Runa always brought her own food to the Cauldron. Dehydrated strews. Dried fruits and nuts. Hard cheese.

  And, when she was feeling flush and the job wasn’t meant to last too long, the supplies to make pan scones.

  Flour. Butter or another solid fat. Baker’s cheat—the aerating salt was easy to find in Sollus Gate, but the wet non-cheating stuff would surely work just as well. And some sort of liquid. Water was fine, but fresh creamy milk was best. You never got that in the Cauldron.

  She found a pan, and built up the fire. Then she turned to the cupboards.

  Flour she had in spades, even if she still wasn’t sure what all the different types were. No milk, but plenty of water, and if she was using the goopy mother-of-bread instead of baker’s cheat, maybe that would even out.

  Or maybe she was already too far off the path, and this would end up as badly as everything else she’d baked.

  Runa clenched her fists. Heat pressed from her palms, and she forced herself to count slowly, holding her breath. Was she really that worked up over how badly her baking was going? The baking she kept telling herself didn’t matter, that she didn’t care about it, that if everyone here in Pothollow wanted proper bread maybe they should have asked someone else to do it?

  Yes.

  Yes, she was.

  She let out a slow breath. The heat in her hands faded.

  Anyway, she had more knowledge on her side with scones than she did the bread. She knew what the scone dough was meant to look like as it came together. She knew how it should feel. She knew how to tell when it was done baking.

  And she could put cheese in it.

  Slowly, aware of the prickle of attention from the oven and trying not to pay too much attention to the sound of the pump splashing out back, she gathered everything she needed. All she needed was butter, and there was plenty of that…

  …In the cellar.

  Runa winced as she held the lightstick over the cellar stairs. It lit up just enough to show exactly how big the mess was.

  “Guess that’s what I’m doing for the rest of the day,” she muttered to herself, and picked her way through the debris until she found a crock of butter that hadn’t shattered. She checked the seal on the preservation ward. Still active.

  Unlike all the sadly flickering seals scattered through the rest of the cellar.

  So much for the old baker’s stash.

  Back upstairs, she measured and sifted flour into the trough in the baking bench. Then came the butter, stiff and cold from the cellar. She cut chunks from the crock, then used the back of a wooden spoon to rub it into the flour until there were no lumps of butter left. The way she’d been taught was to rub the flour and butter between her thumbs and fingers to mix it, but given her hot hands that was a recipe for melted butter. The spoon was a good alternative.

  Then the cheese. She finely chopped the remnants of the hard traveling cheese she’d shared with Severine the night before and mixed it through. Then a little salt, for more flavour. She could have added herbs then, as well, but you had to go by the wash house to reach the little herb garden at the back of the bakery, and Severine was still splashing.

  Cheese on its own would be fine.

  Then the tricky part. The bit where she lost her grip on the recipe she knew, and had to experiment.

  She scooped a cupful of mother-of-bread from the jar, and stared at it. It was goopier than baker’s cheat, sure, but not wet enough to take the place of all the liquid she’d normally use. She added water, bit by bit, until the wobbly, bubbly mother-of-bread was a murky sludge. Then into the trough it went, slowly, as she gently folded the flour mixture around it until it formed a light, barely-holding-together dough.

  Uncertainty prickled from the oven.

  “Don’t worry,” she reassured it. “It’s meant to look like this.”

  The uncertainty was joined by suspicion.

  That was fair enough, she supposed. Given her previous attempts.

  She patted the dough into a circle and sliced it into rough segments. The pan was warm by now, and the oven… could do with being warmer.

  The morning was already half gone. Did she have time to wait for the fire to die down properly and hope it heated the oven enough?

  Runa glanced at the front door, and the door that led to the washhouse out back. Then, wondering why she was being so secretive about it, she rolled up her sleeves and pushed her hands into the fire.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Burning logs crackled against her wrists. The bricks underneath were a pleasant, dry sort of hot. Nothing was melting. She gave herself a moment to enjoy it, then concentrated.

  Heat funnelled from her hands into the bricks. In the depths of the oven, tiny black eyes reflected the firelight. This close to the oven, every breath filled her with the scent of woodsmoke, and the slightly burnt smell of old bread, and beneath it all, the smell of heated brick and rock before it was whisked away by the cleansing charm above the fireplace.

  Runa breathed deep, and stepped away before her tunic caught fire.

  There. That was hot enough. She scraped out the ashes, and then dusted off her hands and arranged the wedges of dough on the heated pan. Then the whole lot went deep into the oven.

  Within minutes, the bakery smelled of rich, butter-and-cheese-soaked baking.

  “That smells gods-sent,” Severine announced from the doorway. Her face was flushed from being scrubbed under cold water, and she squeezed water out of her hair before she stepped over the threshold.

  She must have scrubbed her hair under the pump, as well. It was wet and tangled.

  And as Runa watched, it untangled itself, slithering back into a tidy waterfall of glossy black locks. A few tendrils flicked water off themselves before cozying back with the others.

  Runa stared.

  Severine patted her hair, her cheeks pinking with embarrassment. “You noticed my hair? It’s nymph-blessed. Apparently my parents dipped me in every pool and grotto in the ki—around our town when I was born.”

  Runa raised an eyebrow. “That’s a thing?”

  “Yes?” Severine looked confused. “I suppose since there aren’t any gods to ask to bless a newborn anymore, nymphs are the next best thing.”

  “And people dunk their kids in nymphs’ ponds?”

  “Ponds, grottos, waterfalls…” Severine shrugged. “Don’t they do that up north?”

  “Wouldn’t know. I grew up on the Rising Islands.”

  Runa waited for Severine to say something like I didn’t know you got trolls all the way down there, but she just nodded. “Bit volcanic down there to be dunking kids in nymphs’ grottos. Lava pools not as likely to hand out blessings as water pools are.”

  “You’ve been to the islands?” Runa asked in surprise.

  Severine blinked. “Once or twice. Just—passing visits. A couple of years ago now. Why? Think we might have crossed paths if I’d hung around for longer?”

  Runa shook her head. “I haven’t been back for decades, now.” And it was strange, thinking of Severine wandering around the volcanic beaches and peaks where she’d grown up.

  … and strange that Severine travelled so far, though maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise, seeing as she was carting around a knife that could cut a hole to anywhere in the world.

  What had brought her to the Rising Islands, though?

  “That’s a shame. They’re beautiful. I’d love to have spent more time, but…” Severine’s expression dimmed slightly. “You go where work takes you, right? Also, you never told me what that amazing smell is.”

  “Cheese pan scones. And I can put some tea on, if there’s any leaves left.”

  The last scrapings of tea-dust from Severine’s pouch were worse than no tea at all. They both politely sipped for a minute or two, and then Runa grabbed the honey.

  “There’s shops in Dawdledale, down the bottom of the mountain,” Runa said, offering her the honeypot. “You can stock up there, before you head out again.”

  “Oh, I—”

  There was a knock at the door. Runa hadn’t even stood up before it opened, and Tam Miller appeared in the doorway. “Morning,” he said, to the plate of cheese scones on the bench. “A few of us are heading back up the Sweetmeadow, if you’re—oh, hello. Runa, who’s your guest?”

  Runa made the introductions. “And these are cheese scones,” she said after, because Tam’s eyes had barely moved from them. “Come in and join us, if you like.”

  “Ooh, I couldn’t…” He hovered on the doorstep, sucking his lip in. “You’re sure?”

  “There’s enough for us all. And this is just a test batch, anyway.” She winced as she remembered. “I’ve still got to make up Junilla’s order for the tavern.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. She’s down in town sending a letter today, too far to bite your head off.” Tam shuffled his feet as though he wanted to come in, but he stayed outside the threshold.

  “Junilla?” Severine asked.

  “She runs the tavern here,” Runa said, and Tam added,

  “Is that a trace of Peaceable Seas accent I hear there? Perhaps you know her.”

  “I doubt it,” Severine said quickly.

  The conversation was clearly making her uncomfortable. Runa did her best to nudge it off-track. “But people will still need to be fed even if Junilla’s not at the tavern,” she said to Tam.

  “Oh, yes, but you’re free of the fear of facing her steely gaze until later in the day. No need to rush the morning with your new… visitor?”

  He glanced between Runa and Severine, a speculative twinkle in his eye.

  Runa glared at him. He was still in the doorway. She could just slam the door shut on him.

  But she had a better use for him.

  “Severine fell out the Cauldron last night,” she said. “I guess something about this place is like a lantern to a moth for people getting out of there. But since you’re here, Tam, come on in.”

  He looked worried. “Are you sure?”

  Something like a warning prickled at her from the oven.

  “Sure,” she said, ignoring it. “There’s breakfast, and a whole pile of trouble downstairs I need help with.”

  The prickle of threat wavered.

  Good, she thought.

  Tam’s fear of whatever he thought was haunting the bakery didn’t hold up to the twin temptations of hot cheese scones and mysterious cellar trouble. Half the scones disappeared in no time at all, and then Runa picked up her lightstick and led the way downstairs.

  There was no sign of the portal Severine had cut the night before, not even a wisp of leftover magic. Whatever power her knife wielded was clean and efficient.

  The mess was not.

  “What happened down here?” Tam asked, aghast.

  “Severine wasn’t the only one to come out of the Cauldron last night.”

  “What?” Tam stared wide-eyed at the broken jars and spilled food strewn through the cellar. “Did… did you send the other one back in?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, good. That’s all right then.” He looked around again, and a line formed between his eyebrows. “Wait—all this was down here the whole time? Bracklethorn wouldn’t stop snapping at me about running out of this or that, and he had a stash like this downstairs the whole time?” He marched down the stairs, dragging Runa with him to point the lightstick into every corner of the cellar. “That’s the triple-milled finest he badgered me about three years ago! I recognise the seals! And what’s—that cream’s five years old! The seals shouldn’t even last that long! What was he doing with all this?”

  “Sounds like he wasn’t doing anything with it,” Severine said from behind them.

  “And now it’s all wasted.” Tam shook his head, disgusted, then rubbed his hands together. “Right! What’s the plan, then? Take stock as we clean and figure out what you need to replace?”

  Severine wasn’t the only one listening from the top of the stairs. An urgent feeling of yes! jabbed Runa in the middle of her forehead. Runa nodded. “That’s the plan.”