Page 39 of The Baker and the Wolf

He opens his arms, and I lean into his embrace for the first time. He smells of pipe tobacco and peppermint, just as a Grandpère should. “Cerise, our little girl.” Do I hear tears in that posh voice?

“Sir! Monsieur DuBois!”

We turn to see a young man approach at a run, slipping and sliding on the path, his gray cape sweeping behind him.

At sight of him, fear rushes through me. Where is Benoît?

The man slides to a stop and salutes. “I’m here to report.”

Gauthier DuBois is all business again. “What is it, Alonso?”

“Two things, sir,” he gasps. “We found the shifter convict.”

“Where?” I blurt, scarcely aware of the startled gazes flashing my way.

“Um, not far from the portal door. We also found the woman . . .”

But I’m already running full tilt. Right past the statue. Still in my slippers, which live up to their name—I slip and fall twice on the packed-snow path that seems ten times as long as before. As I round the last curve, I see three people looking down at something.

As I approach, they whirl to face me, revealing a crumpled body on the ground. One look tells me it’s Gisella, but I don’t care about her. Beside a blood-spattered trail leading toward the forest I see a severed finger pointing down into a drift. A gold ring with a cloudy stone encircles its bloody stump.

I stick to the trail into the forest until it ends, then visually follow its trajectory to a bundle of black fur at the base of a pine, where the blast of magic threw him. After slogging through the deep snow at least another twenty paces and losing one of those stupid slippers, I finally drop to my knees at his side. I know he’s alive: he breathes in shallow huffs. He looks almost flat, lying on his side in the snow, his long tongue flowing like a pink ribbon from his open mouth. Dark blood smears his jaws and razor teeth.

“Oh, Ben, what have you done?” I wrap my arms around his body. I try to enter his mind and offer support in whatever battle he wages, but something like a wall blocks me. My hands move to gently stroke his soft ears and the thick ruff around his neck. “Wake up, Benoît Ayad!” His legs twitch, he whines softly, and I feel the throb of his racing heart.

Residual blue magic permeates his fur, the snow, the trees around us, and even the ground beneath us. But the magic is dead, so what inner battle is he fighting?

Suddenly, the wolf releases an agonized howl, and magic blasts from within him.

Moments later, while staring at the sky from flat on my back in the snow, I analyze that blast. It was not fae magic. Neither was it Ben’s magic. My inexpert analysis concludes it was a potent blend of human magics formed into a spell of some kind. A curse?

I struggle upright only to see the wolf’s body begin to writhe and thrash. Will his suffering never end? “Ben!” While scrambling back to his side, I realize he’s transforming. Once again I watch as the long muzzle retracts, the black fur recedes and changes into clothing and hair, and the body warps and refigures itself into a grimacing human shape, gray and bloody in the face, lying on its side in the snow with its back to the tree.

Eyes still squeezed shut, he shakes his head slowly as if in denial, lifts a tremulous hand to his mouth, then squints at the red smears on his fingers. “Whoa, that was a mistake. Have I got any teeth left?”

I’m trembling with joy, but I do strive to maintain control of myself. “If it’s a mistake to save the world from an insanely evil dictator powered by fae magic, then you really blew it today,” I say, gently smoothing loose hair from his cheek.

His golden eyes fly open, then close in a wince at the bright snow and sky. “Cerise! You’re . . . all right?” The relief and joy in his voice fill my heart.

“I’m fine, thanks to you. Everything went according to plan. Rina’s plan, that is. And your teeth are intact. Not sure about the rest of you. What happened?”

He works his way to a sitting position and leans back against the tree, looking utterly exhausted. “Where’s Gisella?”

I point. “That way. On the path. I believe she’s dead. My father is alive and freed from the statue, and my grandfather is here—”

“About time Gauthier got here. Great news about your father.” Then he blinks twice. “Dead? I heard her scream . . .”

“That was when your magic struck like a lightning bolt and helped mine destroy the fae magic.”

“Lightning bolt, eh?” Amusement brightens his expression. “I like it.” Then he sobers. “I charged in to bite the fae ring off her finger. She screamed, and I ran for it . . . and there was a magic blast or explosion.”

“There sure was. You saved us all.”

“I didn’t know losing the ring would kill her—your mother.” His voice holds regret I didn’t expect.

“None of us knew. You followed orders, and your actions very likely saved other people from injury and even death.”

He nods doubtfully. “She stole most of my magic, but she didn’t kill me when she had the opportunity.”

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