The hells I did. That man would ruin this dinner. I saw red, striding back intomykitchen to contain my temper before I said something I regretted.
I caught Ward pulling his mate out of the cold room. The intense look on his face said they were mind speaking again.
“No!” Evie’s voice rose above the chatter in the kitchen. “This requires drastic steps…”
So Evie wouldn’t budge, even as Ward pulled her deeper into the Keep until I couldn't hear them arguing anymore. She had that way where she was gentle but somehow you ended up tripping into her bidding.Kind of like Declan. If I had to live with an overbearing, arrogant “helper”, I would. Any extra hands would help in theory. But I would be Goddsdamned if he was going to ruin my pots.
“Please put that down,” I asked Javier.
He surprised me by actually doing what I asked. What came out of his mouth next did not.
“Why don’t you go make some pastries, bake some bread. Maybe someday you can open your own bakery, pass out sweet treats to your neighbors or something.”
My teeth almost cracked with the pressure I put on them. A thousand retorts came into my head, each more vicious than the last. My former bakery had been terribly successful, thank you very much.
I pointed a finger straight into his face. “You take dessert. I will take the first course.”
I had ‘petty’ in me too. If I didn’t swallow my pride now, I was going to skin him alive in front of the assembly. I didn't think that was the entertainment Evie had planned for the night. I knew, without a doubt, I would outwork him and that would expose him well enough.
We divided the rest of the kitchen and the menu in half to work around each other. Time melted like butter. Except, as the brigade settled into a rhythm and Javier shouted more and more commands to my team, I could feel my magic rising to the surface.
It still didn’t sit easy under my skin. When we’d left our tiny village, my friends and I each learned we hadmore magic than we thought. Which was more than none. Evie now turned into a giant dragon. Maggie, well, she had always said she was a witch, but now she had the sigil magic to back it up. And me. I ended up the town baker because my magic worked through food. I assumed everyone loved my baked goods because I dosed them with extra love, but as each of my friends found their power, I discovered my food came with real magic. And I was angry I’d settled for less. Baker was the job I was allowed to do, instead of the cooking I wanted to do.
“Don’t let those loaves burn,” the man shouted at my head baker, who had been doing this for longer than I had been alive.
“Agnes has this. Don’t let your milk scald,” I shouted back at bird-stash just as his milk happened to bubble over totally without my help.
Apprenticing with a cheese dragon had given me a lot of insight into feastweaving magic. Keeping control over it, when I had no one to teach me, was another matter.
It might have, probably, for sure, curdled Javier’s egg custard sauce. But it also put a huge smile on Declan’s face as he tasted my dandelion greens. I possibly added a dash too much as Declan’s eyes grew glassy.
As Javier started his sauce again, he watched me core and slice faerie glow tomatoes into roses.
“Don’t cut yourself,” he said in his nasal voice.
Like a jinx, the knife slipped and I had to throw away the bloody tomato. I bit back a retort, my magic surginghigher. Declan already had my hand in the air with a scrap of rag around it, stopping the bleeding as fast as possible. Before I even had time to ask for the bottle of unicorn plaster. Declan painted it on my skin diligently as I described how to finish the tomatoes to the vegetable cook. I slammed my magic into them so they would look like real roses when she finished.
Before the list was half done, the sun burst fire-glow colors into the kitchen as it set behind Declan. He carried in the last crate of spiny dragon lobsters about to meet their doom. They were the most difficult of the night’s items to prepare. I tried to calm my agitation as the hour of the dinner approached. Only my full concentration would do for the little creatures who would nourish our souls.
“We need more platters for the bread, and more pitchers for wine.”
I ignored Javier through gritted teeth. I had set those out when I first got in. We had plenty, even though the first dishes were going out.
I shook my head to clear it. My magic came to my hands, healing the minor cut on my finger, infusing the lobsters to bring out their natural briny sweetness. Every action in the kitchen was part of the incantation. Boiling the lobsters in the butter, laying them back in their bright purple shells, were all pieces of magic that made them more tender, juicier, and more able to summon that one memory that made the meal irresistible.
Courses went out as I whisked the salty shell broth with a light cream and Frisson berry to pour over the lobsters at the last second. I had to get this right. It would blow any of Javier’s dishes out of the water.
Every turn of the whisk brought more magic from the depths of my soul until it poured out of the bowl and across the entire kitchen. More perceptive monsters like Agnes stopped to look at what I was doing. The rest doubled their efforts as I worked harder to get the broth the right consistency.
Even Javier stilled to watch as I poured the steaming finish onto the lobsters and sent them into the large dining hall. My whole body felt charged to the full, pain forgotten for a moment. I looked for Declan, but he must have been eating with the others. Without him to check in with, I couldn’t stop. There was always more to do. I swept out the hearth and cleaned the butcher block because no task was too small. Agnes let me make herbed butter to go with her braided loaf. I checked on some lesser barrels of wine that needed a little magical help to be served. I even garnished Javier’s rice pudding without gagging. Who liked sweet, gooey smashed rice?
By the time I carried the last dessert out myself, the high of the night had me pulsing with magic. In some way, shape, or form, I had touched and tasted everything that left the kitchen for these important guests. My magic had shaped the entire evening. Head high, I walked into the dining hall to take a well-deserved victorylap and found unmitigated chaos. My heart seized at the spectacle. It was as if everyone in the dining hall acted out my daily fight with my body.
The wild display of monsters in impeccable eveningwear losing their minds only grew more frenzied the closer I came. My magic poured out into the room. Javier, close behind me, slowly backed up and retreated into the kitchen.
Evie and Ward tangled tongues at the head of the table. I started toward them, shouting for everyone to stop, even as my magic spiked. Maggie dragged Noth into doing… something else, luckily shrouded in Noth’s shadows. I stepped over an Elven noble who stared into his rice pudding and cried. Others could not stop eating. Food made it to their mouths and promptly fell out because they were full. I tried to shake servants caught in a loop, pouring endless wine into glasses. Where was Declan? Surely he would help. I noticed his furry wolf-form savaging a whole ostrich in the back corner of the hall. So no help there.
I cut my foot on a broken plate, pushing through the crowd to get to Evie. Everyone tried to eat something, even if it was their neighbor. The dining hall was suddenly the Harrowland’s most deadly obstacle course as more monsters fell back into their basest natures. Claws came out. Snarls filled the air. Ward’s territory was a shifter haven, and it showed in his guest makeup. This was worse than the time with the monk librarians. Atleast there I was trying to produce havoc for a good cause.
