Elara stood in the old café kitchen, the dense scone from Kael Findlay resting on a chipped ceramic plate beside her. The gesture was calculated to disarm, and she resented its effectiveness.
She set the scone aside, viewing it as a distraction to be addressed, not a kindness to be appreciated.
Her current priority was re-establishing order through the one medium she completely controlled, baking.
She had set out the ingredients for a basic lemon-poppy seed muffin recipe.
It was a simple, bright, and reliable formula, the antithesis of the chaotic ocean view outside. As she gathered her tools, the kitchen rebelled against her precise methodology.
The inherited counter space was too low, forcing her to hunch slightly. The measuring cups were cheap plastic, inaccurate to her trained eye, so she relied on her own calibrated set from the toolbox. The overhead fluorescent light hummed with a spiteful intensity.
She retrieved the block of butter from the ancient refrigerator. It was partially frozen on one corner, soft on another.
The temperature instability was catastrophic for laminated doughs, or even simple creaming methods. She frowned, already sensing failure.
In her city kitchen, the butter was always brought to a perfect, uniform sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.
Here, she was battling microclimates within a single ingredient.
She began by creaming the butter and sugar, her movements stiff with professional frustration.
The mixer was an old, heavy stand model, robust but prone to skipping gears. It screamed loudly as she increased the speed, a jarring noise that echoed in the empty café below.
The resultant mixture was grainy, not the pale, airy cloud she sought. It was already a compromise.
Her internal monologue was sharp and critical. "This is not professional. This is rustic. This is failure." She pushed the thoughts down, reminding herself that the goal was simple stress relief, not Michelin star quality.
But for Elara, the two were inseparable. Perfection was her shield.
She added the eggs one by one. The lemon zest, scraped from the petrified lemon found earlier, provided a meager, disappointing aroma.
She felt acutely the difference between her clean, precise life and this messy reality. Her apartment was only a temporary basecamp before the sale, yet the kitchen was demanding her full, defeated attention.
The dry ingredients were sifted and folded in.
She moved with mechanical efficiency, trying to ignore the lack of ventilation, the stickiness in the humid air, and the persistent smell of old coffee that clung to the porous wooden walls.
She scooped the batter into the twelve-cup muffin tin. The tin was tarnished and unevenly darkened from years of use, promising hot spots and uneven baking.
She preheated the oven. It took fifteen minutes to reach the required temperature, emitting faint clouds of smoky residue as it worked.
Elara watched the thermometer she had clipped to the rack, an anxious sentinel against the machine's ancient flaws.
The oven door did not seal properly at the top left corner, allowing a small, visible wisp of heat to escape. This meant uneven conduction, a guaranteed structural flaw in the final product.
The timer was set, and she waited. The ten minutes of waiting were harder than the entire process.
She paced the small kitchen, listening to the roar of the ocean outside, which seemed to grow louder as the wind picked up.
The silence of the house, broken only by the loud whir of the oven and the distant waves, amplified her anxiety.
She looked at the scone again. It was a defiant object, embodying the effortless competence of its maker.
She wondered if Kael Findlay worried about the exact sealing of his darkroom door, or if he simply accepted the circumstances and captured the resulting light.
She knew, intimately, that she could not function that way. She needed exactitude to feel safe.
When the timer finally buzzed, Elara pulled the muffins out. As predicted, the four muffins on the left side were dark, almost burnt on top, while the eight on the right were still pale and slightly sunken in the center.
She pressed a toothpick into one of the pale ones. It came out coated with wet batter. She returned the tray to the oven, spinning it 180 degrees.
This was the antithesis of the beautiful, predictable alchemy she loved. Baking here was a battle against entropy.
She waited another three minutes, pulled the tray out, and declared the muffins "finished," acknowledging the unavoidable imperfection.
She slid them onto a cooling rack. They were structurally sound but aesthetically and texturally compromised.
She picked up one of the dark, successful ones and took a large bite, needing the familiar taste of her own baking to ground herself.
It was mediocre. Dry where it was dark, gummy where it was pale. The lemon zest was too weak.
A small sound from downstairs interrupted her self-criticism. It sounded like a key turning in a lock.
Elara froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was alone in an empty house, and it was the middle of the day. She quickly checked the time. 11:30 AM.
She remembered the realtor was due at noon. This was too early. She crept to the top of the stairs, peering down into the gloomy main room.
The front door was closed, but the small, secondary door to the darkroom was open a crack. A sliver of light, not yellow bulb light but pale, natural light, spilled from the darkroom into the café space.
Someone was inside. Kael Findlay.
Elara's decision-making reverted to professional mode.
This was a property issue, not a personal one. She needed to be firm, clear, and professional. She descended the stairs, her feet silent on the worn wood.
She walked directly to the darkroom door. She rapped her knuckles sharply against the wood frame.
"Mr. Findlay," she announced, her voice pitched to an even, authoritative tone. "I need to speak with you regarding the occupancy of this space. It is no longer authorized."
The light inside shifted. After a momentary pause, the door swung inward.
Kael Findlay stood there, illuminated by the low light of his artistic sanctuary.
He was taller than she had expected, and the quiet intensity she had sensed in his photograph was palpable. He wore a heavy, dark canvas shirt and smelled faintly of sea air and the metallic tang of photographic chemicals.
He did not look defensive, only quietly receptive, holding a small print suspended gently between his index finger and thumb.
"Ms. Voss," he replied, his voice a low, steady baritone, matching the low rumble of the waves. It was the first time she had heard him speak. "I assume you found the scone. A poor substitute for your own work, I'm sure."
The mention of the scone instantly derailed her prepared professional script. He had acknowledged her presence, acknowledged her craft, and immediately surrendered the moral high ground.
"It was... unnecessary," Elara managed, clutching her arms to her chest. "And you should not assume. I am here to discuss the legal terms of your tenancy. The café is being appraised today. I need this area completely cleared."
Kael looked down at the print in his hand for a moment. He then looked directly at her, his hazel eyes calm and steady, meeting her anxious, grey-blue ones. "I understand the appraisal. Lilian told me this day would come. I'm not unauthorized. I had a verbal, indefinite agreement with her, paid for with maintenance and assistance."
"Verbal agreements expire with the owner," Elara stated flatly, sticking to the legal facts. "It complicates the sale. I am not my aunt. I need to know your timeline for vacating the space."
"My timeline is tied to the light," he said, turning the print in his hand. "The prints I'm making now, the ones Lilian commissioned for the town archive, need this humidity and darkness to set correctly. I'm four days away from completion. To move them now would destroy the last three months of work."
He extended the small print toward her.
It was a close-up of a weathered, wooden railing, covered in tiny beads of sea mist. It was simple but profound, capturing the feeling of cold, damp resilience.
"I need four more days," Kael repeated. "That's my term. I will be out by Saturday afternoon. And I will make sure the space is cleaner than you found it."
Elara hesitated, looking from the small, fragile print to his earnest face. She felt a familiar, sharp tug of impatience.
Four days was four days of unwanted delay. But his quiet sincerity, backed by the history Vera had revealed, made immediate legal aggression feel disproportionate and cruel.
She hated that he was forcing her to be a decent person.
"Four days," Elara conceded, the words feeling heavy and reluctant. "Until Saturday at 3 PM. After that, I will not hesitate to contact the authorities. And I will need a written account of the maintenance you provided as payment for use."
"Agreed," Kael said, offering a small, genuine smile that softened the lines around his eyes. "And in return, if I may offer advice to a colleague, you need to adjust your heat settings. The Hearthlight oven runs forty degrees cooler than the dial suggests. It always has. It likes a slow, steady burn."
He had observed her. He had listened to the sounds of her failure. His observation, delivered quietly, was a form of unsolicited help, not criticism.
Elara felt her cheeks flush again, a mixture of embarrassment and reluctant acknowledgment. He had identified the exact flaw in her mediocre muffins.
"I will take your property measurements now," she said, sidestepping the advice, her voice clipped. "You continue your work."
Elara quickly measured the dimensions of the darkroom, her movements brisk and mechanical. Kael returned to his work, the silence immediately restoring itself, broken only by the low hum of the developing trays.
She hated that she felt less anxious in his quiet, productive presence than she had felt alone in her perfect city apartment.
She finished the measurements, secured the door, and walked back up to the apartment. She threw her ruined muffins in the garbage, then sat at the table and stared at the remaining scone. She picked up her laptop again. The realtor's email would have to wait.
She had four days to wait, four days to worry about the heat settings, and four days to try to ignore the steady, reassuring presence of the photographer working below her.
The scent of salt, fixative, and the faint, sweet smell of the untouched scone were the anchors of her new, unwanted reality.
She pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and began recalculating her lemon-poppy seed recipe, adding a note in her precise handwriting: "Increase oven dial by 40 degrees." She hated needing the advice, but she loved the potential for regained perfection.