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ONE

HELENA

H elena wiped beads of sweat from her brow as she leaned over the simmering pot and inhaled the complex aroma of her newest creation. The kitchen of Ember & Spice buzzed around her, a symphony of clattering pans and shouted orders she’d grown to love more than any birthday song.

“Chef, the supplier called about the truffles. They’re delayed until tomorrow.” Marco, her sous chef, appeared at her elbow with a clipboard.

“Of course, they are.” Helena tucked a loose strand of red hair behind her ear. The same rebellious red hair that had been with her for thirty years as of today. Not that anyone needed to make a fuss about it. “Tell Jean to redo the special menu card without the truffle risotto. We’ll substitute the wild mushroom ravioli.”

“On it. Also—” Marco hesitated, a poorly concealed grin spreading across his face. “Happy birthday.”

Helena rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress her smile. “It’s just another Thursday, Marco.”

“A Thursday where you’re officially old ,” Marco teased.

“Thirty isn’t old!” She flicked her kitchen towel at him as he ducked away laughing.

The rest of the morning passed in a rapid blur of prep work and taste testing. Helena lost herself in the familiar patterns, her hands working from muscle memory while her mind raced ahead to the evening service.

Her phone buzzed occasionally with birthday texts from her best friends scattered across the country—Lorelei in Boston, Isolde in Portland, Seraphina in Miami, Thea in Providence, and Everly in New York City, all promising to video chat on the weekend when Helena might actually have five minutes to spare.

At two o’clock, she took her customary fifteen-minute break, collapsing onto the chair in her small office. The mirror on her wall reflected her flushed face and her hazel eyes bright from the kitchen heat. She looked the same as yesterday despite crossing the threshold into her thirties today.

“So, this is what thirty looks like,” she murmured, running her fingers through her hair.

She shook her head and glanced down at her desk. Like usual, there were stacks of invoices, reviews, and scheduling conflicts—the less glamorous side of running the hottest restaurant in San Diego. Helena sighed and felt a strange warmth building in her chest. Heartburn? At thirty? She pressed a hand to her sternum.

“God, I really need a life beyond these walls,” she whispered to the empty room. “Maybe a date that doesn’t involve food critics or supplier meetings.”

The warmth intensified suddenly, spreading down her arms. Helena frowned, rolling up her sleeves. Her pale skin looked normal but felt like she’d stepped too close to the wood-fired oven. Before she could process this further, a knock came at the door.

“Chef, the Nicholsons are here. They’re asking if you’ll come out and say hello.” Her lead server poked her head in.

Helena nodded, pushing away the strange sensation. “Tell them I’ll be right out.”

As she stood, the warmth receded, leaving only a lingering tingle in her fingertips. Probably just stress and exhaustion—the constant companions of a restaurant owner who hadn’t taken a real day off in three years.

Before she knew it, the workday was just about over. Her shoulders ached as she wiped down her station one last time. The last customers had left twenty minutes ago, and the kitchen cleanup was nearly complete. Her thirtieth birthday had passed by in a blur of seared scallops and plated desserts, exactly as she’d wanted—no fuss, just work.

“Chef, could you check the walk-in before you go?” Marco called, his voice oddly formal.

Helena frowned. “I thought Javier already inventoried?—”

“Just real quick,” Zoe interrupted, appearing from nowhere to guide Helena by the elbow. “Something looks off with the produce delivery.”

Helena allowed herself to be steered toward the refrigerator, too tired to argue. The strange warmth from earlier had returned intermittently throughout service, flaring whenever she’d gotten frustrated with a returned dish or a missed ticket. She’d dismissed it as some weird birthday anxiety.

When she pushed open the heavy door, darkness greeted her.

“What the?—”

The lights flicked on.

“SURPRISE!”

Her kitchen staff crowded inside, Marco holding a chocolate cake blazing with candles. Her favorite—dark chocolate with ganache filling and raspberry coulis. The sight made her throat tighten.

“You guys,” Helena whispered, the warmth in her chest expanding into something that felt dangerously close to tears.

“Make a wish, Chef,” Zoe urged, her dark eyes dancing with mischief. “Thirty candles for thirty years.”

Marco set the cake on a prep table someone had cleared. “Though your advanced age required us to buy extra packs.”

Helena laughed as everyone gathered around. Their faces glowed in the candlelight, these people who’d become her surrogate family during endless dinner services and kitchen disasters.

“Happy birthday to you...” they began singing, slightly off-key but with genuine affection.

Helena closed her eyes when they finished, drew in a deep breath, and leaned forward to extinguish the flames.

Instead of going out, the candles flared upward.

Flames shot two feet high, instantly catching the paper towels nearby. The fire spread along the countertop with unnatural speed.

“What the hell?” Marco jumped back, bumping into a shelf.

Helena froze, her lungs seizing with panic as she watched flames dance across her kitchen. The heat didn’t burn her skin despite how close she stood. Instead, it seemed to reach for her, curling around her fingers like an affectionate cat.

“Fire extinguisher!” someone yelled, but nobody moved, all eyes fixed on the inferno that had been a birthday cake seconds ago.

The strange warmth in Helena’s chest surged in response to her fear, racing down her arms. Her fingertips tingled, then burned, then glowed with an inner light that matched the fire consuming her kitchen.

“This can’t be happening,” Helena whispered, staring at her hands in horror as tiny flames danced across her skin without burning her flesh.

“Helena!” Zoe screamed, finally breaking from her shock. “Get back!”

But Helena couldn’t move, transfixed by the impossible sight of fire flowing from her own body, feeding the blaze that threatened everything she’d built.

“What’s happening to me?” she gasped, as the kitchen—her sanctuary, her life’s work—blazed around her.

Helena watched as the flames danced further across the wooden prep table, spreading with unnatural speed toward the ceiling. Her heart hammered against her ribs while her gaze remained fixed on her fingers where tiny flames continued to flicker like birthday candles replanted on her skin.

“We need the fire extinguisher now!” Marco shouted, jolting into action. He lunged for the red canister mounted on the wall.

Zoe grabbed a large metal lid, slamming it over part of the burning cake. “Helena, move back!”

Marco unleashed a blast of white foam from the extinguisher, dousing the main blaze. Two line cooks grabbed pitchers of water, dumping them on smaller flames licking at the edges of the counter. The sizzling hiss of dying fire filled the kitchen along with the acrid smell of smoke and chemicals.

Helena closed her fists tightly, willing the impossible fire on her hands to disappear. The warmth in her chest constricted, pulling back through her arms, and the flames on her fingertips extinguished as if someone had thrown a switch. No one seemed to have noticed—they were too busy with the chaos around them.

“Is everyone okay?” Helena finally managed, her voice barely audible above the commotion.

“What the hell kind of candles were those?” Marco asked, setting down the extinguisher.

“Just regular ones from the party store down the street,” Zoe replied, her eyes wide with lingering fear.

The door to the kitchen banged open. Paige, the restaurant manager, burst in with her ever-present tablet clutched to her chest. Her neat blonde bob swung as she surveyed the foam-covered mess.

“What happened here? I smelled smoke from the office,” Paige demanded, her gaze sweeping over the damage.

Marco gestured to the ruined cake. “The birthday candles went nuclear.”

“Jesus,” Paige exhaled sharply. “Thank goodness you caught it quickly.” She stepped closer to Helena, lowering her voice. “We can’t afford to close for renovations right now. Not with Vesper’s new place stealing our regulars and that critic from the Tribune coming next week.”

Helena nodded mechanically, barely hearing the words. She stared at her hands. Normal hands now. Her pale skin looked slightly reddened from kitchen work, but no fire anymore. Had she imagined it? But the flames had been real enough—the scorched ceiling tiles proved that.

“I’ve never seen candles do that,” one of the line cooks murmured. “It was like watching a magic trick gone wrong.”

“It could’ve ended everything,” another whispered. “My cousin’s restaurant burned down last year. They never recovered after that.”

The celebratory mood had evaporated completely. Everyone looked between the damage and Helena with confusion written across their faces.

“You okay, Chef?” Marco asked, concern creasing his brow. “You look paler than usual.”

“Fine. Just—” She forced a weak smile. “Not how I pictured my birthday ending.”

Zoe stepped closer, lowering her voice. “We can clean this up. Maybe you should head home.”

Home. Yes. Somewhere private where she could process whatever impossible thing was happening to her.

Helena shook her head, trying to ignore how her fingertips still tingled with phantom heat. “I can stay,” Helena said, though every instinct screamed for her to run. “My kitchen, my responsibility.”

Helena grabbed a mop, attacking the foam-covered floor while trying to keep her hands from trembling. The acrid smell of smoke hung in the air, but beneath it, she detected something else—a scent like cinnamon and woodsmoke that seemed oddly comforting. Her fingers tingled with remembered heat as she worked.

“You know,” she said to Marco as he scrubbed carbon scoring from a stainless-steel counter, “I’ve never seen small birthday candles do that.”

“Me neither.” He shook his head. “Must’ve been defective or something.”

Helena nodded, but doubt gnawed at her. The flames hadn’t felt defective—they had felt right . Like old friends reaching out to greet her after years apart. Even now, as she glanced at the charred ceiling tiles, she felt an inexplicable pull toward the damage rather than revulsion.

The kitchen door swung open, and Tyanna breezed in, her ponytail swinging. As the restaurant’s bar manager, she rarely ventured into Helena’s domain.

“Holy shit, Helena! I heard there was a five-alarm situation in here.” Tyanna whistled, surveying the damage. “Happy birthday, I guess?”

“Thanks.” Helena leaned on her mop. “Maybe turning thirty means entering my firestarter phase. Should I start collecting lighters and matches?”

Tyanna laughed, grabbing paper towels to help clean. “Girl, please. If you were going to have a pyro breakdown, it would’ve happened during that month when the health inspector kept showing up unannounced.”

Helena smiled, but her mind suddenly flashed back to countless memories she’d never examined too closely before. Like how she’d always volunteered to tend campfires during Girl Scout trips, how she found the dancing flames of her gas range soothing after stressful days, and how she’d always chosen candles over electric lights when entertaining at home.

“Maybe I’ve always been a little obsessed with fire,” she murmured.

“All chefs are,” Tyanna replied, bumping Helena’s hip with her own. “It’s literally your job to play with fire.”

When the kitchen finally gleamed again—albeit with a few battle scars—Helena dragged herself to her car. The evening air felt unusually cool against her skin, which had maintained a pleasant warmth since the incident. She slid behind the wheel and pressed her fingertips to the steering wheel, half expecting the leather to sizzle beneath her touch.

Her phone suddenly rang, her mother’s face lighting up the screen.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart!” her mother’s voice sang through the speaker.

“Thanks, Mom.” Helena smiled despite her inner turmoil.

“Did you do anything special?”

Helena’s throat tightened. “Just a small thing at work. Nothing spectacular.” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but how could she possibly explain what had happened? Hi, Mom, I think I might be able to create fire with my bare hands. No big deal.

After promising to visit soon, Helena ended the call and sat in silence, staring at her hands. The desire to see flames dance across her skin again was almost overwhelming—not destructive, not dangerous, but like a musician longing to hear a familiar melody. She flexed her fingers, searching for that inner heat that had surged through her veins earlier.

“What’s even happening to me? And why now?” she whispered to her empty car.

The questions hung unanswered as Helena started the engine. But she couldn’t shake the terrifying certainty that something fundamental had changed—that her predictable, carefully constructed life had just gone up in flames.