme, Rafferty. I swear. IamHelena.”

No, you’re not,he thought. He couldn’t unsee it now. The Helena he knew was gone. The Rafferty he had been was gone, too. They had both become different people, and it had all happened so fast.

Still, the tension dragged out between them.

Finally, she stood up and went to get her broom, proceeding to sweep up her cookie mess. Somehow, her moving allowed him to do so as well, uncoiling from the tight ball he had managed to put himself in. Now, he let one of his legs drop to the side, opening himself up a little bit, while he watched her repair the damage she had done. The oven had cooled, and the smoke had escaped out the open window. While Helena dumped the mess that had been her cookies into the garbage, Rafferty noticed the cookbook lying face down on the floor. Picking it up gingerly, he turned over the pages filled with Nana’s writing, interrupted with his own here and there. He stopped on the recipe Helena clearly had been using.

Lavender Lemon Sugar Cookies,the printed text read, followed by Nana’s handwriting.To soothethe soul!

He could almost hear Nana’s voice as she recited to him while she baked. “Lavender flowers represent purity, silence, devotion, serenity, grace, and calmness. Mix with lemon and sugar. Lemons symbolize light, love, heart, and soul. They also attract good fortune and help people embrace changes. Now the sugar… well the sugar doesn’t represent anything, but if you don’t add it to cookies, then you got biscuits instead, and that’s not what we’re going for today.” He chuckled then and he chuckled now at the memory.

Then he noticed at the bottom of the recipe, something more written in her hand next to a jotted-down recipe for making the lavender lemon sugar needed for the recipe.When needed to emphasize the purity in the lavender, use the Shepard’s prayer. When needed to emphasize the light, use the morning prayer. When both are needed, use Lares’s prayer.

Lares’s prayer.

He remembered now. Back when she had summoned him. She had fed him these very cookies and he… wentto sleep.

No, I returned to hell without being compelled,he realized, his eyes going wide as he read the words of the spell with his name above it, hidden as a prayer there in the book. Maybe he should have felt betrayed by Nana’s trick, but instead, he saw an answer. A terrible answer.

He could banish Helena back to Hell. And he would be free.

Itwouldbe abetrayal.

Itwouldn’tbehis first.

He looked to Helena, whose back was turned toward him. She was looking in her bowl of cookie dough in disgust before picking up the whole thing, spatula in the other hand, and going to the garbage can to dispose of the remains. Before he could stop her, she had neatly swiped the whole mess into the pail. Taking them all back to her sink, she dropped the spatula and reached for the dish soap to squirt into the bowl. This he intercepted in time.

“Let’s try again,” he said.

“Try again?”

“Yes, you and I together. Let’s do this together,” he said, setting the bowl on the counter. He went to the small shelf on the counter where he had stacked the herbs and spices he had collected during the short stints when he had existed in Helena’s world as her demon. He found the jar that he kept the lavender in already on the counter where she had made her first attempt at flavoring sugar. A lemon sat beside it, half flayed of its zest. He picked it up and passed the grater to her. “Go ahead and get some fresh offof that.”

He grabbed the lavender and started sifting through it to find the best in the bottle. Moving about as she zested, Rafferty set things to right, wiping up the spills between measuring out whathe needed.

It gave him something to focus on instead of his rapidly beating heart.

Chapter 35

Breaking

Limbo

“Oh Lord! These taste so much better,” Helena cried, her mouth full and spilling crumbs as she took a too-big bite from one of the freshest lavender lemon sugar cookies.

Rafferty couldn’t help grinning as he slipped the spatula between another of the cookies and the parchment paper he had laid over the baking sheet, touching the top carefully with his clean fingers before transferring it safely to a plate. He could keep this show of joviality up as long as he didn’t think at all about what he intended to do. Just pretend this was all very normal. He found the calm inside his storm easy to slip back into, surprisingly easy.

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