I lift the blade and slice the cake. Chivalrously I carry the first three plates to the mermaids, who cannot serve themselves.
The mood is buzzy. People enjoy each other’s company, laughing and waltzing to the music of Trogg’s flute. Rapscullio and Queen Maureen take a turn on the dance floor. Seraphima has a third piece of cake.
I find Captain Crabbe beside the punch bowl, trying to hold a crystal cup in his meaty fist. He takes a swig of the juice. “How is it?” I ask.
“Could use a bit o’ rum.”
I grin, pouring myself a glass, and I’m about to take a sip when he reaches out and pulls my lower lip down. “Have ye been neglecting your gums?” he asks. “Oliver, we’ve beenthrough this before. Gums are to teeth as soil is to a plant. If ye don’t take care of the soil, nothin’s gonna thrive, aye?”
Gently I place my crystal cup upon the table. “How do you do it? How do you just snuff out your dreams?”
“Pardon?”
“You clearly want to be a dentist. And instead you’re stuck here, the captain of a pirate ship.” I meet his gaze, intense. “How do you get up in the morning, knowing you’ll never have what you want?”
Captain Crabbe seems taken aback by this turn of the conversation. “Och, boy, I canna understand why you think I’ve given up my dreams. I simply make do with what I have.” He glances around, waving one hand to encompass this castle, this party, these people. “What could you possibly want out there that you can’t find here?”
True love,I think, and I move among the crowd, feeling completely alone.
There’s a story Queen Maureen once shared with me, about a blind man who was given a wish by a witch. When he wished for sight, she cast a spell, and miraculously he could see. The world became a circus of color, a whirlwind of movement, a bottomless well of discovery.
But one day the witch returned. “You’ve misunderstood,” she said. “I never promised forever.” Without warning, without time for preparation, the man found himself in the dark once again.
After living in Delilah’s world, free and able to make my own choices, returning here feels like being in prison. Not only is there a finite number of people to see and conversations to have, but my confidant—Frump—isn’t even here anymore to share my restlessness.
I am sitting in the great hall of the castle, my back against the stone, pitching a ball to strike the far wall and bounce back to me. I do this over and over, and the ball makes a satisfying thwack each time it hits.
Queen Maureen comes into the hallway wearing an apron, her hands dusted with flour. “Good Lord, Oliver, I thought we were under attack. Is that really necessary?”
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I’m having a bit of trouble occupying myself.”
“Well, I could use an extra set of hands. Come into the kitchen.”
I let the ball drop, and out of nowhere, Humphrey comes flying to catch it in his jaws.
Maureen is in the middle of making a cake. “Why don’t you frost this for me,” she suggests, “while I start rolling out croissants?”
I look at the three rounds of cake and the bowl of pink frosting. I dip my finger into it and take a taste. As usual, it is delicious. Maureen is a master baker. “May I ask you a question?” I say. “Who exactlyeatsall the stuff you bake?”
“I know it seems excessive,” she admits. “But it’s always gone at the end of the day. About half of it winds up in Seraphima’s tower.”
Having watched that girl devour everything that was not nailed down at the mall, I hardly find this surprising.
I watch Maureen roll out a square of dough and begin to slice through it with a sharp knife, cutting it into triangles. “Now it’s my turn to ask you something,” she says. “What was it like?”
I glance at her. “You mean out there? Imagine no boundaries. No walls.”
She holds her hand up to her throat. “It seems terrifying.”
“It is. But in the best way,” I say. “There are books with so many recipes you couldn’t count them all.” I glance around the kitchen. “There are ingredients and spices from countries whose names you can barely pronounce. Pans in every shape and size. And so many people . . . so many people that you could bake all day and all night and still not feed everyone.”
Queen Maureen’s eyes widen in awe. “I can see why you might be struggling to be back here.”
I pick up the spatula and slop a layer of frosting onto the top of the first round of cake.
“It might not be ideal, in your situation, but we all must keep a stiff upper lip, you know. Make the best of things. It’s the lot we’ve been given.”
“But by whom?” I ask, jamming the second layer of cake onto the first. “Why should I have to be locked in here just because a woman decided to tell a story?”
