by Kaylin Lee
After we finished cleaning up after dinner and everyone else had gone to bed, I asked him, “Are you ready?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “For what?”
“Time to bake a birthday cake for the twins.” I grinned, feeling happy for the first time in weeks. “I’ve got all the ingredients.”
I'd been setting aside small amounts for months. The days when we could easily put together a cake with what we had on hand were long gone. Ever since the rationing started, we hadn’t been able to make a lot of the foods my mother used to make. We had been surviving on rations and squirreling away little bits of nicer foods for years now. It was hard to believe that we had ever done anything different.
Weslan watched me get the ingredients for the cake out of my hiding places and put them on the counter.
I began to mix the ingredients and directed Weslan to butter the cake pan and prepare the oven.
Then he stopped. “We may have a problem. How long do you need the oven to run?”
I bit my lip. Not again. “About an hour.”
“Well, if you think we can cook it low and slow …”
“No, that won't work. The cake must be baked at the right temperature, or it won’t turn out. That’s the only thing that matters.” My temper began to simmer again. I knew the girls were looking forward to their birthday treat.
“We only have enough cinderslick for about a quarter hour at high temperature,” Weslan said.
I stared at the batter inside my mixing bowl. My precious ingredients would go to waste. “It won’t finish baking that quickly.”
Weslan held up his hands helplessly. “There’s no money for another bottle this time. Maybe Zel could—”
“No! Don’t tell her. I don’t want her to worry about this on top of everything else. And I don’t want the twins to think their birthday is a burden. They’ll feel bad and insist they don’t want a cake, when I know they do.” I sighed. “We have to figure something out ourselves.”
I racked my brain for a solution. Maybe we could sell some seldom-used pots and pans to a pawn shop and buy them if we made enough money in time.
But what would we do if we needed those pans in the meantime? Besides, shouldn’t we be putting every bit toward our merchant tax?
I groaned aloud. After everything that had gone wrong lately, not to mention our mistake last night that made Zel so furious, couldn’t something go right? Was that so much to ask?
“Wait.” I grabbed Weslan’s arm and released it just as hastily. “What kind of mage are you?”
His expression switched from surprise to amusement. His laugh sounded self-conscious. “Appearance. I’m a weak expellant mage, so I specialized in appearance manipulation.”
“Helping Procus ladies get ready for balls?” I asked, half-joking.
He nodded, looking embarrassed.
Well, that was awkward. I imagined all the beautiful Procus ladies he had probably helped dress, and I couldn’t help looking down at my scruffy, secondhand dress. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was if Weslan could use his magic to help me.
“If you can affect a person's appearance, that means your magic changes her clothes, right?”
“Of course,” he said. “No problem.”
“Well, could you affect an object that isn’t clothing?”
“Sure.” He leaned against the wall. “I mean, I worked on things like jewelry and hats and gloves all the time.”
He didn't seem to know where I was going with this, but he was playing along.
I tapped the oven. “Do you think you could affect something like this?”
His gaze traveled from the oven to my face. “I could make it look like it’s made of pure gold or velvet brocade, but I’m guessing that’s not what you mean …” He fell silent.
He had to know what I meant.
Long moments passed while he thought it over. “I might be able to add some heat to the oven. I’m not a mover mage. I don’t have the training or the power, but a mover could do something like this, easy. I could probably do it for a short time. The question is, what would happen? Magic can be dangerous, Ella. I spent years training to affect things like clothing and shoes and everyday items. But an oven …” His eyes narrowed. “It would take heat at just the right temperature for the right length of time. The same way cinderslick does when you add it in the right amount. Mostly.”
A little thrill of victory went through me. He was considering my request. “Well, we’ll never know unless we try. And maybe it would make it better.”
“Maybe.” He furrowed his brow. “But the thing is, mages don't do this. I've never heard of a mage as weak as me using expellant magic to affect a household object like this.”
“But what about the mages who work in government service? Don’t they use their magic to do things like make large supplies of clean water or healing salve or victus?”
“Yes, they do, but they’re creator mages. They’re incredibly powerful, and they’re trained to work their magic directly on the raw material. Not on the tools. There must be a reason why, right?”
He seemed to be changing his mind, so I scrambled for an argument. “But what if there is no reason why? What if they’re too scared to try? What if they like the way things are because it means everyone depends on the mages every time they want some clean water? If they somehow created a mage-craft that anyone—not just mages—could use to purify water, we wouldn’t need the mages anymore.”
“Well, I don't know about not needing mages anymore,” Weslan said broodingly, “But you may be on to something.”
I waited for a few moments. “What are you thinking?”
“Just trying to remember. Wondering if I can think of any other reason why mages don’t usually do things like this. I've always been taught to only affect objects for direct use. But my magic isn't strong enough to make food the way the government mages do. I couldn't make this cake out of nothing but flour, the way the creators turn clay into victus. But if I could make the oven hot enough to bake the cake …” he tapped the oven thoughtfully. “Fine. I’m in. I want to try.”
“Do you think it's dangerous?”
He laughed, and the laughter transformed his face. “Yes, I think it's dangerous. But if it works, we won't need cinderslick to make bread anymore.”
For a moment, I was transfixed by the change in his expression. I shook off my fascination. Focus, Ella. I rubbed my hands together. “Which means we could sell our rations and put the extra money aside to pay the tax. And … oh, there's so much that we could do if we didn't have to use cinderslick!”
“Hold on. One thing at a time. Let's see if this even works.”
I poured the cake ingredients into the buttered pans. Weslan put his hands on either side of the oven while I made sure the cake batter was evenly spread. He seemed to be practicing. When he yanked his hands away and shook them off, I thought it had to be working pretty well.
Finally, I lifted the cake pans, and he opened the oven door. I placed the cake in the oven with some trepidation. If this didn’t work, there would be no cake tomorrow. If this didn’t work, all the ingredients we could ill afford and the expensive roseberry essence I’d been hoarding for months would be wasted. So we had to try. I closed the oven door and nodded to Weslan.
He placed his hands on either side of the oven again. “Tell me again, how hot do you want the oven?”
I bit my lip and consulted my mother’s recipe for the umpteenth time. This was a terrible idea, wasn’t it? “It should be at a medium-high temperature. The same as around five drops of cinderslick. And it should bake for about an hour at that heat.” Then a thought struck me. “Wait, does that mean you’d have to stand here with your hands by the oven for an hour? Won’t you be burned?” As usual, we hadn’t thought this through enough. It seemed to be a pattern with us.
He shook his head without hesitating. “No, I think I can just add enough magic for the oven to maintain the same temperature
for about an hour, and then it will start to fade off. I’m not just adding magic—I’m giving it simple instructions, too, to control its behavior.” He placed his hands on the sides of the oven and closed his eyes for a minute. Suddenly, he yanked them off and plunged them into the sink which he’d filled with cold water beforehand.
Had he been burned? What had we been thinking?
A moment later, he shook the water off his hands, wiped them on his pants, and grinned. “One cinderslick-free cake, coming up.”
Excitement whipped through me. I couldn’t wait to see if it worked. We spent the next hour cleaning the kitchen as the delicious fragrance of butter, sugar, and roseberry permeated the bakery.
After an hour had passed, I wrapped my hands in towels and took the cake pans out of the oven. Each layer was a beautiful golden-brown color. And the smell? Amazing. I couldn’t stop inhaling the pure scent of roseberry and butter, reveling in the absence of burnt cinderslick. I waited a few minutes and turned the cakes out onto racks.
When they’d cooled, I placed the first layer on my mother’s crystal cake stand. It was a heavy piece from a different time, back when the larder was always full and delicious spices from the West crowded the kitchen shelves. I poured a soft pink icing mixture over the cake, one layer at a time, and then placed a small white flower from Zel’s garden right on top, in the center.
Weslan and I stood back and admired it in silence for a moment. It was beautiful. For some reason, it made me want to cry.
~
The next evening after dinner, we surprised the twins with the cake and a song. They were overjoyed. Even though I baked a cake for them every year, they were always inordinately pleased and surprised. This year, their joy was like a vice, squeezing my chest. I wanted them to have so much more than a cake—a better life, a life of freedom. I didn't want them to be stuck in this bakery forever, constantly fearing for their lives. I didn't want them to look forward all year to a little cake made by squirreling away ingredients we couldn’t really afford.
As Zel and the twins gathered around the table to cut the cake, despair nearly overwhelmed me. All the excitement I had felt last night withered away, and I had to get away from the group.
I went into my room, closed the door, and splashed cold water on my face. The anger and fear that had simmered in me since the attack raced through me at a furious pace, and I sat on my bed, taking deep breaths in a fruitless attempt to calm down.
I was sick of being at our limit, of always being about to break. I was tired of seeing the twins’ innocent faces marred by hunger, fear, and sorrow. Someday, Alba’s sweet, hopeful face would be emptied of its hope. What would she do when she longed to go and live a real life, but couldn't? And Bri was so strong, fierce, and full of energy. How could we keep her in this bakery much longer?
I pulled the hairpins from my loose bun and twisted it back into place, jabbing the pins in with more force than necessary as I fought to get my racing thoughts under control. Wasn’t I supposed to trust Zel? If I was worried, Zel had to be worried too. She always insisted everything would work out at the right time and in the right way. I supposed if Zel could escape capture and evade trackers for thirteen years, anything could happen.
I returned to the kitchen. Everyone was enjoying the cake, smiling and laughing with each other. The sight thawed my cold heart and brought back some of the joy from last night, but it wasn’t the same. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be happy like everyone else?
Weslan wrapped one strong arm around my shoulder. “Great job with the cake. It’s delicious.”
I tried to relax my shoulders, but they hunched up nervously.
“I mean, seriously, it’s really good,” he said around a mouthful of cake. “You could sell this.”
I snorted. “Why would anyone want to buy a cake from someone like me? And besides, we can barely afford ingredients to make cakes for ourselves.” We weren’t the only ones struggling to get by in this awful city. Only wealthy Procus families had done well since the plague.
“I mean it. You could sell this. It's better than a lot of the food that I've had at Procus banquets, and that’s saying something.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, not quite sure whether to believe him. “We bake bread. Our customers couldn’t afford something like a cake. And why would they want one, anyway?”
He laughed incredulously. “Trust me. Anyone with a living, beating heart would want a bite of this.”
I shook my head.
He waved his fork in front of my face, and the mixture of cake and frosting nearly fell to the ground before he popped it in his mouth. “You're a really good cook. I think you could do something with this.” He released me. “But hey, don't listen to me. I'm just a mage, right? What do I know?” He left me, and reached to get another piece.
I shivered, cold without his warm arm over my shoulders. I couldn’t deny the satisfaction of watching Bri and Alba take seconds and then thirds of their birthday cake. Not much had gone well lately. For once, I’d done something good. That had to count for something.
Alba swiped the last crumb of cake before her mother shepherded her upstairs, and I went back to my bedroom and shut the door.
The night was dark and cloudy, so I turned the luminous dial and puttered about the room in the dimly glowing light. I’d changed into my nightgown when something moved on the floor. I jumped.
Was it a mouse? A spider? I bent over and looked closer, careful to keep my feet as far from the creature as possible. A scrap of red ribbon lay coiled on the floor. Was that the ribbon Alba had borrowed and lost?
Then it wriggled like a snake, scooting rapidly toward me across the floor. I let out a screech and leapt onto my bed.
Was it a red snake?
But I’d only seen a ribbon moments ago.
It reached the bed and, to my horror, the ribbon snake raised its front tip as though it were a head, looking at me with invisible eyes, ready to strike at me with invisible teeth. I screamed again.
“Ella?” My door swung open, and the ribbon snake disappeared before my eyes.
I dragged my gaze from the spot where the ribbon had vanished and stared at Weslan. I quickly shut my eyes, for he was dressed only in his trousers, his hair rumpled and wet with water. What could I say? I’d been attacked by a ribbon? And it conveniently disappeared the moment you entered? I opened my eyes and looked at him again, doing my best to keep my eyes away from the muscular torso that I should not, absolutely should not, be noticing.
Before I could speak, he rolled his eyes and stepped back. “Let me guess—you’re fine.” The faintest hint of bitterness tinged his words, making the air taste sour. And with that, he snapped the door shut.
I kept the luminous on all night. I didn’t try to sleep. There was no point. I couldn’t stop seeing that ribbon, wriggling unnaturally along the floor, raising its tip as though it could see me. I scanned the floor again and again, but it didn’t reappear. Sometime around the third hour after midnight, Weslan’s words repeated in my head. “You’re an incredible cook. You could sell this.”
You could sell this. You could sell this.
Had exhaustion sent my brain into an irrational state? Had fear and desperation kicked my good judgment out of its authoritative seat? What if there was a way we could make extra money to pay the tax, help with the bakery’s expenses, and save enough money to move Zel and her daughters somewhere safe? Somewhere out of Asylia?
The harebrained plan took root like a weed in the garden, and for the next few hours before dawn, I nearly forgot about the snake. If my plan worked, it could change everything.
Chapter 9
“Wake up. We have to get started.”
Weslan grunted, stretched, and opened one eye to stare at me. “Started with what?”
“I have an idea, but we have to do it now, before everything else.”
He yawned. “Before breakfast? What are you talking about?”
“We're going to u
se the ingredients we would've cooked for breakfast.” I shook my head. “I don’t have time to explain. I have an idea, but you have to trust me.”
“I do,” he said, surprising me with his ready agreement. “What do I need to do?”
“Just wait for a minute, and then I want you to do the oven again.”
I used the last of our butter, sugar, flour, and eggs to make the same cake batter we had made the previous day for the twins’ birthday cake, but this time, rather than making it into three separate layers, I poured it into a tray of small molds that once, long ago, my mother had used for making candy.
I nodded to Weslan. “Same heat as last time, but I think we’ll need to bake it less. Maybe ten minutes?”
He looked bemused, but once I’d put the trays in the oven, he placed his hands on the oven to heat it. He yanked them off a few seconds later and shook them. We waited with bated breath.
Ten agonizing minutes later, I pulled the tiny cakes out of the oven. They were a beautiful golden-brown color, like small drops of sunlight, each one only half the size of my palm. They smelled like a perfect mixture of butter and roseberry essence.
As we waited for them to cool, I mixed the ingredients for the roseberry frosting, trying to beat them as fast as I remembered my mother doing. The other night, I’d only managed a thin, drippy pink frosting that had poured over the cake like thick milk. My mother had whipped her frosting several minutes until it was thick and airy. I stirred until my arm ached. How had she ever done this?
Weslan watched me, and when he offered to take a turn, I happily gave him the bowl. He beat it quicker than I had, his strong arms tense as he gripped the whisk and bowl. But then he stopped and looked at me. “Can I try something different?”
I eyed him. What did we have to lose? “Go for it.”
He stood the whisk in the middle of the bowl, touching it with the tips of his fingers at the handle’s end. He frowned in concentration, and the whisk spun like crazy, all by itself.
