Gracie's Cuppacakes

The Soul-Sear oven was hissing from its many steam pipes, releasing puffs of sweet scent through the bakery. The beastly machine took up most of the kitchen. It was made of brass and copper. It was the battery running the system that made it really special. It ran on souls. When it worked right, thought Gracie Gearnoch, the machine’s maker, elbow deep in its clockwork middle, her blue brows furrowed.

"Nevin! The water intake valve is sticking again!" she called out.

Nevin, an apron clad, orange furred cat man twitched his tail as he handed the customer their change then chirped, "On it, Boss!"

He stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, his ears flat to avoid the pipes hanging from the ceiling. Instead of reaching for a wrench, he placed a clawed hand on a pipe and hummed a low, purring note. The metal seemed to relax under his touch, the sticking valve released and clicked into place.

"You're a lifesaver," Gracie said, smiling up as the two of them walked back into the storefront.

"I'm a healer" Nevin said with a fanged smile. He placed a warm hand on her tiny shoulder. "Life-saving is just one part of the job description when I'm working for such a genius."

Gracie’s Cuppacakes was a modern bakery that looked more like a laboratory than a tea shop. Half of their customers came for the delicious and unique flavors, and the other half came for the impressive gnomian engineering that created them. It popped out freshly made treats and wafted their delightful aromas.

The front door of the shop was large enough to fit clients of all sizes, made of sturdy wood with a big glass circle on the front. It swung wide as the tiny frame of Marlow Kilgrains appeared, clutching a stack of the week’s newest books and looking like he’d just swallowed a lemon.

"I see the help is still being... 'efficiently' affectionate," Marlow barked, his lavender eyes darting between Nevin’s hand and Gracie’s shoulder. "I’m here about the vibration in my non-fiction section, Gearnoch. It’s vibrating the ink right off my ledgers next door! I can hear your gimmicky little 'soul-machine' through the stone walls. It’s a rhythmic catastrophe!"

Gracie didn't even look at him as she grabbed her piping bag. "It’s called a harmonic frequency, Marlow. If your shop were properly dampened, you wouldn't feel a thing. Maybe if you spent less time counting your dusty books and more time calibrating the runes on your floorboards, we wouldn't have this vibration problem."

"Gimmicks!" Marlow stomped toward the counter. "Real engineering uses heat, not whatever graveyard slurry you’ve got bubbling in there. It’s unsanitary! It’s loud! It’s—" He stopped mid-sentence. His nose twitched. The scent of the rose and matcha cakes hit him like a physical weight. "Is that... a balanced floral note?" he muttered, his outrage momentarily derailed by his palate’s sudden urging.

Nevin, now perched on his stool by the register, watched the two gnomes with a lazy grin. He knew their song and dance. He took a slow, deliberate bite of his cupcake. "It’s the necromantic induction, Marlow," Nevin trilled over a full mouth. "Gives it a crumb structure you just can’t get with steam or fire. You should try one. It might help with that vein popping out of your neck." He held a green cake out for the small, purple-haired man.

"I am not here for treats, Cat Boy!" Marlow snapped, though his eyes lingered on the rack of confections. He turned his attention back to Gracie, his face flushed a shade of pink that matched her rose frosting. "I am here to file a formal complaint. Your machine is a nuisance to the scientific reading community of Willow Cove!"

"You're just mad because my 'gimmick' has a line out the door and your bookshop smells like disappointment," Gracie countered, finally looking him in the eye from her perch on a stool behind the glass counter. The air between them crackled, not with electricity, but with the high-voltage tension of two people who were far too obsessed with each other's technical prowess. Since she had moved into this building, directly beside Kilgrains Books and Scrolls, the two gnomes had been rivals.

Gracie had opened her bakery just over a year ago after retiring from her adventuring life. She had gotten into adventuring as a young orphan and after two decades of dodging death as a licensed artificer, she had found herself in the frozen ruins of the Ossuary of the Evern Wyrm. The Lich’s stronghold proved to be too much for her party and she was the only survivor of the scuffle with the mad death cult. She had managed to find a unique treasure there that she knew would fund her future. She didn't want gold. She yearned for something she could share with the world. She didn't talk much about her life before retiring, but she loved to tell everyone about the years she spent collecting recipes from all over the empire. She had traveled every port she could find to cultivate a perfect selection of recipes before settling here, in Willow Cove.

The city of Willow Cove sat at a magical crossroads. To the west were the rolling farmlands of Dogsmouth, where humans, elves, and gnomes grew the wheat and matcha that fueled the region. To the east lay the Black Sea and the merchant port of Sirenscale, which brought rarer commodities from all over. Willow Cove was a place of salt air, fae architecture, and high-end artifice. Gracie’s Cuppacakes lay in the center, offering tiny bites of sweetness that everyone could enjoy.

Gracie came down from behind the counter and stood before Marlow. They were of a similar height and age. Living in a town made for and mostly populated by folks larger than herself, Gracie often overlooked how exciting it was to stare someone in the eyes, face to face. At that moment, she was filled with adrenaline and wasn’t sure why. Was she falling for this purple-haired know-it-all?

Suddenly, the frosted glass door at the front of the shop froze over and cracked. It had been a warm spring morning, but the temperature in the shop plummeted. Ice spread from the wooden door and it whined until it burst with a bang and a black-hooded figure in tendrilling robes glided in with fog of fury.

Pelted with icy wood debris, Gracie and Marlow both gasped. Nevin disappeared behind the counter. The shadowy cultist raised a hand, and a wave of necrotic frost surged toward Marlow.

"You simpering fool! If you love her 'masterpiece' so much," a gravely voice sounded, like the grave itself given voice, "then why don’t you marry it?!"

Marlow was fumbling with his books and tugging out a scroll. He didn't see the jagged shard of shadow ice flying toward his chest. Gracie didn't think. Twenty years of muscle memory kicked in. She launched herself forward. "Marlow, get down!"

She tackled him hard, sending both gnomes tumbling into the oak counter. But the bolt was faster. As she leaped, the necrotic shard hit her in the upper chest. It ripped through her blouse and entered her flesh. The cold didn't stay on the surface. It burrowed into her skin, her muscle, her bone marrow, turned her blood into slushy red ice. She hit the floor with a scream that was cut short by the sound of her own breath caught in a frozen throat.

The figure gave a chilling cackle as he pulled back his hood to reveal a skeleton’s face with glowing white pinpoints in its eye sockets. “My Master says he wants his crystals back, thief!”

"Gracie!" Marlow scrambled up. His books were on the floor. He finally found the trigger for his scroll. "Burned by the laws of geometric stasis!"

His fingers spread wide, making intricate motions as a golden cage of geometric light erupted around the Lich, binding the undead in place. The glowing cage shrunk as Marlow tightened his fingers, forming a box. The creature was forced into a smaller and smaller space until it could no longer move. Its jawbone cracked ajar and its screaming was silenced. Then, the cage clicked into a final form no larger than a bread box.

"You're a fool!” Marlow said as he walked closer to Gracie. “I wear leather, I could have taken that hit!" He tried to help her up.

"And who... who would you… complain about if... if you were a popsicle?" Gracie gasped through chattering teeth. She tried to rise but could only manage to sit up, leaking bloody ice. She clutched his hands in hers.

Nevin stepped from behind the counter. The carefree cat boy was gone. His eyes were glowing with a soft, bioluminescent amber, radiant like the afternoon sun. "The cage is holding," Nevin said to Marlow, his voice a low vibration that made the teacups rattle. "But she's turning blue, Marlow. Move."

He knelt beside Gracie, cradling her head with one hand. "Did I tell you I loved the vanilla cakes best?"

Before Marlow could ask what that had to do with first aid, Nevin pressed a tender kiss to Gracie’s lips. A wave of warmth, smelling of sun-baked grass washed over her. She melted, literally and figuratively. The purple blue frost retreated from her skin instantly, the wound knitted together under the glow of his touch. Icy blood fell away to reveal recently mended skin beneath the torn cloth of her shirt

Gracie blinked, her color returning. "Oh," looking up at the cat man. "That’s... quite a bedside manner.”

Marlow stood over them, his scroll trembling in his hand, not from fear, but from unadulterated annoyance. "A kiss? Really?" Marlow sputtered, "That is highly unprofessional! There are sterile salves! There are healing blankets! You didn't have to," he gestured wildly, "do that in the middle of a crime scene!"

Nevin pulled back, a smug, feline smirk playing on his lips as he helped Gracie to her feet. "It’s a specialized feline restorative, Marlow. Direct transfer of vitality. Very efficient and intimate," he purred.

Gracie touched her chest and fingered the hole in her ruined blouse. The sink was tender and pink. She looked at Marlow’s fuming face and then up at Nevin’s golden wink. "Well," she said, looking down at the trapped cultist in the glowing box. “Can one of you go get the Town Guard, please? I need to make some tea.”

The Town Guard hauled the cultist-in-a-box away. The investigation took most of the day. The guard clearly disapproved of the necromancer’s anima crystal batteries used in her oven and Gracie knew they would be back to ask more questions. Luckily, they had experience with necromancy and were not easily frightened.

Finally, the door was replaced with an ugly but temporary one by Traglor, the half-orc carpenter, who promised a new one as soon as possible. But the tension in the shop remained heavy. Silence fell over the room, broken only by the rhythmic *puff-whir-puff-whir* of the Soul-Sear oven.

“Will you join me?" Gracie asked. All three of them sat at a table with chamomile tea. Her voice dropped into a professional tone. "You saved my shop. That cage scroll was… well, very impressive."

Marlow’s chest puffed out as he beamed. "Well. It was a Kilgrains containment cage, designed specifically for undead. Naturally, since my family comes from a long line of clerics and scribes."

“Really?” Gracie smiled at him, and he smiled back. “You never told me about your family before.”

Marlow’s hands suddenly didn’t know what to do with themselves. “Ah, well, they died a long time ago. But if you like, I would be happy to tell you about them.”

“My family died too,” she said, almost confessionally. “We will have to swap stories sometime.”

He met her eyes while Nevin finished his cake and drank his tea without acknowledgment, save for his tail brushing Gracie’s leg.

"And Nevin," she turned to her employee, "you saved my life. But if you kiss me on the clock again, I’m docking your pay by five, no, ten percent." Then she smiled to show she was not serious.

Nevin laughed, flashing his fangs. "A small price to pay for the vintage, Boss lady."

Gracie laughed and then got up and walked over to the Soul-Sear, pulling the lever. The machine let out a happy whistle, and a fresh tray of cuppacakes slid out. She turned the machine off for the day, and its rhythmic hum slowed to a halt. A heavier silence settled over them as she picked up two more cakes and set them on the table. Both men’s eyes followed her movements.

"The cultist is gone, but the shop is a mess, and I have a feeling the Evern Wyrm is going to be sending more than just one cranky survivor after me." Gracie said, taking a bite of her own creation. The flavor was perfect! Floral, sweet and humming with just enough anima essence to make her toes tingle.

She met eyes with the bookkeeper and then the cat boy, the two most frustratingly devoted men in her life. "So, here’s the deal. Marlow, you’re going to help me reinforce my wards and add some runes to the front door, like those on your scrolls. In exchange, I will make it so your shop resonates with mine, and the vibrations will no longer shake the dust from your shelves. Maybe we can even open that wall between your shop and mine and share some customers?”

Then she looked into Nevin’s amber eyes. “And you’re going to brew a fresh pot of the heavy duty black tea. We’re working late tonight so we don’t have to come in early tomorrow."

Marlow reached for the cake, his fingers accidentally brushing Gracie’s. He didn't pull away. Instead, he took her hand. “I will be happy to help you. I am honored by your request.”

Nevin leaned in subtly on her other side, his tail curling around her waist just enough to be noticed. He smiled and took a bite of his treat. “I will happily work late tonight, but I want something besides overtime.” Nevin’s smile turned mischievous. “I want the story of the Ossuary of the Evern Wyrm, and why their cult wants you dead.”

Marlow did not look annoyed for once; he looked intrigued. “Yes, I think I would like to hear that story as well. And maybe we can do that over some food. I can come back with some real food for dinner. What do you like?”

Nevin’s pointy ears perked up. “How about fish?”

Gracie Gearnoch, retired adventurer and genius artificer, smiled. She sipped her hot tea and listened to the men. The world might be dark and the ghosts in your closet might be literal, but the cakes were sweet and she knew she was exactly where she was meant to be.