Page 12 of Sorcery, Swords & Scones
Sass’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t let that happen. As much as I hate the idea of marrying Florin, I can’t subject my family and friends to the Trollbanes.”
Lira whirled around and started pacing her own small circle across the tavern floor. “I think better when I’m baking, but I’m not firing up the oven again tonight.” After a few more turns, she stopped and clapped her hands. “I’ve got it. Instead of option one—you go back home and marry someone against your will—or option two, you stay here and cause trouble for your family, we pick secret option three.”
She was smiling so brightly that Sass hated to ask. “What’s secret option three?”
“We negotiate, of course.” Lira bounced on her toes as she rubbed her hands together. “When this armed search party arrives,we use our best powers of persuasion to convince this Florin to accept something other than you.”
Thrain shot Sass a look that said he wasn’t impressed by secret option three. “Powers of persuasion?”
Sass remembered what she’d helped Lira recover — the leather-bound, moonstone-embellished recipe book that was also a spell book. “By persuasion, do you mean magic?”
“Magic?” Thrain swung his head from woman to woman. “Like the kind that gave that little weasel wings? Since when is that allowed?”
“Flutterstoat,” Lira corrected before she gave them both a mischievous grin. “Technically, it’s not allowed, but those rules were created to stop the spread of dark magic not cozy magic like enchanted beasts and protective charms, right? And maybe I don’t mean magic at all. Maybe I mean the healing powers of hot chai.”
Thrain peered at his mug and muttered to Sass in a low voice. “I hope she means magic.”
Eight
“I didn’t takeoffense at your friend’s comment about my chai,” Lira said the next morning when she bustled into the tavern with the thick, leather-bound spell book tucked under her arm and a paper bag in one hand.
Sass paused in her task of straightening the chairs she’d left akimbo the night before and grinned, grateful that her friend wasn’t holding a grudge about the secrets Sass had kept from her. She was less concerned that Thrain was slow to warm to Lira’s chai.
“You can’t take anything Thrain thinks about food to heart. He was always a picky eater, even about dwarven fare.”
Lira glanced at the fire that was already crackling and the cushions in the armchairs that were freshly fluffed. “Someone’s been up early.”
“I couldn’t sleep well,” Sass admitted. “Cleaning has always calmed my mind, so I thought I might as well give the place a good spit-and-polish.”
It had been a bit more than that, but Lira didn’t need to know that she’d swept all the floors to within an inch of their life, rewashed all the tankards behind the bar, and polished the tablesuntil there wasn’t a hint of the frothy ale and meat pie filling that had been dribbled on them the night before.
“Then you deserve one of these.” Lira unrolled the top of the paper sack, and an intoxicating aroma of yeast, citrus, and sugar wafted from it.
Sass’s stomach had been silent all morning, but now it let out an ornery grumble as she reached into the bag for one of the sticky treats. “Pip’s lemon sweet rolls make all the work worth it.”
“The best baked goods do.” Lira plucked out a gooey roll and put it to her nose, inhaling deeply and moaning before continuing to walk toward the kitchen. “That’s why I’m trying a new recipe today.”
Sass hadn’t even taken a bite of her roll, but she hurried after her friend. “You’re trying something new? Aside from the apple crumble recipe for the Harvest Festival?”
Lira backed through the swinging kitchen doors since she didn’t have any free hands, and Sass slipped in behind her. The half-elf dropped the paper bag of sweet rolls on the wooden table that took up the center of the room before gingerly lowering the heavy book to the surface. Then she held up a finger and took a bite of her iced roll.
Sass followed her lead, letting her teeth sink into the pillowy dough and closing her eyes as the lemony sweetness exploded on her tongue. She nearly swooned as she chewed and swallowed, taking another bite and then another before she was licking the last drizzle of heavenly icing from her fingers. When she opened her eyes, Lira had polished off her roll and was wiping her hands on a dishcloth.
“Now that we’ve gotten the most important thing out of the way,” Lira grabbed her apron from a wall hook and tied it around her waist, “I suppose I should put the chai on to heat.”
Crumpet was slowly uncoiling himself from the nest of blankets Lira had made for him on the corner of the counter, stretching his tiny arms and legs and shaking out his wings as a sleepy yawntwitched his whiskers. He glided to the table where Lira handed him a bit of sweet roll, and he cooed his appreciation as he nibbled it delicately.
“Morning, Crumpet.” Sass hopped onto a stool and let her feet dangle, as Lira plunked a copper pot onto the stove. Her gaze lingered on the leather book with the glittering moonstone embedded in the cover. “What about the new recipe?”
Lira snapped her fingers. “Right. Sorry, I let Pip’s sweet rolls distract me.”
“Easily done.” Sass was grateful that the sweet breakfast had taken her mind off her bigger worries, and she had no desire to return to them.
Once Lira had poured milk into the pot and added the chai spices, she ran her hand over the worn leather of her gran’s recipe book. The recipe book was also a spell book since her gran had once been a mage.
“After I left you last night, I went home and started thinking about ways we could keep your ex-fiancée from finding you or making you return to the Ice Lands.” Lira flipped open the book. “There are spells in here for obfuscation, but they aren’t permanent, and I’m not sure how long you’d want to walk around unseen.”
Sass wrinkled her nose at this. Sure, she’d run from Florin once, but did she want to hide forever?
