A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

by T. Kingfisher

“Yeah.” Uncle Earl glanced over at me. “But as long as they gave us medals, that fixed it, as far as the army was concerned. 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.” He made a flicking gesture with his fingers. “How else are you gonna have heroes?”

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