Page 4
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“So I told Lore that it didn’t have to be so enormous, you know?” Xander sketched the outline of a gigantic wedding cake with the tips of his fingers, then waved apologetically when he almost swatted a fruit peddler in the process.
I chuckled and reached for his hand, lowering it between us. “And I’m telling you now that the middle of the bazaar isn’t the perfect place to illustrate this hypothetical cake for giants. Let’s just meet Lore at his workshop like he told us to and see for ourselves.”
“But that’s the thing,” Xander said, his posture relaxing as we strolled through the bazaar hand in hand. “Surely our kitchen at home is big enough for whatever he has planned. I mean, I’d love for the cake to be special, but it doesn’t have to be big enough to blot out the sun.”
“Doorway,” I said, nodding as we weaved our way past a haggling shopper. “Lore’s got some of that artificer brain from Mom and Dad. Whatever you’re making, if it doesn’t end up fitting through the door, you gotta make it somewhere else.”
“Oh. I didn’t even think of that.” Xander squeezed my hand and grinned. “Sometimes I forget that you’re much smarter than you look, Jack.”
I sighed dramatically. “I realize you’re marrying me for my stunning good looks, but this beautiful body does come with a beautiful brain too, you know.”
Xander laughed. “I’ll do better. I promise.”
But if someone deserved praise for having both the beautiful body and brain — and face, naturally — it was Xander. Funny how he’d almost slapped that fruit vendor in the face in an attempt to envision Lore’s cake when he was flawlessly exerting arcane control over the wooden crates following closely behind us.
They filed behind him in precise formation, turning and starting and stopping smartly in time with his movements, almost like they were an extension of his body. Xander had very kindly volunteered his levitation magic for this shipment, the delivery of several hundred more glass phials that Gertrude Goodness had ordered from me and Niko.
And who was I to say “No” to the nice lady who was helping to fund our very lovely and very expensive wedding?
The art of artifice was finally generating some much-needed income for the Pryde household. I loved the Gauntlet dearly, and I got a decent amount of use from my boots of very, very slow hovering, but I’d faced facts long ago. They were either too specific or too strange to find their place on the magical market.
The glass phials — and Niko himself, of course — were a blessing. It felt incredible to finally get paid for my work. What an awesome way to raise the profile of artifice in the arcane underground again.
Speaking of which, I’d left Giuseppe at the Halls of Making in good hands — Preston’s hands, that is. Who was better equipped to help the old artificer get situated, find somewhere comfortable to rest his hammer? One of the few perks of joining the new guild in its early days was getting absolutely spoiled for choice. Each of the three of us could have picked separate offices and workshops in three separate buildings if we felt like it.
Or maybe I just repeated that to myself so I could avoid the bigger, more difficult question of how we were supposed to fill up the rest of the guild to begin with. Surely the old masters had started small themselves, slowly growing the Halls of Making as they attracted more and more apprentices with their great works.
At least we had our honorary members to help welcome Giuseppe. Masters Vikhyat and Lobelia spent enough time at the guild grounds that I would have happily included them as founding members of what future generations might think of as the Halls of Making 2.0.
Every time I loudly, absently wondered whether they weren’t wanted back at their respective home guilds I’d get irritably hushed and shut down. It was sweet, in a way. I liked to think that they liked getting to help us grow, while also getting a bit of vacation time away from their responsibilities.
Oh, and Niko was there, too. Standoffish to start, like always, but too curious and inquisitive to keep himself away from interesting new stories and experiences. As I finally left that day, I caught him and Giuseppe deep in conversation, trading tidbits and anecdotes. Giuseppe lapped up the little droplets of gossip about the other guilds, and Niko gawked and nodded intently as he absorbed stories and legends about the artificers of old.
It made me smile, knowing that we’d bridged the gap between these wildly different generations. It reminded me of what Kaoru had once said, how friendships formed between members of different guilds were always wonderful to see, wearing away at decades of distrust and enmity. Guild affiliation and loyalties didn’t matter. At the end of the day, young Niko and Old Giuseppe were just two artisans who loved their work and loved to talk about it.
The smell of baking bread and sugar wafted toward us on the breeze, a sure sign that we were approaching Mother Dough headquarters. I marveled each time we got a good look at their guild offices, the building itself like something out of a faerie tale. Combine a witch’s hut made out of candy and the coziest grandmother’s cottage, then blow it up a few sizes.
The guild of bakers was as sweet and sugary on the outside as on the inside, which itself was a dangerous honeycomb of some of the very best cake shops and chocolatiers to be found in the arcane underground. Very dangerous, actually, because it was so difficult to walk past one of the displays without stopping to shop, or at least stare through the windows and drool.
And it was in that maze of treats and sweets that we eventually discovered the personal office and workshop of one Lawrence Pryde. Not every member was afforded their own space within Mother Dough HQ, something normally reserved for more valued or experienced artisans. Gertrude Goodness eagerly granting Lore his own workshop showed just how thrilled she was to have him join the guild. I’d said it enough times, but I truly couldn’t be happier for him.
Like many other workshops and laboratories at Mother Dough, Lore’s personal space was easily visible from the corridor. It felt like him, too, all stainless steel and shiny equipment. It reminded me of the appendages that he used to run the Pryde household, and — yep, there it was, snaking by, one of the metallic tentacles that served as his limbs.
Trust Lore to reverse engineer what Octavian Pryde had used to make him mobile. I thought I caught a glimpse of some crystal somewhere in the kitchen as we approached, a sort of secondary mainframe that he could use as a home base away from home.
I opened my mouth to greet him as we drew closer to the door, catching glimpses of his tiny crystalline body zipping back and forth. But we reached the threshold to his workspace and my jaw dropped. It must have been obscured by the curtain on the way in.
“Gods above and below,” Xander breathed, his head tilting back as he took it all in. “No wonder Lore needed all that space.”
A gleaming metal tentacle darted toward the glass door, pulling it open. “Ta-da!” Lore announced, his voice accompanied by a chirping, celebratory fanfare.
It must have been seven, possibly nine layers high. Something about the way he’d stacked the cakes had given the tiers the appearance of an optical illusion, each level connected by what appeared to be miniature staircases that bent at odd angles and circled back on themselves again. A vision in white, this beautiful buttercream ivory tower. And on the very top layer —
“Look, Jack. It’s us!”
Xander pointed at the little cake toppers in matching attire. One had shaggy, curly hair and a scruffy chin. The other had a familiar head of black-and-white hair.
I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure my shoulders are broader than that, Lore.”
His crystal pulsed a sunny yellow with every peal of his laughter. “Actually, Jackson, these are printed directly from scans of your bodies. I made sure to pad the shoulders a little for your sake. Not to worry.”
“Ouch. Okay, fine. Maybe it’s just the angle. But Lore, this is incredible. The cake is beautiful. And all those flowers!”
He’d taken the time to pepper this gorgeous monstrosity with buttercream rosettes and lush sprays of black leaves, perfect for the theme. But oh, the flowers. Delicate little things, their curving translucent petals gleaming, each one lovingly sculpted out of what must have been sugar, lending the cake a golden caramelized glow.
“Lore,” Xander breathed. “This is beautiful. It’s better than anything I could have possibly imagined.”
“The final version will be better, I promise,” Lore said. “I only apologize that it hasn’t reached perfection at this point.”
I flung my hand out toward the cake. “Are you seriously saying you aren’t satisfied with this? Lore, it’s flawless.”
His crystal tilted left, then right, the way someone might tilt their head in observation. “Hmm. I’m not so sure. You know, this reminds me of an episode of Dominique and Sable. Dominique was going to marry an elderly oil tycoon. They had the floppiest wedding cake.”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “What’s it gonna take for you to accept that this is an amazing piece of work as it is? What, do you need your guild master’s stamp of approval, too?”
Just that moment, a certain guild master wandered in through the open doorway. Gertrude Goodness gathered her voluminous skirts close to her body to maneuver the doorframe, her dresses always delightfully reminiscent of sweet and tasty things, like cupcakes, like frosted desserts.
“Gentlemen, so lovely to see you! I had a feeling I’d find you in Lore’s kitchen. Thank you for delivering this last order of — oh. Goodness gracious me.”
“Why, hello there, Master Gertrude.” Lore’s crystal blinked blue and red, a silent siren. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed. My kitchen is an absolute mess.”
She waved her hand, never taking her eyes off of Lore’s masterpiece. “There’s nothing to apologize for, my dear Lawrence. This marvel you’ve created — why, the depth of your artistry simply astounds me.”
I coughed quietly. “Lore thinks it isn’t good enough.”
His crystal glowed a bright, alarmed red. I flinched. He was probably preparing to blast my ass with one of his lasers.
“Preposterous,” Gertrude declared. “This is one of the loveliest cakes I’ve seen at the guild in quite a while. Never sell yourself short, Lore. And I suppose that this is the design you intend to use for our handsome soon-to-be-weds over here?”
“Yes, guild master,” Lore said meekly. This time his crystal pulsed with a pale, shy pink.
“It’s wonderful, Lore.” Xander planted his hands on the base of the table, gazing lovingly up at the cake. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
All this time, Xander’s crates were still hovering behind him, a little row of obedient baby ducks. I suddenly remembered myself, whispering apologetically. There we were cooing over Lore’s cake while Xander’s magic was doing all the heavy lifting.
“Oh, those? Right. Almost forgot about them.” He waved his hand to dismiss the spell. They drifted languidly onto the ground, settling there with a polite thunk.
“Yes,” said Master Gertrude. “Lovely. I’ll have someone over to transfer those to storage promptly. They work very well indeed for our purposes, Jackson. Simply load a decorative spell into the glass and it saves the magic for later. My compliments to you and your business partner.”
I bowed my head gratefully, making a mental note to pass said compliments along to Niko. Gertrude patted down her skirts again, then blinked.
“Goodness. Would you look at that. I forgot to bring your payment. See, this is why I try to delegate the business of doing business to others.”
“It’s okay, Master Gertrude.” I shook my hands at her. “You don’t have to pay me right this moment, it’s — ”
“Nonsense. You gentlemen sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
Gertrude Goodness hiked up her skirts and hightailed it through the doorway, off to collect her gold from wherever it was she kept it. The three of us stayed right there in the kitchen. I wrapped my arm across Xander’s shoulders, then smiled at Lore’s floating crystal body.
“Seriously, Lore. It’s perfect. Thank you.”
“But of course,” Lore replied, the light of his crystal glowing in time with his voice. “That’ll be ten thousand dollars, please.”