There was Kerry, in the same red as the rest of the wedding party, her riotous hair tamed into a crown braid and streaks of flour on her cheeks. There were my missing teenagers, plus Gillian, and Diva, Liz’s daughter, who I hadn’t noticed in the crowd before. It was quite the little swarm, and it was almost inconsequential in the face of the cake they were doing their best to surround, like an army preparing to lay siege to a well-defended castle.
“Oak and ash . . .” I breathed.
Kerry had promised me the wedding cake of my dreams when we were both children young enough that dreaming about wedding cakes took up a surprising amount of our time. We didn’t know if we were ever going to get married, or ever going to want to get married, but we knew we liked cake, and we knew a wedding was basically like the biggest birthday party ever, and you could have as many frosting roses as you wanted. Well, Kerry had managed to grow at least somewhat beyond that decorating aesthetic as she got older, but frosting roses still featured fairly heavily.
The cake she had constructed—and “constructed” was really the only word that came even halfway near describing the work that must have gone into that monstrosity—was ten tiers high and looked like someone had decided to cut it before we got there, using an axe rather than an ordinary knife. A vast gash had been sculpted into one side of the otherwise impeccably-frosted cake, and the interior gleamed with massive sugar crystals, each one a perfect pale pink rose quartz, and bled in a river of red and white roses that mirrored the train of my gown. They looked perfectly real, like she had been gathering them from one of Luna’s gardens the moment before we approached, but I knew Kerry well enough to know that they would be completely edible, even down to their spun-sugar thorns.
The cake wasn’t white. Under the roses it was the deep, earthy brown of semisweet dark chocolate. Tybalt stepped up next to me, joining me in silent, wide-eyed staring.
In case the cake hadn’t been enough, there were two trays of cupcakes with matching roses atop them, although they were frosted in a variety of colors, and a shorter tower of stacked cheese and sliced fruits, which poured down the side of the cheese in a river effect similar to the roses on the cake.
Kerry stepped forward, smiling shyly, hands buried in the skirt of her dress. “Do you like it?” she asked.
“What flavor is it?” I asked, sounding overwhelmed even to myself.
“Which part?”
I slowly turned to blink at her. “Kerry, if this is where you tell me that every tier is a different flavor, this is where I pass out, and also get a little huffy because I can’t possibly eat ten pieces of cake, and I can’t not taste my entire wedding cake.”
“That’s why I made you cupcakes for later,” she said, in a tone that implied it was the only reasonable thing she could possibly have done. “Cake flavors were way different when Tybalt was our age. Less chocolate, more rum, less sweet, more savory, all that sort of thing. So making a cake you’d both recognize as dessert took some doing.”
“I promise, I am well acquainted with modern culinary trends,” said Tybalt, sounding only faintly affronted. “I know what buttercream is, and consider the invention of chocolate cake to be—”
“Which is why,” continued Kerry blithely, “the base level is a dark ginger cake with a boiled frosting center, while the level above is vanilla cake with extra vanilla, and a strawberry rose center, to suit your ridiculous sweet tooth, which hasn’t gotten any less disturbing since we were children. Next layer up is chai with a raspberry jam filling, and above that is almond and honey and why is Tybalt staring at me like he thinks I might be on the menu?”
“I rescind anything I may have said to offend you, oh most beauteous of bakers,” said Tybalt, sounding slightly stunned.
“Thought you might,” said Kerry smugly.
“Do all those flavors get along with chocolate icing?” I asked.
“Hush,” said Kerry. “It’s magic.”
Sometimes “it’s magic” is the most annoying answer in the world. Other times, you’re being stared at by a cluster of hungry teens who desperately want cake, and arguing is not a plan that keeps things peaceful. I smiled and shook my head. “Cool,” I agreed. “It’s magic.”
Kerry stepped forward and grabbed my hands, a comforting scent of sugar and grated ginger surrounding her. “May you never hunger, never thirst, and never want for more than you deserve, which is more than you can possibly believe,” she said. “I love you, Toby. I’m so glad to be a part of this.”
“Of course,” I said, and pulled her in for a hug. “You were always going to be a part of this, no matter how it happened.”
I meant that. Kerry and Julie and Stacy were my first friends. They were there for me when no one else was, when I couldn’t imagine anyone else ever wanting to be. We could fight and fall out and come back together, the way we always had and always would. Through births and deaths and breakups and marriages, we were meant to be together. It was the way the world worked. So I embraced Kerry, and she hugged me back, and Tybalt put a hand on my shoulder as he stared at the monumental undertaking that was our wedding cake, and everything was perfect, despite all the damn roses. Everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be.
“April asked me to save her a piece of wedding cake, but since it comes in ten different kinds of cake, I can bring her a piece of each, right?” asked Quentin in his unfamiliar Banshee voice, right next to my elbow. Tybalt snorted, and somehow that was perfect, too. My life wasn’t supposed to be peace and Hallmark Hollywood perfect. It needed the little disruptions, or it wouldn’t really be mine.
“There aren’t ten flavors,” said Kerry, sounding stung, as she pulled away from me. “There are fifteen. Do you think I’m an amateur or something?”
“Fifteen?” I demanded. “What the hell, Kerry?”
She smiled as she looked at me and shrugged. “You inspire me to do ridiculous things. And some of the tiers are actually multiple tiers of cake that are almost the same size. It was necessary if I wanted to have enough height to really stabilize the roses. Which are all made from either candied sugar or frosting, depending on the size and how far down the cake they are—the frosting ones are heavier, so they needed to be closer to the bottom if I wanted them to adhere properly.”
“Have you never heard of fondant?” asked Tybalt.
Kerry gave him a look that could have been used to etch glass. “Unlike some people, I have standards,” she said.
Tybalt roared with laughter. Kerry stopped glaring and giggled. I turned my attention back to the cake, and the throng of teenagers lurking around it, including Quentin, who was still waiting hopefully for my response.
“You can take some cake to April, after everyone who’s actually here has had whatever they want,” I said. Then I paused. “So, um, how does this work?”
Quentin frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The cake. If we were in the mortal world, doing this the human way, I’d be expected to make the first cut.”
“Okay . . .”
“And then Tybalt and I would feed each other some cake, because reasons. I don’t know what they are, and I can’t explain them to you without understanding them myself. I think it’s supposed to be a sign that we trust each other enough to be hand-fed, but I’m just guessing. Anyway, that’s part of why human wedding cakes are almost always white, so when they wind up all over the bride, they won’t stain her dress.” I looked down at my own dress, which remained so white as to be pristine, and had turned away several arrows without so much as snagging a thread, as well as refusing a wide assortment bloods and ichors. “Not a problem for me.”
I looked up again. Quentin and Tybalt were staring at me in horror. Kerry, who worked part-time for a human bakery while not working in the kitchens at Shadowed Hills, simply looked disgusted.
“What?”
“That is barbaric,” said Tybalt. �
��And I say this as a man who has passed time among barbarians. Literally barbaric. I will not be smearing cake on you in front of an audience.” He lowered his voice. “Now, if you wish to have a food fight of sorts in private, we could perhaps come to some arrangement . . .”
“Later,” I said. “So feeding the bride cake is not a thing in Faerie?”
“No,” said Quentin. “And also, ew.”
“Okay, well. There would also be toppers on the cake that were supposed to look vaguely like the bride and groom, but which wouldn’t look anything like us to anyone but the most charitable, and we’d take those home as souvenirs after the wedding was over.”
“I suggested cake toppers,” said Kerry. “For some reason, no one thought it was funny.”
“Is that why you wanted to put a plastic figurine of a cat on top of the cake?” asked Tybalt. “I thought you were joking.”
“Nope,” said Kerry. “Humans are weird as hell. Before you ask about any more cake customs, Tobes, you do want to take some cake home, I’ve already prepped you a platter with sample-size slices of all the different flavors, under a long-term stasis spell that should hold up just fine as long as you don’t leave it in direct sunlight. It would hold up better in a knowe, but.” She shrugged broadly. “We work with what we have, and what you have is a pantry with a door that closes. Still pretty good, given where you started.”
“You mean an enchanted tower under the hill, owned by a woman who usually forgot to feed me?”
“That’s the one! You do make the first cut, though, and you use my knife to do it, since yours is probably covered with something unspeakable that would despoil my beautiful creation.”
“Or she can use mine,” said a male voice, from behind me.
I turned.
There was Oberon, still in his mostly-unassuming guise, the antlers on his brow small enough not to attract more attention than he wanted. He was wearing red, which was a little odd, since he wasn’t part of the official wedding party, but he was also Oberon, which meant absolutely no one, not even his daughters, was going to tell him “no.”
And he was holding a knife by the blade, offering it to me hilt-first. I blinked, first at the blade, then at him. “Sire?” I asked.
This was one of those things that probably held some great meaning and import no one had ever bothered to explain to me, assuming it wouldn’t be important enough to matter. Mom’s continuous drilling in the rules and etiquette of Faerie had been suspiciously absent on the topic of wedding traditions, probably because she couldn’t imagine a world in which I would have any reason to get married to someone who actually cared about them. For her, the world where I married Cliff and settled into a mostly-mortal existence was the best I could ever have hoped for.
And for a long time, that world was the best I could imagine myself deserving.
Thank the root and the tree that sometimes we get more than we deserve. “I would be honored,” I said, and took the knife from Oberon’s hand, turning to face the cake.
It was a monument to the baker’s art, and it seemed like it should be some sort of minor crime to cut it, much less consume it. Tybalt put his hand over mine, seeming to pick up on the direction of my thoughts, and guided the knife toward the bottom layer. “Once we make the first cuts, the baker will take over distribution,” he said, in what I’m sure was meant to be a reassuring tone. “All you have to do is cut, and she’ll handle the rest. You’re good at cutting things.” He took his hand away. “As with so much else in your life, this begins with a stabbing.”
“Guess so,” I said, and slid Oberon’s knife into the cake.
There were no fireworks, just the mingled smell of chocolate and gingerbread, and then Kerry was bustling us out of the way, me still holding the cake-covered knife as she went to work with a knife of her own, dividing and sub-dividing the mountain of cake with incredible speed and precision. Hobs put all their magic into hearthwork, including the construction and, it seems, deconstruction of cakes. She knew what she was doing.
Oberon was gone when I turned around, leaving me holding his knife. I tightened my grip on the handle. I wasn’t putting this one down until I could return it to its owner.
In very short order, Tybalt and I had been herded back to another of those little cabaret tables with plates of cake and glasses of sparkling wine, these ones pale yellow and ordinary, even down to the bite of the alcohol when I finally took a drink. No unexpected Firstborn appeared to steal my drink this time, and I sipped gratefully as I looked at the plate in front of me.
The cake was pale in its shell of dark chocolate, topped with three of Kerry’s sugar roses, one each in red, white, and pink. Tybalt’s slice was darker, with a distinctive scent of spiciness. He had the same number of roses, though.
“No one gets to eat their cake until you do,” announced Quentin, sitting down next to me. Dean and Raj were next, dragging chairs to the table and settling like they’d been invited, only leaving enough space for one more person to join us.
Gillian pulled her chair over a moment later.
I stared at her, mouth gone completely dry. I had never felt less like I could eat, or care about, a slice of cake in my life. “Um, hi,” I said.
“Hey,” she said.
Quentin elbowed me. “Didn’t you hear me? I said no one gets to eat their cake until you start eating yours. We’re sitting here with plates of cake in front of us—cake baked by a Hob who had really good reason to be doing her best work, even—and we can’t eat it.”
I said nothing, but kept staring at my daughter.
Quentin groaned. “I take back every nice thing I’ve ever said about having you as my knight. You’re the worst knight. You torture hungry teenagers for fun. You’re heartless and cruel.”
Dean poked him with his fork. Quentin yelped and jumped in his seat, turning to glare at his boyfriend with exaggerated dignity while he rubbed the site of the poking with one hand. “Hey!”
“Hey yourself,” said Dean. “Be nice to her, she’s had a long day.”
“We’ve all had a long day,” grumbled Quentin.
“It’s nice to see you,” I said, having managed to summon the vague thought that if I didn’t talk, Gilly might decide I didn’t want her here and walk away. If I was the reason she left this time, I didn’t know if I’d be able to stand it.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s nice to see you, too.” She waved a hand at my dress. “You look really . . .”
“Nice?” I guessed.
She smiled, halfway smirking. It was a familiar enough expression to make my heart lurch. “Clean,” she said. “From the way everyone talks about you, I figured you’d be covered in blood by this point, not sitting there all white and shiny.”
“Stain repellant charms,” I said. “Look.” I dragged my finger through the frosting on my cake, then wiped it against the bodice of my dress. The act left a thick trail of chocolate on the fabric, until I pulled my hand away. Then the frosting fell off like my dress was somehow frictionless, landing on the table where I could sweep it into my napkin.
“Smart,” said Gillian.
Quentin pressed a fork into my hand, trying to urge me to get on with it.
“I can’t take credit,” I said. “None of this is my doing. Stacy and May handled just about everything.”
“I know,” she said. “The sea witch explained last week when she came to tell me and Liz that she wanted me to attend. Part of me agreeing to come was her sitting down and spending an hour answering all my questions.”
So my daughter had known more about my wedding than I did when we all got to Toronto. Somehow, that didn’t bother me the way it would have before the ceremony. It was pretty standard for the rest of my experience here, and if it meant she’d been willing to come, I wasn’t going to argue with it. Anything that got her here was fine by me.
“Cool,”
I said.
“Yeah. Firtha really wanted me to come. She misses her mom.” Gillian tucked her hair carelessly back behind her ear. The gesture revealed the dull point of her ear, which wasn’t as sharp as it would have been if she’d remained Dóchas Sidhe, like me, but was far too sharp to be mortal, and called attention to the webs between her fingers. Between those, her glass green eyes, and the silver streaks in her hair, she looked less like me all the time.
That was probably a good thing. Children are supposed to look less like their parents as they get older. Unlike me, who just keeps looking more and more like Amandine as I shift my blood away from humanity and toward the fae.
The thought made a knot rise in my throat. Mechanically, I used the fork to cut off my first bite of cake. “So you just came because Firtha wanted you to?”
“Would you be angry if I said yes?”
Gillian looked at me with what seemed like honest curiosity, and so I forced myself to slow down and consider her question, sticking the fork in my mouth as I did. Kerry’s cake, which I knew was excellent because she never bakes anything that isn’t excellent, tasted like sand. Well, we’d have that sampling platter for later.
Quentin made a small, barking sound of approval and tore into his own cake with enough gusto that everyone around us could see. Some people laughed. Others just glanced up long enough to verify that someone at the bride’s table was eating, then began eating their own cake. For the first time since we’d arrived at the reception, near-silence fell across the room, broken by the clank of cutlery against silver plates.
“No,” I said finally. “Sad, a little, and disappointed, but no. Firtha deserves to see her mother when she has the chance. I know your relationship with her is special, and a little odd to the rest of the colony. We weren’t sure she’d still be able to talk to you after the binding.”
“She doesn’t talk much,” said Gillian. “She sleeps more than she used to, and we both think she’s going to go to sleep for good one of these days, the way the rest of the Roane did. But she wanted to stay long enough to see the binding done, and then I asked her not to go if she didn’t have to. So she’s here because I didn’t want to be alone.” She looked down at her plate, sounding faintly ashamed of her own admission.
When Sorrows Come Page 44