Chapter Text
“Thank you—” Nero starts to say, but the light streaming through the kitchen window is right in front of him and leaves him in the shadows. He shuffles forward and tips his chin up, dust motes serene in the light. “Thank you four for comin’ to the first ever Magic Manor Bake-Off.”
“Like I had a choice,” Owen mumbles, flicking the spatula hanging off his work area.
“You’re gonna be reppin’ your country,” Nero says, hands behind his back, walking as he eyes the contestants, “and the kitchen’s as serious a business as bein’ a Sage’s wizard.”
“That is doubtful,” Oz says.
“You’ve been given plenty of ingredients. The goal’s to bake a cake—an edible cake, please. The reason? To make our Sage happy. The winning cake, chosen by both of us, is gonna be their official birthday cake. And the winning country gets braggin’ rights for havin’ the best baker in the Manor.” Nero pauses. “Well, second-best.”
The Sage waves from the dining room. “I’m sure everyone’s cakes will be delicious, though!”
“That is also doubtful,” Oz says, glancing at an irate Owen.
“You’re doin’ magic here. You’re makin’ something from nothing, and every time I’m in the kitchen, I respect that. You best respect it, too.”
Rutile says, “Of course! I’m so happy to be here!” He grins at the others. “Best of luck to everyone!”
Faust and Oz thank him; Owen says with an oily smile, “We don’t have a Western wizard participating. Should we begin before everyone has gathered?”
“The Westies recused themselves for different reasons,” Nero says, “and believe you me, I don’t think we want any of ’em tryin’ to feed us. Anyway, four cakes is plenty for a person to try and pick a winner from.”
“But you have me here?”
“It was a punishment, wasn’t it? By the twins,” Faust says.
Owen scowls.
Nero gestures to colorful banners hanging overhead. “Those aren’t party decorations. Thanks to Teach here makin’ these magic detectors, if any of ya try to cheat by usin’ magic instead of your baking skills, they’ll light up, and you’re immediately outta the contest.” He clears his throat. “With an exception to Oz’s magic in case he needs to get Owen back in line.”
Owen’s scowl deepens.
“Rules are simple. Only use what ya got there in your pantries and ice-boxes, ya can’t ask anyone for help, ya gotta make a cake, not any other baked good, and magic’s not allowed. Recommended, not a rule: write down what your recipe is, so if ya win, we know how to bake it again. Questions?”
“If I kill myself with one of these knives, am I excused?” Owen asks.
Nero ignores him and claps once. “Let’s get baking!”
What’s in a cake? Owen’s only ever eaten them, stolen or otherwise. They definitely have sugar; that’s what makes them delicious. And they have flour, because otherwise they would only be sugar and not a cake. He pours out a fist-size lump of flour into a bowl and adds two fist-sizes of sugar to it—his cake will be wonderfully sweet, so sweet no one else will want to eat it, not even the Sage out of humdrum politeness, and he’ll have it entirely to himself. The cherry on top will be the twins getting mad he’d participated but not by their team-spirit rules. Maybe the cake itself should have cherries?
He shakes the bowl to get the sugar and flour mixed. Too dry. A cake is supposed to be fluffy and moist. Eggs, then? Milk? Water? Cream? Oil? It’s all there, that and more, and his frustration is roiling at this stupid contest and the stupid twins and everyone around him seemingly enjoying it. For wimps like Faust and Rutile, childishness fits them. But why is Oz going along with it? He should have been the first one to refuse. Sir Knight, the princeling, and that other one are filing down the demon’s teeth—pathetic. The apron Oz is tying on had probably been their good luck gift to him, its colors an insult even to the blind.
Owen squints: there are kittens dancing on the apron.
Despite its name, a pancake is not a true cake. A pancake is squat and somewhat chewy; it is not baked but cooked, batter oiled in its eponymous pan, doused in tree-syrup and fruits, beloved by children as true cakes are. Oz has made countless pancakes, and all of them have been in the last decade-and-a-half of his life, spanning over one hundred times those years, temporally insignificant yet—as others have sneered at him for—the crux of his softening. But he has never made a cake.
The Central wizards’ expectations are high. His nomination for the contest had been based solely on his pancake-making, and he had not had it in himself to refuse. Here he is, staring down ingredients familiar but not for this purpose, briefly considering cooking a sizable stack of pancakes, smothering them in buttercream, and passing it off for a cake. It would certainly provide something edible, and it would be a quick event.
The thought of it displeases him, somehow. He is over two thousand years old and he has never made a cake to be enjoyed for celebration. He ought to try.
First, flour...
For most of Faust’s life, sugar has been something of a luxury. The battlefields saw them eating hardtack and forest game, simple bread and porridges, tubers and cured meats and cheeses lasting the indeterminate rage of a war. Even fruit, unless dried or plucked fresh, was scarce. He had no need for frillier foods in his Eastern solitude; the forest provided what he needed, and he grew the rest, visiting towns only for the goods too troublesome to work for on his own.
He has expanded his palate and repertoire here at the Manor. A large part of it has been thanks to Nero, whose passion for cooking—and baking—is seeping over Faust, attempting to recollect the times he’s helped him bake. They hadn’t been lessons, just a friend helping a friend, and he’d not taken the prerogative to remember recipes. A cake needs flour, sugar, salt, rising powder, and something oily to bind everything together. What worries him is the ratio of each ingredient.
Nero had not been wrong: this is magic, in its domestic little way. It is also a science-like discipline. Cooking is more forgiving than baking; tossing raw ingredients into hot oil and salting them or tossing them into herb-laden boiling water makes for humble meals, but they do make meals. A cake will not be a cake if it has not enough oil, or too much flour, or if it isn’t left in the oven long enough.
“He—ey Teach,” Nero says, sidling up to him.
Faust blinks at him. “Hello, Nero. Are you allowed to talk to us?”
“Ye—es.”
“Oh. Well, have you come to see my progress? Unfortunately I have nothing so far…” He puts his hands on his hips, pensive. “I’m mulling over the ingredient ratios.”
“’S okay. It’s kinda fun seein’ everyone be lost over somethin’ I could do with my eyes closed. Uh, no offense.”
Faust smiles. “None taken. You have your talents; be proud of them. Although I guess you are, since you said this will determine the second-best baker in the Manor.”
“Right, right. So… ’bout that test comin’ up.”
“Is now really the time to be asking about—?” Faust slowly brings his arms across his chest. “Nero Turner, have you come here to try to bribe me.”
“What! No—o. What would I even try to bribe ya for? Pickin’ you as the bake-off winner if it means getting’ a good grade on the test? That’d be cra—azy.”
Faust’s eyebrow quirks up as high as he can muster.
“Okayseeya,” Nero says, shuffling away.
Rutile looks back down at his bowl and doesn’t try to hide his smile. Gathering twenty-one wizards from throughout the continent, all those personalities and strengths and flaws, and having them work together to save the world hasn’t always been easy. But, as Doctor Figaro said once, time is the best medicine. And it’s true. The Northern wizards are still over-eager to show off their magic, the Eastern wizards are still shy, the Western wizards are still silly, the Central wizards are still by-the-books, and the Southern wizards are still his family, but none of them would be themselves if they changed so drastically. It’s in how they treat each other that they’ve made great progress. If they keep things up, there’s nothing to be worried about in their fight against the Great Calamity.
He hears a crash and a series of not-very-nice words from Owen’s work station, the beginning of his spell cut off by Nero barking a warning. Faust sighs; Oz is, if you look closely, smirking.
Almost nothing to be worried about in their fight against the Great Calamity.
It’s nice to have these events. Rutile doesn’t mind if he loses; he’d meant it when he’d said he’s happy to be here. They’re growing closer without some of them realizing—and they get cakes in the end! They might not all be edible, but it’s the thought that counts.
He peeks over his work station and catches sight of the Sage, amused theirself. It’s really thanks to having someone without magic and instead a whole lot of love that the twenty-one of them can do these things, baking away like they’re as human as the Sage. There’s definitely an edge of competition in the sweetened air. All in good fun even wizards as long-lived as Faust, Oz, and Owen seek the Sage’s approval.
Rutile isn’t worried about how his cake ends up. He’s baked before—in the South, there’s always a cause for celebration, no matter how small—but he can’t quite remember any specific cake or its details. Like his art, he adds ingredients to his bowl based on what feels right. It’s not wizard sugar. The Sage will still be able to tell it has Rutile’s love.
The last of the cakes has cooled and is promptly frosted, carried to the Sage’s table, and awaits Nero’s and the Sage’s judgment.
Maybe he’d come off a little assertive at the start. Maybe that had been a little dumb when he’s judging cakes made by homicidal maniacs like Oz and Owen, and when he lives with people who are best left in the dark about who Nero used to be. But the kitchen is the one place Nero feels most like himself, shitty past aside, and it’s not a place others respect, necessarily. At least Oz and Owen seem to do so now. Small victories.
“Thanks for your hard work, everyone,” Nero says. “Hope ya had fun in there.”
“No,” Owen says, as Faust says, “A bit, yes,” and Rutile chirps, “Absolutely!” while Oz is silent. Probably thinking about what ‘fun’ means.
Nero summons plates and cutlery from the kitchen, one lazy act of magic allowed. “Now it’s time for the Sage and I to have our share of fun and judge your cakes.”
“It doesn’t matter who wins,” the Sage says, smiling, looking at each of the contestants. “That you wanted to bake me my birthday cake means so much to me.”
“Yeah, yeah, stop the goopy talk and just tell me I won already,” Owen says.
Nero raises his cake cutter and server with as much solemnity as his magical artifacts. “Sage. Let’s dig in!”