Page 37 of Princesses & Pastries
"If you keep doing that, then I'll carry you around in a basket and not on my shoulder," I say as we enter the smaller kitchen.
Nate looks up and smiles at me. "Is she causing mischief?"
"Always." I reach up and tickle the dragon under her chin. "I'm not sure what the delegation from Shengda was thinking when they gifted me a dragon egg."
"Probably that you wouldn't be able to hatch it," he responds.
"Technically, the oven hatched it." I gesture to it even as Ember lifts herself from my shoulder and soars over to her spot. "And I'm still not fully sure what I'm supposed to do with her now. She mostly plays in my fireplace and sits on the oven when I'm baking."
"What do people normally do with Green Oak Dragons?" he asks as he finishes working on some dough, presumably for the Graaf's croissants tomorrow morning, based on what he's said about my cousin.
"If I'm to believe Artie, some people use them for hunting, but I'm not a fan of that. Some people just have them around for decoration, but I don't like that either. It doesn't seem right. No one's ever used one for baking before, but I want to try. I thought she could fire meringues."
"We can make some and put her to the test," he says.
"Can we, though?"
"Of course. We've been making meringues since we were eleven," he reminds me.
"We don't have time for that." My voice cracks as I say the words.
Nate's eyes widen, and he wipes his hands on a cloth before coming over and pulling me into his arms.
The affection takes me off guard, but only for a moment. Then the familiar smell of bread and Nate greets me, and everything feels as if it's falling into place. His arms are a comforting weight around me, and the steady beat of his heart by my ear drowns out almost all other sound.
Neither of us says anything as we stand there. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I just want Nate to hold me and to pretend that we're not going to be parted in such a small amount of time.
"I'm sorry," he whispers.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," I respond, my voice raspy.
"I'm still sorry," he says. "But I'm also not gone yet. And I did bring you a present."
"You did?"
"Mmhmm."
I pull back, and he directs me to the table where a metal pan of some kind is sitting with a bow around the handle. I smile at the sight and head over, pulling the bow to undo it so I can look properly, even though I'm assuming that this is the waffle iron he said he was bringing me. Two metal plates with a grid-like pattern are connected by a hinge and are attached to two arms with wooden handles.
"With the gifts from Wafeland arriving today, I thought it might be a good idea to teach you how to make stroopwafels tonight," he says. "They included some keukenstroop."
I frown. "The syrup?"
He nods. "You can use treacle and golden syrup to create something similar, but it's better to use keukenstroop," he says. "I'm just going to put the dough in the ice house, but why don't you look over the recipe?" He pushes a book towards me before disappearing from the kitchen.
I pull it closer, realising as I do that it's the leather journal that I gave him when he left for his apprenticeship in Gaullesse. Based on how far through the book this recipe is, and the state of the pages, I have to guess that he's been using it exactly the way I intended him to. Tears prick the corners of my eyes. I know I told him that I wanted him to use the journal for recipes, but it's something else to see that he's done it.
I wipe away the tears and focus on the instructions of the stroopwafels. It seems to be fairly straightforward, and there's only a small amount of waiting time, which makes it ideal for me. But when I get to the bottom of the page, the tears threaten to fall again at the note written in Nate's familiar handwriting.
To make with Evie. Buy a waffle iron.
It's more than the words, it's the fact that it's written in the same ink as the original recipe. He thought about this the first time he made stroopwafels. He thought about me. There are several notes in the margins of the recipe that make it clear he's added and refined the recipe a few times, making it all the more impactful that he thought about me the first time.
And I don't know what to do with that.
Chapter 17
Ten balls of stroopwafel dough sit by the oven, doing something that means we can't cook them yet.
