“Venna just likes to have fun! Don’t bully her,” she says before winking at her twin.
Venna rolls her eyes. “I didn’t ask for a nickname.”
Izabel sets the whisk down. “Half of the Rawbondslooooveher,” Izabel teases, signing as she speaks. “More than half.”
“What happened to not bullying me?” Venna protests.
“We’re related. It’s my job.” She scowls at the rest of us and jabs a floury finger our way. “Neither of you get to, though. Yes, she’s a beautifully impressive slut, but she’s also?—”
“Hey!” Venna protests. “Besides, you two can hardly talk.”
Nevah holds up her hands. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m a one woman lady.”
“Oh, I am aware,” Venna says darkly. “Do you and Zadie get any sleep during your ‘sleepovers?’ Because I’ll tell you, you’re keeping the rest of us in Kryptos awake.”
Tomison turns quickly with an interested grin. “Tell me more about these sleepovers.”
Izabel grabs a handful of flour and throws it into his face. “Don’t be disgusting.”
He sputters and wipes the flour out of his eyes. “Why am I even here?”
“Because we need someone to fill the pan,” Izabel replies, sliding a greased cake pan over to him. Tomison groans but does what he’s told, and within a few minutes there’s a cake baking away in one of the designated shelves in the big hearth.
Izabel, Venna and Tomison start chatting about a bakery they all like back in the Bonded City, and I nudge Nevah with my hip.
“I’m glad to hear that you’re seeing someone. I know things were… hard… after the Ascent.”
Nevah nods and takes a huge sip of her emberwine. I don’t think she’s going to really respond to it, but then she says, quietly, “Collin. His name was Collin, the man I loved. It was naïve of us, I guess, to believe we’d both make it though. We’d been together since we were sixteen. We always planned on Bonding together…”
Her voice trails off and I wrap an arm around her.
“Thank you,” she says, looking at me. Her eyes are dewy and she sniffs hard, trying to draw her mask of strength back on. “If you—all of you—hadn’t come to my side at the Purge Trial, I’m not sure what I would’ve done. I might’ve just let it happen, honestly. But seeing that there were other people who cared if I lived, even if I didn’t…”
I bite my lip, trying to hold back tears myself. I know exactly what she means; she’s describing the way I felt when Igor pulled me off the streets and started training me.
“No thanks necessary,” I say. Before I can say anything maudlin, Tomison clambers up onto the counter, standing on it.
“Alright!” he shouts. The emberwine is working fast because he wobbles slightly before righting himself.
“Don’t step in the flour, dumbass!” Izabel scolds.
“A toast!” he announces, lifting his cup. Venna and Nevah immediately lift their cups. Izabel rolls her eyes and follows suit. “To our future queen!”
My cheeks are instantly on fire. I wish it were just the wine, but this is embarrassing. “Please stop,” I beg.
“You’re right. My bad,” he corrects. “A toast to our future queen, should she survive the Unity Trials with her life intact!”
We break into messy laughter and drink. It shouldn’t be funny, but it really is. The weight that’s been on my shoulders lifts the drunker I get, the more laughter I hear, and the more times one of my friends tosses an arm over my shoulder or whispers to me with a conspiratorial smile.
We’re having so much fun that we all forget about the cake in the oven… until thesmellhits us.
Venna’s eyes go wide and Izabel shrieks in despair. “I can’t believe I forgot to watch the clock! This is allyourfault,” she says, pointing a finger at Tomison.
He tosses his hands in the air. “How is it my fault?”
“You were distracting me!” she shouts, grabbing kitchen gloves and yanking the cake pan out of its shelf on the hearth. Black smoke curls from the top as Izabel pulls the cake out.
It is a burned mess. Absolutely horrific, really. Its acrid smell floods the whole kitchen, and it causes another round of delirious laughter.
