“Lady Rivenna! I am so sorry—your tea is not yet ready. I only just arrived, and I?—”
“And I have told you,” Lady Rivenna said, hanging her cloak on the peg behind the door, “that you need not wait on me hand and foot, dear girl. We employ other staff for such things.” She motioned vaguely at the kitchen pixies, who were already at it, two of them darting toward the cabinet where Lady Rivenna’s preferred blend was kept, and three more converging on the kettle with an air of cheerful urgency.
Dear girl.Lady Rivenna had called her that since her first week at The Charmed Leaf. Henry had once commented—lightly, with a laugh and a grin, as he commented on most things—that Lucie was a grown woman, not a girl, and wasn’t it silly the way fae always found a way to be just a touch condescending toward humans? But Lucie had laughed right back and told him she didn’t believe Lady Rivenna meant it that way.
“Now,” Lady Rivenna said, turning to the small table near the back door. “Sit, both of you. I wish to discuss the state of affairs, and I dislike conducting business while people loom.”
The state of affairs. Right. Lucie resisted the urge to glance at Kazrian and instead joined Lady Rivenna at the table, trying to look as though she had been ready for this all along.
Kazrian, after a brief assessment of the available seating and his own dimensions, leaned against the central worktable instead. Lady Rivenna narrowed her eyes at him, then seemed to decide this was not a battle worth fighting.
“The repairs,” she said. “Kazrian. Where do we stand?”
“Ah, yes. The lattice itself is sound. Evryn’s work is excellent. The trouble is the points where the lumyrite runs too close to the existing enchantments that have been embedded into The Honeycomb. Where the lattice meets the older magic, they quarrel, and the kitchen equipment is caught in the middle. That is why the ovens spike and the cooling cabinets frost over. Butthe conflict is predictable once you understand its pattern, and I can resolve it, or remove the older enchantments that are no longer necessary. I estimate no more than a few days.
“The other troubles—the shelf that will not tolerate anything blue, the sealed door upstairs—those appear to be older problems. Magic that soured or grew stubborn long before the lattice was installed. They are not lumyrite faults, so they will not answer to my magic as readily, but I’ve been listening to them, and I believe I can coax them into better behavior if I spend more time understanding what they want. But the kitchen equipment, at least, will be fully functional before then.”
“The timeline, then?” his grandmother asked. “The repairs will be complete before the intended launch?”
“Oh, certainly, yes. I shall be done well before the Bloom Season begins. I am quite confident of that.”
Lady Rivenna nodded, satisfied, and something in Lucie’s chest loosened by a degree. Excellent. That would give her plenty of time before the launch to focus without Kazrian around.
Lady Rivenna turned her gaze to Lucie. “Now. The launch.”
This was firmer ground, and Lucie straightened. The launch was scheduled for three weeks into the Bloom Season, deliberately timed so that society would be fully arrived and settled. Not so early as to be lost in the noise of opening festivities; not so late as to be an afterthought.
Lady Rivenna had begun sending out select invitations to certain patrons who were already in Bloomhaven, granting them early access to The Honeycomb on specific days, and this had produced exactly the effect she’d intended. People talked. People who had not been invited wanted to know why. The strategy would sharpen as the Bloom Season commenced and the great families of the United Fae Isles began arriving—more invitations, more carefully chosen names, the doors opened to more of the right people at the right moment. And by the time the grand launch happened, with its own carefully curated guest list, everyone in Bloomhaven would want to be there.
“Now, I have been giving more thought to the specifics of the launch event itself,” Lady Rivenna continued, “and I would like you to include a demonstration.”
Lucie blinked. “A demonstration?”
“A performed showpiece, shall we say. Something the guests can watch you create. Magically spun sugar drawn into fine threads, something that moves, something alive. Add in chocolate, perhaps, or light caught in sugar-glass.” She waved one elegant hand. “The particulars I leave to you. You are the artist. But the goal is simple: Impress them.”
Lucie’s throat tightened. “Of course,” she said, even though her heart rate was already climbing. A performance. In front ofthosepeople, with no kitchen door to hide behind, every fae eye in the room watching a human confectioner attempt to be extraordinary, the entire launch riding on whether her hands held steady under their eyes.
And beneath that—the part she tried harder to press down—the memory of the first time Lady Rivenna had asked her to demonstrate something. Years ago. At The Charmed Leaf. No warning at all—just Lady Rivenna’s voice sayingI should like you to show them tonight,and Lucie had calmly agreed to it while inside she?—
She blinked and very purposefully did not look at Kazrian, but she couldn’t help wondering if he remembered it too.
Her hand rose to the chain at her throat. Her fingers found the ring strung on it, closed around it for the space of a breath, and then she made herself let go.
This was fine. She had five weeks still—two until the Opening Ball of the Season, and then another three. She would plan it in careful steps. She would be ready.
“I shall start sketching ideas,” she said.
“Wonderful,” said Lady Rivenna. “I intend for the demonstration to take place outdoors. The area beyond the courtyard—that rather uninspiring patch of grass and trees—will be transformed for the occasion. I have already spoken to Iris, and she is quite taken with the idea. Tables and chairs will come over from The Charmed Leaf, and Iris has plans for the trees and the table settings. You need not concern yourself with any of that. Your task is the confection itself. Iris and I shall manage the rest.”
“That sounds lovely,” Lucie said. “Please do thank Iris for me.”
“Of course.” Lady Rivenna rose from the table. “Now, I shall be in the study. I have correspondence that requires my attention, and I trust the two of you to manage admirably without supervision.” She paused in the act of gathering her things and looked at Lucie with an expression that was allcommand and no request. “You will stop for luncheon at a sensible hour. I shall know if you do not.”
Then she paused on her way to the stairs and looked toward the hearth.
“Cat,” she said.
Balthazar, still on his cushion, narrowed his eyes and gave a flick of his tail.
