Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 27 of 29

Three nights after the north wall sealed, the candy fairy came back. Beth felt her before she saw her, a sweetness on the air that made her teeth ache. The lantern was empty now. The wall was strong. But the debt remained. Beth owed Lola a sealed dish made from her own stars, and she had no stars left to bake with. She had spent everything steering the bazaar home. Lola drifted through the north window on thin wings. She landed on the anchor tree and stroked its purple bark. "Sweet thing," she breathed. "You promised me a dish. Sealed. From your own stars. I came to collect, collect, collect." "I don't have any stars to spare," Beth said. "Not one. I'm empty." Lola's smile did not move. "Debts curdle, sweet thing. Left too long, they go sour." She hovered close. Her dark eyes were too big. "Then I fix it a different way. I grant you a wish. Free. You wish for stars, I fill you full. And you become sweet like me." She touched Beth's cheek. Her finger was cold sugar. Elijah moved from the door. He had guarded it all three nights. "Step back," he said. His voice was flat. His red eyes did not blink. "He worries," Lola sang. "He watches. But the debt is mine, mine, mine." Beth's mind raced. A sealed dish from her own stars. She had no stars in her hands. But her whole cathedral was made of them. The walls, the floor, the anchor tree, all built from star magic pressed into shape. She pressed her palm to the cold north wall. She felt the star-fire still humming inside the stone. "I never said I'd bake it fresh," Beth said. "I owe you a dish made from my stars. Sealed." She dug her nails into the wall and pried loose a single bright shard of sealed star-fire. It came away like hard candy. "This is my star. Sealed in my own wall. That's the deal." Lola snatched it. She turned it in her small hands. Her tongue flicked out and touched it. Her whole body shivered. "Oh. Oh, it's baked and hard and sweet." She popped it in her mouth. "Done. Done, sweet thing. Debt paid." She rose to the window and was gone. Beth sank against the tree. The debt was gone. But so was a piece of her wall. A thin crack ran where the shard had been, and cold air leaked through. She had traded a hunter's debt for a hole in her own defense. Elijah crossed to the crack and pressed a finger to it. "It's letting something in," he said. Beth closed her eyes. She could feel it too, the wall gone thin again, the same weak point she had fought to seal. She was free of Lola. But her cathedral was breached, and she had no magic left to close it.