A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

by T. Kingfisher

It was amazing. Terror cannot actually stand up to a full bladder. I was about to be hauled up on murder charges, and all I could think about was oh god I have to go so baaaaad…

When you’re different, even just a little different, even in a way that people can’t see, you like to know that people in power won’t judge you for it.

I dropped the scone into Bob’s bucket. He glopped happily over it. I think that might have been cannibalism.

It should never have come down to me. It was miserably unfair that it had come to me and Spindle. There were grown-ups who should have stopped it. The Duchess should have found her courage and gone to the guards. The guards should have warned the Duchess. The Council, whoever they were, should have made sure the Duchess knew about the proclamations. The Duchess should have had people on the street who reported back to her. Everyone had failed at every step and now Spindle and I were heroes because of it.

You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don’t ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.”

“You didn’t fail,” I said. “They wouldn’t let you succeed. It’s different.”

If you have ever prepared for a siege in two days, then you know what the next few days were like. If you haven’t, then you probably don’t. Well…a big formal wedding is about the same (and because we do cakes, I’ve been on the periphery of a few), except that if things go wrong in a siege you’ll all die horribly, and in formal weddings, the stakes are much higher.

“The names of these people amaze me,” murmured the Duchess. “Really, the nobles are so unimaginative by comparison. I wonder if Leaky Peg would like a cabinet position?”

After a minute, I said, “I never wanted to be a hero.” His face was solemn. “Nobody ever does.”