Chapter 2 The Grumpy Hearth and the Flying Flour

My quarters were surprisingly cozy, featuring a four-poster bed with patchwork quilts and a window overlooking a misty, enchanted lake. But I didn't have time to lounge. The grandfather clock in the corridor was ticking toward five, and my employer expected his dinner at six o'clock sharp.

I tied my hair back, rolled up my sleeves, and marched down to the grand kitchen.

If the entrance hall was a mausoleum, the kitchen was an alchemist’s abandoned laboratory. The center of the room was dominated by an enormous cast-iron stove, its heavy exhaust pipe twisting up into the stone chimney like a sleeping dragon. The hearth was cold, dark, and filled with decades of old soot.

"Right," I said, dropping my cleaning bucket onto the flagstones. "First things first. A proper fire."

I gathered some dry pine kindling from a bin near the wall, arranged it neatly inside the belly of the stove, and struck a match. The small flame caught the wood, casting a pleasant, flickering orange glow across the copper pots hanging from the ceiling.

Clack.

The iron stove door suddenly slammed shut on its own, completely cutting off the oxygen. The fire sputtered and died in a pathetic wisp of smoke.

I blinked. I pulled the door back open, cleared the smoke, struck a second match, and nursed the tiny flame back to life.

SLAM.

The door shut again, harder this time. A small, vindictive puff of black soot shot straight out of the air vents, landing square on the tip of my nose.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, staring down the cast-iron beast. Rule 3: Don't argue with the fireplace.

"I'm not arguing," I told the stove, planting my hands firmly on my hips. "I am stating a fact. Your master needs to eat at six. If you don't let me build a fire, he goes hungry, which means he stays grumpy, which means this entire house remains a miserable, dusty tomb. Now, are we going to be partners, or am I going to find a bucket of ice water and scrub your insides until you remember your manners?"

The stove sat in rigid silence for a long moment. Then, with a slow, reluctant creak, the iron door drifted open by two inches. A tiny, bright orange ember popped out of the grate, floating into the air before landing back on the wood. The kindling caught instantly, roaring into a warm, steady, perfectly behaved fire.

"Thank you," I said politely, patting the warm iron side of the stove.

From the corner of the room, a copper kettle slid three inches along the counter, positioning itself closer to the heat as if offering its services. I couldn't help but laugh. The castle wasn't just alive; it was incredibly lonely. And just like its master, it just needed someone who wasn't afraid to talk back to it.

By day four, I had established a shaky truce with the household. I learned that if I turned left down the portrait gallery after three o'clock, I’d end up in the laundry room. If I turned left after four, I’d find myself staring at a blank brick wall that smelled faintly of cinnamon. The castle was a restless toddler playing with building blocks.

"Move an inch to the right and I’ll starch you into paralysis," I snapped at the grand staircase.

The stone steps froze mid-shift, hovering two feet above the landing before grudgingly lowering themselves to let me pass. I hurried down to the kitchens, my apron strings fluttering like battle flags.

It was 11:45 PM.

According to Rule 4: Never enter the master's bedroom after midnight. But the rule said absolutely nothing about midnight raiding his pantry to prepare for the morning. Dom because "Lord Dominic" took too long to say when I was busy fighting his architecture was currently cooped up in his study. The man hadn't touched his dinner. Again.

A perfectly roasted pheasant, completely ignored because he was "too occupied with provincial ledgers."

He was entirely, beautifully clueless about how to take care of himself.

I pushed open the kitchen doors. The stove, which I had affectionately named Barnaby after the grumpy duke in the hallway, let out a welcoming puff of vanilla-scented steam.

"Good boy," I murmured, tossing a chunk of dried cedar into its belly.

I grabbed a ceramic bowl, a sack of enchanted flour that literally floated three inches off the table, and a jar of wild blackberries I’d scavenged from the garden border. If Dom wouldn't eat a proper dinner, I was going to force-feed him breakfast scones that tasted like pure summer.

Scratch. Scratch.

I froze, my wooden spoon poised above the flour.

From the dark corner of the pantry, two glowing amber eyes blinked at me. Dom’s black cat stepped out of the shadows, its tail upright. It didn't meow. It just stared, looking back and forth between me and the forbidden door at the far end of the kitchen the one leading directly up the spiral servant’s stairs to the master’s wing.

"Don't look at me like that," I whispered, dumping the berries into the dough. "He’s going to get scurvy if he keeps living on coffee and spite."

The cat let out a low purr, trotting over to the spiral staircase and tapping its front paw against the bottom step.

"No way," I said. "It’s almost midnight."

The grand grandfather clock in the corner was currently ticking toward 11:53 PM. The copper pendulum swung violently, its rhythmic tick-tock sounding suspiciously like go-now, go-now.

"You’re both in cahoots," I groaned, but I grabbed the baking tray anyway. I piled it high with the freshly baked, steaming scones, a small pot of clotted cream, and a flask of hot tea.

I bolted up the spiral stairs, my boots clicking double-time against the stone. The air grew colder the higher I climbed, shifting from the cozy warmth of the kitchens to the sharp, ozone-heavy scent of Dom’s private quarters.

I reached the landing just as the grandfather clock downstairs began its heavy, echoing chime.

BONG.

Midnight.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my hand hovering over the brass knob of his study door. The wood was ice-cold. Never enter the master's bedroom after midnight. Technically, this was his study, but the proximity made my pulse jump against my ribs.

Before I could talk myself out of it, the door handle twisted on its own. The door swung inward, throwing a long strip of golden candlelight across my white apron.

Dom was sitting behind a massive mahogany desk buried under mountains of glowing blue parchment. His black coat was discarded over a chair, leaving him in a loose white linen shirt with the collar undone. His dark hair was a messy ruin, like he’d been running his fingers through it for hours. He looked exhausted, sharp, and so painfully handsome it made my breath hitch.

His icy blue eyes snapped up, locking onto mine. The shadows in the corners of the room instantly lunged forward, creeping across the floorboards toward my boots like protective guard dogs.

"Irene," he said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register that vibrated right through the tray in my hands. "What part of the rules did you fail to comprehend?"

"The part where you starve yourself to death on my watch," I said, stepping right through the wall of shadows. The darkness parted around my ankles, warm and tingling, completely ignoring his command to intimidate me.

Dom’s eyes widened slightly as I marched right up to his desk and cleared a space among his magical ledgers, slamming the tray down with a definitive clatter.

"Eat," I commanded, crossing my arms.

"I told you I require silence and order," he said, though his gaze dragged down to the steaming, blackberry-stuffed scones. His jaw twitched. "And it is past midnight. You are violating protocol."

"Protocol doesn't keep your blood sugar from crashing, My Lord," I countered, leaning over the desk just enough that he had to look up at me. "You haven't left this castle in years, you don't know how to boil an egg, and you look at a scone like it’s an active explosive device.

Take a bite before I eat it myself."

The black cat hopped onto the desk, nudging a scone toward Dom’s hand with its nose.

Dom looked at the cat, then at the pastry, and finally back at me. The icy, untouchable mask he wore every day cracked, just for a second, revealing a profound, baffling loneliness. Slowly, deliberately, his long fingers reached out and picked up the scone.

He took a bite.

The reaction was instantaneous. The heavy, oppressive shadows in the room vanished into thin air. Outside the window, the sleepy, dark ivy climbing the castle walls suddenly burst into tiny, glowing white blossoms. Beneath our feet, the floorboards gave a deep, rumbling purr of absolute contentment.

Dom froze, the pastry halfway to his mouth. He looked around the room, his eyes wide with a shock that looked dangerously close to terror.

"What did you do to my castle?" he whispered, his voice raw.

I blinked, genuinely confused. "I told you. I baked. And then I cleaned the kitchen."

Dom stood up, his towering frame casting a shadow over me, but the intensity in his eyes wasn't anger anymore. It was wonder.

"No, Irene," he said, stepping out from bending over the desk until he was inches away from me. I could smell the wild blackberries on his breath, mixed with the sharp scent of his magic.

"The hearth hasn't purred like that since my mother died. The walls haven't bloomed in thirty years. You didn't just clean it."

He reached out, his hand hovering just above my wrist, where the star-shaped birthmark burned with a sudden, hidden warmth.

"You woke it up."