As I looked into Marina’s steady gaze, though, I realised the truth: I had done enough running. For better or for worse, it was time to take what was coming to me.
Marina nodded to Silke, her expression grim. ‘I’d like a few minutes alone with my apprentice, if you don’t mind.’
‘Absolutely.’ Silke sketched a mock bow to Marina, gave me a nudge with one elbow and took off.
I didn’t turn to watch her go.
‘Sit down, Aventurine,’ said Marina.
Slowly, I walked over to sit beside her. The stone rim of the fountain was cold underneath me, the chill soaking through my thin dress, but I didn’t complain.
I’d survived the fireball that my own grandfather had thrown at me, the day that I’d lost my first family. I could survive this, too.
She nodded to the basket that still hung over my arm. ‘That for your new employer?’
I nodded without speaking or meeting her gaze.
‘Hmm.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her studying my plain brown dress. ‘You decided to go into hiding with your clothing, too?’
I jerked one shoulder in a shrug and forced my voice out past the choke in my throat. ‘You told me my last dress was ugly.’
‘That’s because it looked like an exploded tin of paints,’ she said. ‘But at least it was an interesting explosion. You’re not even trying to stand out any more?’
My face felt hot, despite the cold air, as I felt Marina’s piercing gaze on me. I fought to keep my breathing steady, my chin up. I wasn’t going to humiliate myself again, no matter what. I’d done enough of that already.
Finally, she let out a sigh and uncrossed her arms. ‘All right. I’m going to tell you a story, Aventurine. But you’d better listen carefully, because I’ll only tell it once. And I’m warning you right now: I don’t want to hear you bring it up ever again.’ She set one strong, gold-toned hand on the rim of the fountain beside me, and I saw her fingers whiten as she clenched the stone. ‘I didn’t grow up in Drachenburg, you know, any more than you did.’
I sneaked a glance at her. It was safe enough now; she wasn’t looking at me any more. Instead she gazed broodingly ahead, her expression unfocused, as if she was seeing something completely different from the wooden market stalls and the pigeons pecking around in front of us. When she finally spoke again, her voice sounded muted, as if it was coming from far away.
‘I wasn’t so different from you, you know, back when I first started out. Mad for chocolate, from the moment I discovered it. I was meant to be a fisherman’s wife; that’s the life all the girls in my family were raised to. But I wouldn’t have it.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘After I tasted my first sample of chocolate, off one of the boats that came into our harbour, I walked all the way to the capital city. Then I moved on to Villenne, across the ocean, when I heard that the chocolatiers there were the best. See, I always wanted to be the best. So I worked and I found myself a place where I could learn. I was the youngest chocolatier in that city, you know – the only woman, too – and, oh, was I proud of it.’ She snorted. ‘Couldn’t believe anything would ever go wrong. Didn’t even think that was possible, no matter what I tried … no matter who I offended … no matter what I was challenged to do, with the whole world watching me do it. And then …’
Her voice dropped to a low whisper. ‘With the whole court and every rival I’d ever had all standing there, watching, in the final round of a national competition, I gave the queen of Villenne – the single person whose taste mattered most in the entire kingdom – a chocolate cream made with milk that had gone sour.’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘It was a fix, you see – someone had planted sour milk in my kitchen just in time for the competition, to pay me back for being rude to them. But I should have known. I should have tested it before I used it. For once, though, I didn’t even bother to check.’
Her lips twisted. ‘I was too busy planning out all the great things I’d do next, after I won. I’d won all of those competitions for so long, I thought it was a sure thing … right up until the queen put that spoon into her mouth. But the look on her face when she tasted that spoonful – then spat it out in front of everyone, because it was disgusting – !’
Marina closed her eyes for a moment, fresh lines popping up in her tightly pinched cheeks. Then she blew out her breath in a sigh. ‘Well. Those fancy courtiers made a lot of jokes about my chocolate that night. The queen made one or two herself, and those ones got printed in the papers the next day. By the day after that, everyone in town was retelling all those jokes to each other, and pretty soon even the name of my chocolate house had become a joke. And I could tell you every other nasty detail of how it all came crashing down around me … but all that really matters is, I failed.’
Her eyes opened, but she kept her heavy gaze turned away from me. ‘I failed in front of all the most influential people in that kingdom, but more importantly, I failed in front of myself. And right then I would have given anything to curl up and disappear forever, just so I wouldn’t have to live with that failure any longer.’
I swallowed hard, my fingers clenching around the handle of Greta’s heavy basket.
‘Well,’ Marina said briskly, ‘I was an idiot. That’s all there is to it.’ She turned and gave me a dangerous flash of her eyes, like a dragon who might be resting – for now – but who could easily be provoked into shooting flame. ‘There’s no one who can do everything right all the time, Aventurine. No one! And there are some moments in all our lives that we’d take back if we could. But when I had my own little downfall …’ Her face squeezed tight. ‘Well, I lost everything, that’s all. My chocolate house, my position, my so-called friends … all gone because of one night’s carelessness and stupid overconfidence.’
She glared down at her hand where it rested on the rim of the fountain beside me. ‘So. I know what it’s like to want to hide away and lick your wounds where no one knows you. But –’ she looked back up at me, her expression fierce – ‘do you think I stayed that way forever, locked away feeling sorry for myself? No. I found Horst, and he was interested in setting up a new venture, too. He had his own reasons for leaving Villenne, his own problems there that he didn’t mind escaping. So we thought about it, and we picked Drachenburg. Nice busy city in a rich kingdom with good trading links all around the world … and far enough from Villenne that nobody here would know our names. Not a bad place to start over, all in all. That’s what we thought, anyway.’ She sighed as she looked up at me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. It was the first time in my life that I’d ever spoken those words out loud, and they squeezed out of my throat like gravel as I met her eyes. My shoulders hunched in on each other as if I could fold myself out of sight. ‘I know I ruined it for you.’
‘What?’ She stared at me. ‘Have you been listening to a single word I’ve said?’
I stared back at her, lost.
Marina shook her head. ‘I’m telling you why I ruined it, Aventurine! Why I had that moment of madness when the king and his family first arrived! I’m telling you …’ She stopped and gulped for breath as if she’d been running so hard she had run out of air. ‘I’m telling you that sometimes, when you’ve failed before, it feels impossible to see past that failure. It can leap out at you when you least expect it. But –’ she gave me a ferocious glare – ‘that’s no excuse not to keep trying! If we lose the Chocolate Heart, so what? We’ll start again, that’s all, even if we have to walk across five different kingdoms to do it. Did you really think I’d give up that easily?’
I could barely breathe. ‘But … you didn’t ruin anything. I was the one who was left in charge. It was my job to protect the shop when the lord mayor’s people came. I –’
‘That’s right,’ Marina said, ‘and whose fault was that? Who left an apprentice of less than two weeks in charge of our whole chocolate house, just when we most needed someone with experience at the helm?’
She gave an impatient
huff of breath. ‘The answer to that question would be both me and Horst, in case you hadn’t worked that out for yourself. I might make the best chocolate in Drachenburg, but I’m not the one who’s best at handling diplomatic scenes. That’s Horst’s job, and he wasn’t there that day either. No, we were both busy shouting at each other upstairs, just when we were most needed down in our shop.’ Her nostrils flared. ‘But I can’t say it made my day any better when the best apprentice I’ve ever had upped and ran away just as I was taking in the mess that we’d created!’
I stopped breathing entirely. My eyes fixed on hers.
She shook her head in disgust as she looked back at me. ‘For heaven’s sake, girl, don’t pretend to be a fool. You might have burned those tarts in all the confusion, but I tasted that hot chocolate you made.’
I coughed out my held breath. ‘And?’ I whispered.
She shrugged. ‘Not bad,’ she said judiciously. ‘Especially for a first attempt.’
My chest expanded. My shoulders straightened. My lips curved into what must have been the silliest grin in the history of human existence.
I’d made my first hot chocolate, and it had been not bad. Marina herself had said so! And she never, ever gave an unearned compliment.
‘Horst didn’t even mind the tarts,’ Marina told me. ‘I was going to tip them all out, they were so charred, but he snagged one and ate it anyway. He said …’ She frowned. ‘What was it again? Oh yes. He claimed it tasted “like they usually smell before they’re cooked”.’
My eyes widened. ‘Like … what?’
Something about that line felt so familiar … oh! Wasn’t that what I’d thought as I’d made those tarts in the first place? Please let them taste as good once they’re baked as they smell now …
‘Nonsense really,’ said Marina, ‘but that’s Horst for you. He’s always wanted to be a poet, though you wouldn’t guess it to look at him. Still, that friend of yours who wrote the handbill – she drank a good two cups of your hot chocolate that day, and she’s been raving about the chocolate house ever since. Can’t stand the idea of not saving it.’
‘Really?’ That didn’t sound like cynical, sophisticated Silke.
‘Mm-hmm.’ She nodded, her face impossible to read. ‘She put a lot of work into finding you, too.’
I frowned, trying to work that one out. ‘So that I can make more hot chocolates for her?’
‘Hmmph,’ said Marina. ‘You’ll have to ask her that question yourself, if you really can’t figure out the answer.’ She heaved herself to her feet. ‘Now, I don’t know about you, but I have to get back to work. I don’t have time to sit around gossiping like a nobleman.’
‘Right,’ I said numbly. I clutched the basket on my lap.
This was it? She was leaving?
‘So?’ Marina said. ‘What do you think?’ She gave me a hard look. ‘Are you going to hide away forever, just to keep yourself safe from ever failing again? Or are you ready to throw out that batch of your life that went sour, mix yourself up a new one and work to your last breath to make it the best you possibly can?’ She crossed her strong arms. ‘In other words, apprentice … are you coming with me or not?’
I stared at her open-mouthed. For a moment everything hovered in the balance. And then …
A ferocious, dragonish roar of joy erupted inside my chest as I flung out my arms, threw Greta’s market basket as far as I could and chose my passion for chocolate with everything I had in me.
Vegetables and fruit and bags of grain scattered across the tiles for the pigeons to discover as I leaped to my feet, tipped back my head and let my roar escape into the market square. Maybe no one could see it any more, but I knew my tail was lashing wildly, and my wings billowed out to their full expanse as I threw my human arms into the air.
Marina’s deep laughter surrounded me as I leaped and turned in dizzy circles in front of the fountain, sending pigeons scurrying and making the humans around me stare and point and whisper as if they’d never seen a happy dragon before.
‘I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?’ Still grinning, Marina shook her head and started away, ignoring all of our shocked human onlookers. ‘You’d best get all your fidgets out now, girl, before we get back. There won’t be any wild whirling in my kitchen – I can tell you that right now. The last thing we need is broken crockery on our hands.’
‘Don’t worry.’ I wheeled into place behind her, my wide, beaming smile encompassing Silke as she slipped out from the crowd to join us. ‘I would never let that happen.’
I was a dragon, after all. And that meant there was nothing more important than protecting my hoard and my family … especially when I knew exactly how close I’d come to losing them.
‘Everything sorted?’ Silke asked, as she fell into step beside me. ‘Good. Because I have to tell you, Aventurine, I am more than ready for another of your hot chocolates. And –’
‘Aventurine?’ Greta’s shriek rang in my ears as she pushed her way through the crowd to reach us. ‘What in the world are you doing? Where is my basket? And who are these people you’re talking to?’ Gasping, she thudded to a halt in front of us and placed one hand over her heart. ‘Oh dear.’ Shaking her head sorrowfully, she turned towards Marina, her gaze sliding with open horror over Silke’s coat and trousers along the way. ‘I don’t know what stories this wicked, ungrateful girl has told you, but this is my maidservant, and she is not allowed to –’
‘Actually,’ Marina said firmly, ‘she works at my chocolate house. She’s been my apprentice for the last two weeks.’
‘What?’ Greta’s mouth fell open.
‘I don’t remember ever letting you go, do you, Aventurine?’ Marina raised her eyebrows.
I grinned back at her, relief coursing through my body like liquid gold. ‘No, I left all on my own. I wasn’t thrown out.’
‘So you broke your apprenticeship contract? Hmm.’ Silke shook her head sternly and made a tsking sound between her teeth. ‘The town council wouldn’t like that, you know! What does the law have to say about employers who lure apprentices away from their contracts?’ She cocked her head innocently as she looked at Greta. ‘Is it only a fine, or is it three days in prison? I just can’t remember off the top of my head. Can you?’
Greta made a gargling sound in her throat. ‘I – the council – what? What?’
‘Perhaps,’ Silke said sweetly, ‘you might decide just to give Aventurine her first week’s wages and be done with the whole matter?’
‘I – but – I don’t have to pay her. I was being kind to her!’ Greta sputtered. ‘And did you say … chocolate house? Aventurine?’
‘Forget it,’ I said to Silke, and shook my head. ‘Here.’ I pulled Greta’s unspent coins from my pocket and threw them towards her. ‘You’ll find your basket by the fountain. The pigeons might not have eaten all the food yet. Anything they did eat, though, you can take out from my wages.’
‘Wages?’ Greta wailed. ‘But I never … !’
‘Ready to get back to work?’ Marina asked me.
I pulled off my bonnet and flung it to the ground, setting my short hair free. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Mmm,’ Silke hummed, and smiled as if she was smelling hot chocolate already.
Together the three of us walked away, leaving Greta stammering uselessly behind us.
CHAPTER 18
When I walked back into the Chocolate Heart after three days away, bright sunlight shone through the glass windows, lighting up the red and gold of the painted walls until they glowed like the heart of a flame. It felt so warm and welcoming it took me a moment to realise that every single table in the front room was empty.
Horst slammed through the swinging doors from the kitchen, his eyes wide and his smile full of teeth … until he saw us.
‘Oh.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘It’s only you.’
Marina rolled her eyes. ‘I did bring our apprentice back, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘What? Oh. Sorry.’ He gav
e me an apologetic half-curve of his lips. ‘Good to see you, Aventurine. I’m glad we didn’t chase you away after all. Did Marina tell you that I liked your tarts?’
They were nice words to hear. But as his gaze swept over the empty tables, I saw his shoulders sag even further.
I felt my own mood sag along with them. ‘So nobody’s coming in at all any more?’
Marina’s jaw tightened. ‘If they all want to be frightened away by lies and gossip, I say let them. There’s no reason we need to stay in Drachenburg forever. I don’t mind starting over somewhere new after the rent runs out.’
Horst didn’t even bother to look at her as he spoke, sounding as weary and well practised as if they’d been repeating this exact debate for the past three days. ‘That would be all well and good if we had the money to start over. But since you know perfectly well that we don’t –’
‘Anyway, you can’t move,’ said Silke briskly. ‘Just think of me! This is my city. I can’t leave it. And what other chocolate house in Drachenburg would ever let me hang about and drink hot chocolates in the kitchen whenever I feel a need?’
Marina snorted. ‘And on that note …’ She strode towards the kitchen. ‘Come along, Aventurine. I want you to try making hot chocolate again, but under my supervision this time.’
I hurried after her, Silke by my side. But I couldn’t help taking one last look, before the swinging doors closed behind us, at Horst’s bowed shoulders as he surveyed the empty room.
I admired Marina more than anyone else in the whole world. But I couldn’t help but wonder whether Horst might have a better understanding of money.
I’d grown up sleeping every night upon gold and precious jewellery. I would have given anything to have even a fraction of my old bedding with me now, for the chocolate house’s sake.
But that – with a sudden jolt – made me remember my new bedding. I raced to the cupboard where I’d left my scale-cloth … and let out a gusting sigh of relief as I pulled it out. There.
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