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CHAPTER FIVE

With every curving step of the spiral staircase that led into the subterranean kitchen, ambient heat from the cook fire and ovens banished the chill of the rambler rose courtyard. The heat of the blue flames, which went dormant outside the prescribed cooking times, must be leaching out of the manila stones. It would be gone soon—a reminder that everyone’s comfort, even down to staying warm, was solely provided by the Stag Man.

“Mrs. Bilberry?” I called when I was halfway down the stairs. She might not even be in the kitchen, since breakfast was well and truly over, and I wasn’t scheduled to indulge my baking habit today. And if she wasn’t in the kitchen, I didn’t know where to find her. A delay I couldn’t afford when I had to charge the filigree and stage a full-scale rebellion in less than ten days.

As it happened, the matronly badger simply hadn’t heard me. Her mind was preoccupied with her own mutterings as she stood on a stool and bent over a sink filled to the brim with bubbles. Since there was no steam rising from the suds, the water had to be cold, or at least lukewarm.

“All the magic and power in the world at his command and he can’t even install me a dishwasher,” she grumbled. “Just look at my paws! All cracked up and split like walnut shells after they’ve met the business end of a squirrel’s jaws.”

She threw the wash rag into the sink, jettisoning foam three feet into the air, and smacked on the faucet to rinse off the tureen that had held the morning’s fruit salad. “Water colder than all an opossum’s tits in the middle of the winter freeze to boot.”

By now I’d not just entered the kitchen, I’d come across it completely, scraping my boots loudly against the stone floor in the hopes she’d hear me and cease her traitorous murmurings. The Green Mother forbid a Brother come down here looking for something and hear her!

“Mrs. Bilberry?” I tried again in a louder voice.

The badger screamed, lobbing the freshly rinse tureen right at my head.

A vine-like whip of green magic caught it, redirected the tureen to the drying rack, and disappeared.

I flexed my fingers, marveling at the new reaction time and agility of the vine. It had barely required a thought on my part. “Well, that was . . . interesting.”

“Oh, milady,” the badger wailed, snatching up her ruffled apron to smother the fat tears leaking out of her dark eyes. “Please don’t tell Cernunnos! didn’t mean— I don’t even know what a dishwasher is !”

Yes, she did. I fought to keep from smiling since the poor badger might mistake it for glee at her misfortune. Mrs. Bilberry knew what a dishwasher was because the Caer powder was wearing off. Brandi had succeeded.

I held out my hands, palm up. “Show me your paws, Mrs. Bilberry.”

Sniffling, she obeyed. My teeth ground together to smother a string of curses that would’ve made my cousin Rose clap me on the back. The badger’s paws were worse than she’d described.

She whimpered when I pressed my thumbs into her palms, then gasped as golden sparks and a vibrant green glow outshone everything else. It took only a moment to heal her, and I gave her an extra boost to thicken her skin against further wear. When the magic faded, she lifted her paws in wonder. Their pads were black and shiny and perfectly plump.

“Oh, milady,” the badger wailed again.

“None of that,” I told her firmly but kindly. “And I heard nothing. I wish there was something I could do, but these flames, and the plumbing, don’t obey me.”

“What are you doing down here?” she asked, looking around me to see if I’d come with an escort. She knew, like everyone else, that I shouldn’t associate with her outside of my baking habit. While I wouldn’t be punished for breaking the bounds of propriety, it was clear she knew she would be. “Did I forget that you were baking today?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.” I crossed the kitchen to slouch against the edge of the worktable. “One, I’m starving and was wondering if you had any leftovers, and two, I came to inform you Ossian and I are getting married before the solstice. You will need to prepare a feast and a cake, please.”

The badger cook sounded like she was choking on a frog, for those certainly weren’t words she was making in the back of her throat. “C-congratulations!” she finally forced out. It was evident her mind was whirling faster than a hummingbird whizzing about in the height of summer, stressing over the massive quantity of food she’d have to prepare in such a short amount of time.

“Let’s tackle that discussion in a minute, Mrs. Bilberry,” I soothed. “Do you have any snacks?”

“Oh! Um.” She bustled over to the little refrigerator and threw open the door. “A little fruit, leftover cake from yesterday’s dinner, half a game hen—”

Sawyer immediately stabbed me through the foraging bag, his nails not just piercing my skin but flexing to drive his point home. He’d only had the two hard-boiled eggs I’d been able to sneak to him earlier and he’d been a good little kitty staying silent during the key charging.

“I’ll take whatever you don’t need or have reserved for another use, please.” I yanked the foraging bag away from my body and set it down—a little roughly—on the worktable beside me.

Mrs. Bilberry snatched up a nearby wooden tray, loaded it up, and hustled over. When she began setting me a place at the table, I dissuaded her and ate straight from the tray. My stomach wanted that half a game hen but my heart told me to save it for Sawyer.

The badger noticed me setting it aside and urged, “Eat whatever you want, milady. Better in your stomach than in that dreadful beast’s up in the great hall. He’s not fit for the scraps off Cernunnos’s table, if you ask me, but orders are orders.”

I nearly spat the piece of vanilla cake out into my hand. “ What? ”

“The Bear Prince? Cernunnos says the scraps of the day go to him at night. Sometimes he has to add in a steak to keep him alive, but it’s more than he deserves for kidnapping you like that.”

A second ago, the vanilla cake had tasted like a decadent cloud, but now it stuck in my mouth like mud. I forced the bite down and pushed the tray away.

“Milady,” the badger protested.

I shoved away from my slouch against the table and straightened my shoulders. My chin lifted and my hands clasped in front of my stomach in what I hoped was a regal gesture, and the companionable atmosphere between us vanished. Mrs. Bilberry immediately stumbled back a step and lowered her gaze.

“I want him alive and strong when he is defeated, Mrs. Bilberry. There is no victory if he is already weak. You will feed him according to his needs from now on and keep a water bowl down at all times. Am I quite clear?”

The badger cook nodded quickly. “A-and what should I tell Cernunnos if he asks, milady?”

“You tell him you are obeying his future’s queen’s command.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bilberry. Now, shall we discuss the wedding feast?”

The badger practically dove across the kitchen to a little writing desk tucked away in the corner by the stairwell. She returned with a sheaf of parchment, an inkwell, and a quill. Her dark eyes darted from me to the table, silently inquiring if she could sit while she wrote.

“Join me,” I said, pulling out a chair for each of us. Once seated, I cut the badger cook off before she could barrage me with the usual questions. “I expect this to be a small affair, just Ossian and me, my friends, and the Brotherhood, but I would like you to prepare extra for the castle staff.”

Mrs. Bilberry clamped her jaw to keep from smiling. It meant more work for her, but it also meant she and the hobs and all the others wouldn’t be eating gruel for supper.

Her quill scratched along the parchment. “All your favorites, I assume? And what for the cake?”

“The cake will be anise and spice with lavender frosting and all the trimmings.” I wanted strong flavors to mask any tamperings. The Brotherhood couldn’t fight an uprising if their own bodies were rebelling out of both ends. “And there will be a seeded loaf according to my family’s traditions that the bride must make.”

That was stretching the truth a little bit—we traditionally had a seeded loaf for the bride and groom to break together at the start of the wedding feast, but who made it and brought it were irrelevant. Ever since the Seeded Sourdough Fiasco at Jay and Alyssum’s wedding, no one other than Aunt Peony made the traditional loaf.

My poor aunt had tried to pass on her baking prowess to her three children, but bodybuilder Boar had been too obsessed with macros, fashionista Lilac hated anything that might ruin her manicure, and wild Rose . . .. My adventurous, outdoorsy cousin was the reason for the whole fiasco.

She’d cultivated so much wild yeast in her starter that it had come alive. It’d become irate upon discovering its offspring (levain) had been force-fed (stuffed with seeds) and killed (baked) only to be desecrated (eaten) later. Turning predatory, the sourdough starter had hunted down (oozed with malicious intent) and tried to eat (smother) the flower girl, my niece Clover. It had even absorbed a few blasts of green magic with no ill effect until some wind magic from my father hoisted it into the air and my Uncle Stag blasted it apart like a clay pigeon with a lightning strike.

Now all I had to do was replicate it.

“Sounds lovely, milady,” the badger was saying. “I have a few seed types on hand, but if you don’t find what you need, I’m sure we can ask the hobs. They hoard better than squirrels.”

Hobs , not woodchucks. She was remembering more than just dishwashers.

The remark brought to mind Grandpappy’s secret whiskey cellar with all its bottles of brown liquor, hob grog, and jars of eggs pickled with beets. Oh my Green Mother, how are Rhett and the hens doing ?

“Milady? I was asking if you needed any help?”

I shook myself, releasing my fingers which had clenched into fists. It was a small thing to worry about those hens and the rooster when there was so much more at stake, but I couldn’t help it. What other lives were forgotten or imperiled because of the Stag Man’s magic?

First things first, Meadow, and second things second.

“No, thank you,” I answered. “It’s a simple recipe. But it has a sourdough base, so I must start preparing it now. And I’ll need to feed it several times a day in order for it to be ready by the wedding. May I have your permission to—”

“This is your kitchen, milady. I only work it,” the badger said.

“I disagree.”

Mrs. Bilberry smiled at that. “You’re welcome anytime, milady.”

With that, she showed me where she kept the flour and got me a jar I could use for the starter. I created a gloopy sludge of flour and water with a few whisks of a fork, covered it in a spare tea towel, and nestled it by the ovens where some of the miserly heat could keep it warm. Ish.

I retrieved the half of the game hen, bade the badger cook farewell, and went about my next task: sneaking out of the castle to find Shari.