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Chevalier wouldn’t let me resume baking until I finished my meal, but I still had the vanilla cake batter almost finished when the princes arrived, starting with Leon. His booming voice startled me into dropping my wooden spoon.
“What’s going on here?” he asked. “Dinner for two?”
“Yes,” I replied, smiling over my shoulder at him. “There’s leftover meatloaf, if you want to try it.”
“Meatloaf?” Yves asked, haughtiness laced through his voice. “That sounds-”
“Amazing!” Leon interrupted him. “Where is it?”
“The bread pan over there,” I said, retrieving my spoon from the mixing bowl and using it to point. “Yves, I have a three-layer chocolate cake in the oven already, and I was thinking-”
“Eating already?” Jin asked.
“Why haven’t I had this at festivals before?” Leon asked, his amber eyes wide as he spoke around a mouthful of meatloaf.
“It’s not festival food,” I laughed. “It’s everyday food for commoners. Why would they want to eat that at a festival?”
“Do I smell meatloaf?” Luke asked excitedly. “I haven’t had meatloaf since I came here! Let me have some!”
“Why aren’t we eating this every day?” Leon asked. “Yves, you gotta try this.”
“I can get my own,” he said, snatching the fork Leon held in front of his face and stabbing at the meatloaf harder than necessary. He scowled at it disdainfully, but he took a bite, and his sky-blue eyes widened in surprise. “This is good.”
“A feeding frenzy already?” Clavis asked.
“Ivetta, you gotta give this recipe to the cooks,” Leon said.
“I’m sure they already have their own recipes for meatloaf,” I replied. “Every family does. Mrs. Stotts’ is better than mine, but I can never get it to turn out right when I try her recipe.”
“You’ve had enough,” Jin said, snatching the pan from Leon. “Let somebody else try.”
“Maybe I should make more,” I said, watching Licht and Nokto join the swarm around Jin and the pan.
“No,” Chevalier said firmly. I looked back at him and realized his icy blue eyes weren’t on me or his brothers, but on something over my shoulder. Someone. It had to be Gilbert.
“What is that?” Keith asked. He and Silvio were standing with Gilbert, a safe distance from the seven princes who had decimated the meatloaf. I met Gilbert’s blood-red eye briefly and didn’t feel a twinge of fear. Just a cool indifference.
“Meatloaf,” Leon said. “The best invention ever.”
“There is more to life than meat,” Yves chided him.
“Yeah, there’s also alcohol,” Leon replied.
“And women,” Jin added. “Speaking of which, where’s Theresa?”
I needed to figure out how to get those two together.
“She has a date,” I replied, returning my focus to the batter and the three circular cake pans lined up on the counter.
“Your maid is out on a date and you’re stuck in the kitchen?” Silvio asked condescendingly.
“She’s doing what she wants to do,” I said, wiping the rim of the bowl and licking the batter from my finger, “and I’m doing what I want to do. Yves, I was thinking you could do the frosting and decorating, since you’re better at that than I am, and I’ll keep making the cakes. The chocolate cake should be done now.”
“How long have you been here, exactly?” Nokto asked.
“Um…a little over an hour?” I guessed, looking over at Chevalier, who nodded.
“Did she eat?” Licht asked him.
“I had to force her, but yes,” he replied.
“You did not have to force me,” I corrected him. “I was eating as I worked. Everybody, please move. I need to get to the ovens.”
“You would only be finishing your salad now if I hadn’t made you sit down,” he said, smirking.
“Salad, too? How much did you make?” Luke asked.
“Just that and strawberries,” I told him, opening an oven and releasing the rich smell of chocolate into the kitchen. “I set some aside in case you wanted to use them, Yves, and there’s lemon juice, lemon zest, and whipped cream, too.”
“Are you sure it’s only been an hour?” Clavis asked dubiously.
“Today, yes, but I’ve been doing this for a long time,” I replied, swapping the pan of baked chocolate cake for a pan of vanilla cake batter. “And not having to stop and wash dishes between cakes speeds up the process.”
“A long time? What is that, two years for a kid like you?” Jin said, chuckling at his joke. I smiled and shook my head.
“Try as far back as I can remember,” I corrected him. “But I’ve only been doing this by myself since I was ten.”
“Only,” Leon laughed.
“So, you’re saying you could have made all this when you were ten?” Nokto challenged me.
“It would have taken longer, and I would have needed a step stool, but yes. I need to get into the cabinet behind you.”
“How many cakes are you making?” Gilbert asked in his deceptively charming tone. Oddly enough, it didn’t chill me to my core.
“Four. Chocolate, vanilla, lemon, and honey.”
“Honey?” Luke asked. I smiled, knowing without looking that his face had lit up with his boyish grin.
“Three layers for the chocolate cake?” Yves asked, tapping a finger to his lips thoughtfully.
“Yes. They’ll all be three layers,” I confirmed. “I’d like a quarter of each cake for my guards, too. We can just put the sections together to make one cake, if that makes sense.”
“Your guards?” Leon asked. “Are you sure you’re not an angel?”
“I wasn’t the last time you asked me,” I said. The warmth in my cheeks wasn’t from working near the hot ovens.
“Yeah, I’m still not convinced,” he said.
“There’s an easy way to settle this,” Clavis interjected. “Ivetta, why are you making a cake for your guards?”
“Because I can’t imagine anything more boring than following me around all the time,” I replied. “Yves, could you hand me the lemon juice and zest?”
Leon laughed. “I guess that settles it. She’s an angel.”
“You’re exaggerating,” I protested, focusing on the lemon cake batter coming together in front of me instead of the building heat in my cheeks.
Clavis laughed. “Really, Ivetta. If following you around was boring, then I’d never bother you.”
“So you admit that’s what you’re doing,” I said, shooting him a smirk. “But really, they spend most of their time just standing in hallways. That has to be boring, especially for trained knights who should be doing something important.”
Leon shook his head and laughed. “Where do we even start with this?”
“I’ll go,” Jin volunteered. “Maybe it was boring when you were stuck in bed. I’ll give you that. But ever since you’ve been back on your feet, you’re always on the move. Do you know how much griping we all had to hear from the doctor while he was off tracking you down all the time?”
“I heard the griping whenever he found me, thank you very much,” I said, wondering how I could get them off of this topic.
“And they’re not just trained knights,” Licht said. “We only assign the best of the best to guard individuals, and only truly important people get personal guard details. Getting assigned to you during the gala was already an honor, even though you were still a maid and the guards didn’t understand why they were protecting you, but now that you’re a princess and Chevalier’s fiancée, the honor is even greater.”
“And that was before anybody knew they were getting cake out of the deal,” Nokto added.
“It’s gonna be a real pain the next time there’s a vacancy in your guard detail,” Leon said. “Everybody’s gonna be fighting to take that spot.”
“Okay, so they’re not bored, and they’re not wasting their talents,” I relented. Even the tips of my ears were hot now. “Now that we’ve settled that, Clavis, you’re in charge of entertainment, Jin is in charge of drinks, and everybody else needs to move away from the baking zone so Yves and I can work.”
“Tonight we have an exotic liquor, courtesy of Silvio,” Jin announced. “Mugs or glasses?”
I breathed a sigh of relief that my effort at a subject change worked.
“Mugs,” Silvio said. “And you gotta pour it right to get the foam. Like this.”
“It’s good to know somebody appreciates my talent for entertaining,” Clavis said brightly. A collective groan rose from most of the room. “And what could be more entertaining than our new favorite topic, Luke and Arianna?”
My ears pricked up at that.
“Now you know how to do it, so pour your own,” Silvio snapped, snatching the mug from Jin’s hand. “I need this if we’re going over this again.”
“You and Arianna?” I asked, looking over at a blushing Luke. “Forgive me for saying so, but she doesn’t seem like your type.”
“Oh, man, you, too?” he moaned, avoiding everybody’s eyes.
“Well, your new girlfriend insulted her at the ball,” Nokto said.
“What?” Luke exclaimed.
I had my back to them now, but I could hear the smirk in Nokto’s voice when he continued, “Oh, you didn’t know about that? She accused Ivetta of being a cheap whore who faked her background to get her claws in King Highness.”
The kitchen erupted in chaos.
“She what?” Silvio shouted, his voice rising above the rest. “Why that little-”
The rest of his sentence made my ears burn more than the talk about my guards did, and his wasn’t the only blue streak in the room. I smacked my spoon against the marble countertop a few times to get everybody’s attention.
“That’s enough,” I shouted. A sudden silence fell. “We are here to have fun tonight. Clavis, come up with something else.”
“Alright, then,” he said, a mischievous smirk on his lips. “Chev, how about you tell us exactly what you love about Ivetta?”
“Next topic,” I said.
“Ah, don’t you want to know?” Clavis asked teasingly.
“I already do. Moving on.”
He sighed dramatically. “Fine. Jin, tell us about that lovely little dish you were eating up last night.”
“Gladly,” Jin said with a broad grin. “Two lovely little dishes, actually. Identical twins. They were-”
“Before you continue, I would like to remind you that a lady is present,” I interrupted with a meaningful look.
Jin shrugged. “Alright, but that means I’ll be leaving out the best parts.”
And that was pretty much how the evening went. I baked the cakes, Yves decorated them, and we had only seconds to admire the finished product before we had to cut a quarter section out to save from demolition by the princes. Gilbert’s appetite was as enormous as I’d heard. The other men in the room slowed down as Yves and I produced each consecutive cake, but Gilbert didn’t. He was still going strong when Yves finished icing the honey cake, watching the process like a starving animal about to pounce on its unsuspecting prey. Meanwhile, Jin, Leon, and Silvio were singing a bawdy tavern song, Clavis and Nokto were teasing Luke about Arianna again - and I still didn’t understand how that relationship happened - Licht and Keith were discussing horses, and Chevalier’s impatience was growing by the second, as evidenced by the occasional tapping of his index finger against his crossed arms.
“Okay, that’s the last one,” I said, adding the quarter section of honey cake to the other quarters Yves and I saved. “So, although I hate leaving all these dirty dishes, I’m calling it a night.”
Chevalier’s black boots hit the floor immediately.
“Oh, except I guess we should take this to the barracks first,” I said, giving Chevalier an apologetic look.
“I’ll get it,” Licht volunteered. “You two can go.”
“Are you sure?”
Chevalier’s hand was already on the small of my back, guiding me through the princes. “He’s leaving, too,” he told me.
“Aw, is the party getting too loud for you, Licht?” Clavis asked.
“You know he only stayed this long to take care of that cake for her,” Leon said, throwing his arm around Clavis’ shoulders. “You sure you don’t wanna try this?”
Clavis squinted and waved the air in front of his nose. “I’ll pass.”
“Hey, Ivetta, when are you baking again?” Jin called across the room.
“I don’t know, but - oh, that reminds me,” I said, turning back to Yves. “Do you know how to make échaudés?”
“Échaudés? Yeah, but those take all day to make,” he said. “Why do you want to make those?”
“Échaudés?” Nokto asked. “When?”
I smiled and shrugged. They really were his favorite. “Not sure yet. I’ll talk to Sariel about setting a day aside for you to teach me, Yves. Goodnight, everybody!"
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