Page 18 of Sweets and Sycamores

I’LL TRY

“Iwant to keep Ekko,” Allie blabbered as soon as she laid eyes on her boss, so she didn’t have time to talk herself out of it. Which was as soon as she flung the door open to the bakery and stormed inside to find him sitting at a table, going over the books.

He didn’t bother to raise that incredible pair of emerald eyes, ignoring the hurricane that smothered his space. He said nothing, his head hanging down, fully focused on the books before him and following a trail of numbers with a pen.

“Please, Mr. Ranford. I promise he won’t bother you.

I went by the Institute, and they would take him, but Mia told me there are already so many dragons there, and it would be years before someone took him.

I’ll take care of him, and you won’t even know he’s here.

” Allie exhaled, her heart pounding against her chest, hands fisted in the pockets of her jacket.

In the short time she’d spent with Ekko, they had grown fond of each other.

Allie realized how much she’d missed having someone, be it a baby creature, to come back to every day.

Ekko snuggled with her at night, and when she read, he kept the book open by holding one side of it up because she hated cracking the spine.

He’d be welcome with the coven, or at least tolerated.

One of her sisters had a cat, and another one a chimera.

No one had complained about them before.

And even though it broke her heart that he could not spit fire, it was an advantage in keeping him in enclosed spaces.

Fate was funny this way, and Allie believed it brought them together, a Witch and a dragon born with fire they could not wield.

Dominic finally raised his gaze from the documents and scanned Allie from head to toe, his eyes again spending more time on and around her face. She moved her curls behind her ears and smoothed them over with her fingers, taming the crazy hair ruffled by the wind.

“Fine,” he said and went back to his files.

And that was that.

Allie whispered a thank you and reeled in the urge to jump up and down in excitement. She went to her room and told the good news to Ekko, who flew around her in circles and stopped on her shoulder to nuzzle her jaw.

She took Ekko shopping at the market to get more fruits, vegetables, and seeds for him. He picked pumpkin and chia seeds, grapes, grapefruits, apples, and a cabbage almost his size that he insisted on carrying. Ekko nearly fell from midair a few times, but did not relinquish carrying his cabbage.

Allie spent the rest of the day cooking, ate an early dinner, and grabbed her Witchcraft book while the sun was still out for her daily practice session.

Ekko accompanied her to the forest and tried to cheer her up by doing air tricks after endless hours of failure upon failure to find the core of her power.

Or a clue to grasping her power. Or anything, anything related to the damn fire inside her.

And that was their every-night routine for the next few days, until the second half of the next week. Allie was exhausted after the bakery closed because, for the first time, Dominic had given her more tasks than usual around the kitchen.

Prepare the butter for the croissant dough. Chop the apples for the pies and strudels. Mix the filling for the pumpkin pies. Fill the cupcake pans with batter and top them with frozen fruit.

It took Allie a little longer than it should have to understand that her boss was testing her power by putting her under pressure.

For each task, she needed to deal with something specifically not meant to be warm.

When she understood his intentions, Allie strained herself, mind and body, to keep everything under control.

Exhaustion built inside her gradually as she tried to contain a power she couldn’t grasp.

She still had no idea where the core was, or how it felt to experience her power and not just witness it popping out at inappropriate times.

That night, Allie wanted to give up. At least for one night, she wanted to give up.

She didn’t want to practice or think about the Silverbarks and how each day was taking her closer and closer to their deadline with no progress made.

Let her rot in bed for the night until the daylight claimed her for work.

But Ekko didn’t let her.

He flew incessantly around her, pulled at her sweater, pushed at her back, and huffed smoky breaths that broke her heart. If the dragon knew how to stomp his feet, he would have done so in her pathetic face.

“I’m tired, Ekko,” Allie said, defeated.

She didn’t like the weakness in her voice and knew she shouldn’t waste any spare moment, but every inch of her body protested the thought of going to practice.

She slumped on her bar stool and picked up a knife to slice an apple, appetite lacking, but Ekko landed in front of it and huffed at her again, unwavering determination shining in his dark, beady eyes.

You can try. Of the two of us, you can still try. Guilt grew in her core and overpowered the exhaustion by a hair’s breadth.

“All right, all right,” she ceded. “I’ll try.”

Ekko made happy laps around her as she grabbed her jacket and the book, and they went to that secluded spot in the forest, following the path that had become familiar.

Allie sat as close to the river as possible, and Ekko perched on the closed book, watching her patiently, his violet scales almost black in the dark.

The power in my body. The power in my body. The power in my body.

Where in gods’ names was it? Why couldn’t she locate it?

Her power was fire, for crying out loud.

She shouldn’t have difficulty finding or feeling fire.

It should burn. Somewhere, someplace inside her should burn.

Where was that smoldering piece, that source of power that was so natural for all other Witches to find?

Allie only felt frustration build up inside her.

Failure, failure, failure. The disgusted looks on people’s faces haunted her, the disapproval on her sisters’ faces haunted her, the betrayal and heartbreak in Green Creek haunted her.

She fisted her hands in the dry grass and felt a tear drip down her cheek.

Ghosts crowded her soul and her mind, and maybe that was why she couldn’t find her power.

Maybe it was hidden under all of them, these wicked and twisted and malevolent ghosts.

They painted her memories red, clung to her like a second skin, and she felt suffocated, hot—

Ekko chittered and pulled at her sweater, nudging her cheek urgently until she opened her eyes.

Oh no.

Dominic was running out of time. Each day that crept by increased Dom’s fear that another calamity could hit their vulnerable town.

A full year had passed since the tornado, and he wasn’t any closer to discovering how to fix the broken spell.

Magic was picky like that, and he could not just weave a new spell between the land and the sycamores.

No. He had to find a way to repair what was broken to restore the balance, and he was out of patience.

He had to search everywhere but felt like it would take a lifetime.

Each day, he scanned another portion of the land, every nook and cranny of every tree, and still didn’t find the rupture in the magic.

All pieces he had tested had been intact.

The sycamores were humming every time he touched them, the earth was singing every time he sent his magic through it in search of the sickness.

Nothing cried. Nothing withered. Nothing was rotten.

And he was damn frustrated. He never imagined one of the hardest missions of his life would be in his hometown.

After yet another failed attempt to find the rupture in the magic, Dom was heading home on a longer path than usual.

Ever since the Witch had stolen his favorite spot—the one place where he could access the most remote parts of the land from a distance—he had to venture farther and farther away to send his magic all the way to the edges, where the last sycamores bordered the area.

The night was chilly when he had left the forest, and now a strong wind blew through the streets, rustling dry leaves and branches, sweeping his hair over his eyes.

Dom used a bit of magic to keep the air at bay, a privilege he always enjoyed in the colder months when he was not stationed in a warm town.

He hated the endless heat and couldn’t imagine living with a constant coat of sweat on his skin.

The thought made him shudder, and he stepped up his pace, as if the imaginary sweat was chasing him.

A flicker caught his attention. Through the naturally dark forest, he noticed a throbbing red glimmer lighting the thick tree trunks.

Fire?

Dom mapped the area quickly in his head and concluded that it might be around the secluded spot he used to go to every night before—

Alecsandra.

Dom ran.

He cut through the forest on a shortcut he hoped to remember well from his childhood.

Dom sprinted through the darkness, through sharp branches and dry leaves fighting to grip him.

But as the red flare grew and grew in his line of vision, he put his full strength in his strides, molding the wind with his magic to push him from behind.

The cold air scratched his throat with every breath, and his muscles protested, but he didn’t slow down.

Had this forest always been so fucking big?

Dom felt like he’d been running forever when he entered the clearing that he knew like the back of his hand and halted in front of angry flames taller than him. They licked furiously at the ground, forming a perfect circle on the edge of the river.

But he heard nothing else than the horrific crackle of the scorching fire.

“Hello?” he yelled, coming as close as possible to the heat. Through the dancing inferno, he made out a figure curled into herself on the ground. “Alecsandra!”

Nothing.