Daisy Duke's Arc

Chapter 17 of 22

After Thorn left, Daisy stared at the tray of rose petal shortbread by the window. If her binding could reach a fading person, it could reach a fading dream. That was the shop she wanted—every pastry tasting like a dream the customer forgot. But she'd only ever anchored things she baked from her own heart. She had never pulled a dream out of someone else. She didn't know where to start. The door swung open. A woman came in slow, one hand trailing the counter like she'd walked here in her sleep. She ordered a rib-shaped loaf, paid, and turned to go. Then she stopped. "I used to want something," she said. "Can't remember what. It ached, once." She left before Daisy could answer. The bell went quiet. Here was a lost dream, walking out the door, and Daisy had nothing to catch it with. "You're chewing your petals," Leslie Sweetspell said. Daisy's friend leaned in the doorway, candy gown catching the lamp, lollipop eyepatch bright over her missing eye. Leslie had pulled Daisy through worse. She crossed the floor and picked up a shortbread. "You want to bake the dream she forgot. But you can't taste a flavor that isn't in the room." "Then it's impossible," Daisy said. Leslie smiled the way she did before a trick worked. "Not impossible. Just not yours to taste." She tipped her head toward the seam in the floor, then past it, toward the cafe passage. "Someone here has tasted every flavor the cosmos ever made." The Void Chef came through the passage before Daisy called it, a starry worm-body drifting low, star-eyes glinting. It had no mouth. It tasted by knowing. "Nine loaves today," it said. "One dream walked out." "I can't reach it," Daisy said. "It's already gone from her." "Gone from her. Not gone from me." The Chef curled closer. "I tasted it when she paid. A dream of building something with her hands. Left her twelve years ago." Daisy's heart jumped. "Trade me the flavor." "You never trade for free," Leslie warned, soft. "A flavor for a flavor," the Chef said. "Give me the taste of your first sold loaf. The pride. I've never had it." Daisy hesitated. That memory was hers. But a shop full of forgotten dreams was worth one proud morning. "Take it." The Chef brushed her petals. Something warm slipped out of her, and something new bloomed on her tongue—sawdust, sweat, the joy of a thing half-built. The forgotten dream, whole in her mouth. She worked fast. She anchored the flavor not to the woman, but to the worn counter she'd touched on her way in—a thing the shop would keep. The shortbread held. It pulled, aimed and steady. Daisy set it on a plate for the woman's return. She could pull a lost dream now. Her real shop had just become possible—and the Chef would want the next flavor, and the next.