As for me, I calmly began to put together the batter. Already I could see the fairies doing incredibly complex things. One looked like they were making a choux batter, one was making a sugar sculpture with magic and a heated pipe like she was blowing molten glass, and yet another had several bowls floating above his head while three different measuring cups poured different ingredients in.
It was very clear that even with all of my experience, I was punching well outside my weight class. That was fine. None of that mattered. They could use all the magic, all the finery, and impossible ingredients I’d never heard of, and they still wouldn’t win. Because in the end, baking was about the heart.
Or at least that was what I told myself.
“Here it is,” Cas said quietly as he trotted up to me, handing me the small red box.
“Thanks, babe,” I said, kissing his cheek lightly. I didn’t think I’d ever kissed a partner as much as I kissed my shifter boyfriend, but damn if it didn’t make me feel better about pretty much everything.
“Knock ’em dead,” he said with such a mix of worry and respect in his voice that it made my throat squeeze a little. I didn’t know what I had done to earn so much of his trust, but I was immensely grateful for it.
In response, I gave him the biggest, toothiest grin I could muster. “Oh, I plan to.”
Despite the absolute furor and magical displays going on around me, I managed to shut it out and focus solely on my entry. It wasn’t anything extravagant-no multi-layered cake or another croquembouche. No, it was just a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. Rich, moist, and simple, but with a depth of flavor that just couldn’t be beat.
Occasionally, I surfaced out of my haze of concentration long enough to feel many eyes on me, but I just held myself to ignore them. Pretty much every shifter was either staring at me or glaring at the fairies, but that was fine. They could do what they wanted. For now, my only worry was whatever was contained within my kitchenette. If my entire future was depending on my baking skills, then I was going to make damn sure I gave it a hundred-and-ten percent.
I fell into a pattern that was as soothing to me as being rocked to sleep. Mix the batter. Preheat the oven. Grease the pan. Bake the batter. There were more steps than that, but they were so second-nature that often I didn’t realize I was doing them until they were already done.
It was nice to know that even in what was possibly the most stressful and important test of my life, baking was still my safe place. While I was in the kitchen, I could think of my mother. I could think of my victories, and I could think of my losses. But no matter what I thought, everything that happened in my mind was my own. The fairies had absolutely no power there.
And I was going to keep it that way.
When I did finally look up once my cupcakes were safely in the oven and I was dutifully mixing the icing, I saw that the fairies were keeping very true to their legends. The pseudo glassblowing fairy had created a sculpture taller than me that looked like it was made out of pure diamonds, with delicate drops of what looked like dew that I knew had to be something delicious. Another had somehow already pulled out three round cakes they were about to stack on top of each other with scrumptious filling and a truly decadent decoration. On and on it went. A crème brûlée the size of my head with a cornucopia of candied fruits on it, and that the ramekin made out of woven chocolate. A fondue fountain taller than my arm was long that spurted out iridescent jets of water that rained down onto several artfully stacked platters, each with their own mirrored pies atop them. The list went on and on.
Yet still, I made my frosting. And when my cupcakes were done in the oven, I took them out to cool, and sat to watch the fairies do their thing.
It really was miraculous, all that they could do. I’d read a lot about them, and yet I’d had no idea just how far their kitchen magic could go. Man, if I had half of their abilities, I was sure that my bakery would already be a multi-million dollar company. Except I wasn’t a fairy. I was just a human. An immigrant. An orphan.
Albeit a human, immigrant, orphan who had found her family after being alone for so long.
And I wasn’t about to lose them.
Naturally, I was one of the first to bring my dessert to the cleared competitor’s table. It was strange to put it right in the first position after spending all that time being eighth in line, but it was a welcome change. It worked best for me to go first, so first I would be.
Then, one by one, the fairies began to bring their own creations to the table as well. Of course, they didn’t carry them like me, the plebeian mortal. No, they moved their hands, and their incredible creations floated in the air in front of them like the magical things that they were. It was very clear that this bake-off had never been a fair fight, which was no doubt why the fairies had all agreed to it.
“That’s what you made?” the fairy with the slicked-back hair asked when he set his massive cake beside me.
“It is,” I answered simply. He could look down on my cupcakes all he wanted. Even if he thought they were not worth his time, he still had to try them no matter what. After all, the contestants were the judges.
Once everyone was assembled, I cleared my throat and clapped my hands. “All right, it’s time for the tasting! Let’s all start with me, contestant one, then we’ll go down the line.”
“I’m not entirely convinced you didn’t orchestrate this so you could eat your fill of fairy delicacies, the likes of which most humans will never even comprehend,” a different fairy said to me, the one who had blown sugar like glass.
That actually did startle a short laugh out of me, which I didn’t expect. Was there such a thing as friendly fairies? Because so far they just seemed like soulless lawyer types.
“It would be one hell of a last meal, wouldn’t it?” I shot back, and that seemed to surprise the fae just as much as she’d surprised me. Maybe they would do well from interacting with people just to be social rather than always trying to trick others into giving up more than they should.
One problem at a time, Felicia. For now, I was focusing on the packs’ problems, not the deep-seated issues of the fairies, who could probably conjure the most magnificently beautiful or the most comfortable clothes in existence yet still chose to wear suits.
There wasn’t much more banter before everyone was crowded at my station, and each of us took a cupcake. I’d made a baker’s dozen, which was the exact amount we needed. For some reason, it felt right to me. Like everything was meant to be.
“Bon appetit,” I said before taking a big ol’ bite of mine. Just as I hoped, the flavor was rich as it hit my tongue, with the slightest bitterness of the cocoa powder used to balance out the cream cheese frosting. It was just warm enough to be slightly gooey, and yet the frosting was solidly on there with no drips down the side or sliding off in a melted heap.
Oh yeah, they were definitely the best cupcakes I had ever made. And what a time to do it.
I watched the fairies’ faces as they all took a bite, and I reveled in the shock I saw there. They really hadn’t been expecting that, had they? Well, good. Maybe they would realize that their hubris was likely to come before a fall.
And maybe pigs would fly.
But hey, fairies had the magic to do that, so maybe that was even more likely.
“You are talented,” their ringleader said. “But surely you don’t think this can hold up to our creations?”
I shrugged and took another bite. “You should finish it before you pass judgement. Besides, we still have to taste all of yours as well.”
“Indeed, we do.”
“I believe mine is next,” the woman with the phone-scroll thing said primly.
And so began the most magical meal of my entire life.
I supposed “meal” wasn’t the right word for it considering it was all dessert, but they were truly the most magnificent, ethereal, and amazing things I had ever put in my mouth. The taste? Delicious. Actually, delicious wasn’t even enough to describe it. Each dish was somehow the most incredible thing I’d ever eaten, and I knew that I was going to have to wait several months before being able to enjoy my mortal baked goods ever again. Oh well, my blood sugar would probably thank me.
One by one, I was treated to flavors and textures that I knew I’d never have again. Citrusy, sweet, rich, fresh, light, comforting. I went through the entire gambit.
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