Page 52 of The Baker’s Shadow

“No.”

I sit across from him. The documentation is stacked neatly on the counter, ready for tomorrow, useless as armor made of paper.

“What if they take the bakery?” The words come out small and frightened and childlike.

“Then we’ll leave.”

“This is my home.”

“Then we’ll fight.”

I look at him now, really look, at the way he sits relaxed but ready, at the shadows that cling to him even in moonlight like they’re part of his skin.

He said we. Not you, not they’ll make you leave. We.

“When did this become we?”

He’s quiet for a long moment, those dark eyes seeing too much like they always do.

“The moment you chose to keep the child. The moment you let me stay.”

The baby kicks hard, like it’s agreeing with him.

We sit in the dark kitchen while the night deepens outside, not talking, just being present with each other in the quiet. Eventually my eyes grow heavy and I start to drift where I sit.

“Go to bed. You need rest.”

“Will you still be here in the morning?”

“Yes.”

I believe him, and that’s the strangest part of all this.

Upstairs I finally sleep, deep and dreamless, and when I wake the sun is streaming through the window and the meeting is tonight.

I spend the morning baking because I need the routine, need the familiar motions of flour and water and yeast and salt, need my hands to know what they’re doing even when my mind is spinning uselessly.

Malak watches from the doorway, silent and steady, an anchor in the chaos.

At six o’clock I go upstairs to change.

The gray dress doesn’t fit anymore, the one I wore to Dan’s funeral with its respectable lines and conservative cut. The baby has made sure of that. I find another dress instead, navy blue and plain, that stretches over my stomach without looking obscene. Braid my hair, put on minimal makeup, stare at my reflection in the mirror.

Tired. Scared. Pregnant. Human.

It will have to be enough.

Downstairs Malak waits by the back door, changed into dark jeans and a black shirt that makes him look dangerous and otherworldly, exactly what they’ll expect a daemon to look like.

“Ready?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

We walk through evening streets toward the Riverside Pub at the edge of town, that old stone and timber building that’s been standing for centuries and will probably stand for centuries more. The parking lot is full of cars, more than usual. Mrs. Chen’s sedan, the mayor’s truck, others I don’t recognize.

Malak stops at the edge of the lot. “I’ll go around back, find the storage area Mrs. Chen mentioned.”