by Adam Dreece
Richy looked a bit hurt. “Hey! I lost blood putting that thing together. I don’t know how you girls do sewing.”
“Oh, we know you lost lots of blood—it was all over that yellow cloak! Well, yellow and red, really,” said Tee, laughing.
“Really gross,” added Elly, shaking her head in mock disapproval. “I’m glad we have these ones now. I still wonder what they’re made of.”
Richy stopped and crossed his arms. “Really? You’re so superior at sewing?”
“Well, like you said, you don’t know how we girls do it. We’re born with it. Born to make things, from babies, to buildings, to…”
“Got stuck looking for another ‘B’ word, eh?” said Tee, switching sides.
“Head plant,” said Richy. “So close. You nearly finished me off, but just as you rounded the corner, the wheels fell off and you flipped your cart. Ha!”
Tee looked over to Richy. “Someone’s been spending a bit too much time with his sail-cart.”
Richy smiled uncomfortably, and a sudden chill doused the playful mood. Elly and Tee hadn’t asked Richy what was going on at home, but it had been clear over the past couple of months that something was awry. Whatever it was, they hoped that if and when he was ready, he’d talk to one of them. They were surprised when he’d mentioned his family life to Nikolas earlier, in front of everyone. Clearly, it was worse than they’d thought.
For a few minutes, they walked in silence, occasionally waving to the kids they knew as they wandered the colored lantern-decorated streets of Mineau.
Richy sighed, letting go of the tension, and said, “They decorate differently here. Have you noticed the red, yellow, and green leaves together on every business? Not on a house, just on a business. I never saw that before.”
After several seconds, Elly grumbled. “I wanted to make a killer snarky remark about how you wouldn’t notice something obvious, but I drew a blank. A blank!”
“Oh my goodness—maybe you’ve lost your right to the throne!” said Tee, teasing her long-time best friend.
“Oh, no,” said Richy, starting to laugh. “You’re but a simple commoner now! Doomed to be snarked upon by your betters! Doomed to—”
“Watch it—I still have plenty of quick wit in my quiver, Aldrich,” said Elly, squinting cheekily.
Richy and Tee stopped in their tracks and looked, mouths wide open, at Elly.
“Did you just declare a full and proper names war?” said Tee, scooping a handful of snow.
They had a sacred rule: Not one of them was fond of their proper name, and it was not to be used under any circumstances. Violation of this rule unleashed all manner of chaos.
“You’re going down, El—” said Richy, interrupted by a snowball in the face from Elly.
“Snowball fight!” yelled nearby kids. They started to leave their parents’ sides, in droves, in order to join in.
Within minutes, almost a hundred kids were laughing and throwing snowballs under the glow of the city’s lanterns. The heavy snow that fell was perfect for compacting snowballs.
“Reminds me of when I was a kid,” said one man to a beige-hooded figure beside him.
“I was never a kid like that. Might have been nice.” The figure then walked away.
“What’s her problem?” said the man to a guy beside him, who shrugged in response.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bakon & Eg's Breakfast
Gabriel Archambault was Minette’s captain of the guard. He’d already been proud of his daughter, Egelina-Marie, for following in his footsteps. He’d been in complete disbelief when he’d learned that not only was she an expert sharpshooter, but that she had also saved the life of Nikolas Klaus, a close family friend, on her first day on the job.
At the breakfast table, Gabriel tried to speak, but simply ended up glaring at Bakon. The men felt awkward. Conversation had done little more than start and stop. Everyone waited for Gabriel to say something, but instead he took another mouthful of sausage.
Egelina-Marie’s mother, Victoria, had decided it was time for her daughter’s boyfriend of a few months to meet them. It was an innocent idea, but she’d forgotten the local significance of Solstice breakfast. Where she grew up, Solstice night was the only thing that mattered. Here, the Solstice breakfast was about very close family. If boyfriends or girlfriends were invited, which was rare, it was a sign the family was expecting them—very shortly—to be joining the family. Egelina-Marie knew what her mother had simply intended in arranging the breakfast, yet she still wasn’t completely comfortable.
“I’d like to say again—the sausages are amazing,” said Bakon, trying to find something to say. “I particularly like the fried potatoes.” The breakfast truly was excellent, and he savored every bite. He hadn’t had homemade sausage, cooked beans, and pancakes in a long time. It reminded him of when Isabella Klaus used to cook for the family on special occasions.
Victoria smiled. She appreciated his comment this third time as much as she had the first. At this point, if they made it through breakfast with only minor injuries, she would declare it a success.
Bakon squirmed. He’d secretly been working for the captain for two years, as a covert hand of justice and for information gathering. Gabriel had always been more than happy to have the Cochon brothers rough up a stranger to get information, or drive an undesirable out of town. Gabriel had a soft spot for the brothers since the day Nikolas had taken them in—a day Gabriel remembered well.
“Bakon, what are your brothers doing this morning?” asked Victoria, trying to get things going again.
Bakon sighed in relief. He could answer that question without causing problems. “They’re having Solstice breakfast with Jennifer and William Baker. It’s the first time since Tee was born.”
“I guess you wished you were there, then?” said Gabriel, sharply.
Egelina-Marie and Victoria shot angry looks at him.
“What?” he said, raising his hands in his defense. “He said it’s been a long time. It probably brings back memories of good times. He probably would like to be there.” Gabriel growled under his breath.
He had been happy for his daughter when he’d heard she had a boyfriend. He’d hoped it was someone up and coming, maybe even someone in the Magistrate’s office. When he’d learned it was Bakon, he had misgivings. Whenever Egelina-Marie mentioned Bakon by name, he’d tried to pretend she was talking about someone else who happened to have the same unusual name. His wife had now made it impossible for him to continue fooling himself.
Bakon eyed a plate of food he wanted. “Eg, would you mind passing the—um—” He stopped, realizing how stupid he was about to sound.
“Eggs?” she said, chuckling.
“Yeah,” replied Bakon.
“Isn’t this nice, Gabriel?” said Victoria, trying to get conversation started again.
Gabriel knew what his wife was trying to do, and he knew that she was right, but this was their only daughter, their only child. He didn’t want to let her go in any way.
“Don’t you think you’re a bit old for our daughter?” asked Gabriel, getting the question off his chest. “You’re, what, twenty-six? She’s just nineteen.”
Victoria’s face reddened with embarrassment and anger. Under the table, she kicked her husband in the shin. Wincing, Gabriel tried to glare back, but she had her finger pointing at him.
“I am not going to apologize for loving my daughter!” yelled Gabriel, pushing his chair away from the table and then standing.
Victoria bolted up and pointed for Gabriel to sit down. “I was seventeen when we got together!”
Gabriel started to yell back, “That’s not the—”
With a flare of her eyelids, Victoria stopped her husband. Her voice was of a woman who was not going to have even the King of Freland ruin her breakfast. “You are behaving worse than my father ever did.”
Bakon and Eg had been looking back and forth silently. All of them now looked at Gabriel, who glanced at each o
ne in turn.
Victoria sat down, pulled her chair back to the table, and commanded to Bakon and Eg, “Eat.”
They looked at each other and then their plates, and then back at Gabriel.
Gabriel frowned. “Don’t cry,” he said to Victoria as he noticed her eyes welling up.
His wife pierced him with her gaze. “I am not crying because I’m upset. If you’d learned anything by having two women in the house, you’d know that I’m angry and this is just how some women work!”
Gabriel sat back down at the table. He took a moment to compose his thoughts. “You know, your dad was a real jerk with me.”
Wiping her nose and eyes with a napkin, Victoria chuckled, “The worst.”
“And… I guess…” Gabriel straightened his mustache. He was terrible at apologies, especially the ones that mattered. “Bakon, did I ever tell you about this time when Victoria’s father chased me down the streets of Mineau with a cleaver in his hand? It was part of the reason we moved up here to Minette.”
Fifteen minutes later, Gabriel had finished telling a second embarrassing story from his youth. Everyone wiped away tears of laughter as he stood up and gave Bakon a hearty slap on the back.
Egelina-Marie started wiping the floor—she had spat out her tea from laughing so hard and unexpectedly. She’d barely managed to avoid spraying everyone at the table.
Gabriel put on his thick winter coat and turned to Bakon. “I have to get to work. No day off for the captain. But, do stay—you’re welcome here.”
“Thanks, but I have to get back to my brothers. After breakfast, there’s a leak we need to fix,” said Bakon, standing and excusing himself.
“Suit yourself,” said Gabriel, smiling. Things had turned out better than he’d expected—a lot better. He knew he owed his wife a huge apology, and for that, he was going to need chocolate. He hoped that Victoria wouldn’t see through his ruse of having to work.
After the men had left, Victoria turned to her daughter, who kept laughing as she remembered the bits and pieces of her dad’s stories.
“You okay?” Victoria asked.
Egelina-Marie had a perplexed look as she thought about what had happened. “I’m not sure what the lesson was, mama, but I need to learn it,” she said. She’d never seen her parents fight like that before, but figured they must have, in private.
Victoria gave her a hug and smiled. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for that man. As for the lesson, if your bear isn’t listening, hurt his ego—and nothing wounds your father’s more than being told he’s just like my father. I thought his mustache was going to curl up at the ends when I said that!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Meet the Maucher
Nikolas removed his thick crimson coat and hung it up on the first of the café’s coat hooks, as he’d done many times over the years. He looked at the red coat Isabella had made for him, remembering the last time they’d come to Deuxième Chance together. Isabella always thought the café’s name, “second chance,” applied as much to the two of them—having a life away from what seemed destined—as it did to the original owners.
From the outside there was nothing remarkable about the Deuxième Chance. It was no more easily noticeable nor any bigger or smaller than the average Mineau café, but it had been Isabella’s favorite for some reason.
It had wide, honey-colored wooden floor planks, and white walls decorated with bits of town memorabilia and paintings of the founders and their family through the ages. It didn’t feel like a formal establishment, but rather like you were visiting a close friend and were in their parlor.
“Good morning, Monsieur Klaus. Did you have a merry Solstice? You looked at home on that stage,” said the current owner as he came out of the back to greet the day’s first customer.
Nikolas made an uneasy face. “I don’t like stages and whatnot, Jerome, but I do like making people happy, and bringing them together. I was honored to have Mineau invite me.”
“You did a great job. May I offer you tea?” he asked. Jerome’s father had taken the business over from Jerome’s grandfather, and now Jerome owned it.
“Yes, please,” replied Nikolas. “Oh—would you mind putting this behind the counter until I ask for it? It’s important.”
“No problem,” said Jerome, accepting the brass tube from Nikolas.
Suddenly, it dawned on Nikolas that the café shouldn’t be open. “Wait, Jerome—shouldn’t you be closed, and having breakfast with family?”
Jerome lined up the glasses and mugs on the counter. “Oh, I did have family breakfast. There’s only me and my aunt, and the sick man she’s taking care of. But, I know my customers—they’ll have had enough of their families and will want to go somewhere to have a nice drink, a tasty treat, and some peace and tranquility. Then, they’ll return to face family some more. It is, honestly, one of my busiest days of the year.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “They’ll start arriving in an hour or two.” He looked at it more closely. “I better wind it up—I suspect it’s running a bit slow.”
Nikolas appreciated Jerome’s business savvy. “Good for you. Your grandfather would be proud.”
Just then, with a burst of frigid air, a tall, regal-looking woman walked in and shut the door behind her. She leaned her silver cane against the wall and removed her white fur coat and hat. She looked around for someone to hand them to. Jerome swiftly came over to accept them.
“Thank you,” she said mechanically, retrieving her cane.
“Nikolas,” said the woman in a sharp, eastern kingdoms accent, “It’s good to see you. It’s been a couple of years since we last met. Was it in Marduchi?” She disliked speaking Frelish, but Nikolas always insisted that they speak the local language wherever they met—if possible.
Nikolas rose, held the woman’s purple-gloved hand, and gave her a kiss on each cheek. “Anna, it is good to see you. I think it was in Parduchi, to the south of Marduchi.”
Anna paused, not liking to be corrected, yet she didn’t care for small talk, either. “Ah, yes. Olive and orange trees—I remember.” She looked Nikolas over, up and down. “You’re keeping well.”
Nikolas smiled politely. “Thank you. And you, too. Please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing to one of the tables.
Anna sat down and glanced around. “You always choose this place when you meet in Mineau. Why is that?”
Nikolas turned toward Jerome, who was behind the counter, and asked, “Jerome, a cup of Ernst Myers tea for the madame, please?”
Jerome stopped. “Um, did you say Ernst Myers tea?”
“Ah yes, of course. Well, that says it all,” said Anna, smiling like a little girl surprised by a treat. Ernst Myers tea was a black blend so prized and rare that it was said some royal families had gone to war over the tea.
Jerome appeared nervous. “But, I don’t think I have—”
Nikolas stood up, walked over to Jerome, motioned for him to relax, and then leaned over the counter to whisper. “It’s in your office, inside a tin. The tin has been used as a bookend since you were a boy.”
Jerome’s eyes widened. “How do you know about that? My father said it was only for one person—”
Nikolas nodded toward Anna’s direction. No longer whispering, he said, “She is the one person. Anna Kundle Maucher, also called—”
Awestruck, Jerome interrupted. “The candle and sticks maker—one of the three leaders of the Tub! Wow… I’m honored to have you in my café, Madame Maucher!” Jerome’s father had told him tales of the Tub and the Fare. His grandfather was convinced Monsieur Klaus was involved, but never knew for certain.
Anna was annoyed. She hated that people outside the eastern kingdoms didn’t know how to address her. “Frau Kundle Maucher, peasant,” she muttered under her breath. Offering a thin smile, Anna said, “Please remember to make sure the water is absolutely boiling before steeping the tea,” she said. “And, if you have any fresh biscuits, they would be… appreciated.”
Nikolas
gave Jerome a light tap on the arm. “Thank you, Jerome.”
Jerome happily went off to fetch the tea.
Anna waited until Nikolas was seated. She didn’t like small towns like Mineau—they were too simple, too unrefined for her tastes. She couldn’t understand why Nikolas would live in such a place, forgetting that he actually lived in the smaller, more remote town up the mountain.
“You received my letter, but I have to say, I was quite surprised to get yours,” she began.
Nikolas looked at his coat hanging by the entrance. “Had I read your letter when I received it, there would have been no follow-up letter, yes? But I didn’t read it until after all the trouble with LeLoup. Things were different then. I decided it would be best if you came—I have something I want to share, but in person. Also, it was Solstice.”
“Yes, well, I saw all that last night,” said Anna with annoyed disinterest. “Frankly, I think it’s wrong in some ways—but now’s not the time to discuss philosophical differences.”
A bit irritated, Nikolas ignored Anna’s criticism. “You’re right—it isn’t the time. I wanted you to come in person because I’ve invented something I believe will be very important to the—”
Anna interrupted, clearly not listening. “The St. Malo business—I was surprised he hired Andre LeLoup to come for you. I was more surprised to hear what happened, to be honest. It’s nice to know your protégés are coming along, even though it’s against the Tub’s rules—as you well know. We keep the secrets so that other generations do not have to bear their burden. We do wonder, though, whether you are teaching them anything secret? We assume not, but… it’s almost like you’re trying not to try?”
Nikolas didn’t respond for a few seconds. He’d forgotten Anna’s habit of getting under someone’s skin, even an ally’s. “Let’s be clear,” said Nikolas firmly, “They have done this themselves. Yes, I provided my granddaughter with the first yellow cloak, but I have not built anything or taught them anything other than simple science.”
