Page 23 of Beneath the Sugar Sky

KADE MARCHED CORA into the throne room, one hand clenching her shoulder so hard that it verged on painful, the stolen sword sheathed at his hip. The Queen of Cakes, sitting on her throne with her chin propped on her hand, sat up a little straighter, seeming torn between irritation at the intrusion and relief that she had something to be annoyed about.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I didn’t call for any of the prisoners to attend on me.”

Sumi was tethered to the base of the throne, a braided licorice rope around her skeletal throat, and the sight of her was enough to put steel in Cora’s spine. They couldn’t afford to get this wrong. If they did, then this would become the reality in Confection: a woman who thought that torturing the dead was appropriate and just.

“I asked to come,” said Cora quickly, before Kade could have been expected to speak. “I wanted … I wanted to talk to you.” She thought of Rini standing naked in the turtle pond, proudly telling Nadya that her vagina was a nice one, and felt the hot red flush rise in her cheeks. Being easily embarrassed could be a weapon, if she was willing to use it that way. “I thought maybe you could … I thought we might have something in common.”

The Queen of Cakes raked her eyes up one side of Cora and down the other. Cora, who had endured many such inspections over the years, forced herself to stand perfectly still, not flinching away. She knew what the queen was seeing. Double chin and bulging waistline and thighs that pressed against the fabric of her jeans, wearing them out a little more every day. She knew what the queen wasn’t seeing just as well. She wasn’t seeing the athlete or the scholar or the friend or the hero of the Trenches. All she was seeing was fatty fatty fat fat, because that was all they ever saw when they looked at her that way. That was all that they were looking for.

The Queen of Cakes sighed, her face softening. “Oh, you poor child,” she said. “How cruel this place must seem to you. The temptation of it all—unless that’s what drew you to Confection? Are you looking to eat yourself to death on the hills and leave your body where no one will ever find it?”

“No,” said Cora. “I wasn’t drawn to Confection. I came to help Rini get her mother back. I didn’t understand what Sumi had done to this place. We were wrong.”

The Queen of Cakes narrowed her eyes. “Go on,” she said.

“This wasn’t Sumi’s world, and that means it isn’t really Rini’s, either. They’re too … I don’t know. Too illogical to take care of a place like this. A place like this needs a firm hand. Someone who understands willpower and discipline.” She needed to be careful not to lay things on too thickly. Overselling it would lead to suspicion, and suspicion would ruin everything.

The Queen of Cakes started to smile and nod. “Yes, exactly,” she said. “This place was a mess when I found my own door.”

“I can believe it,” lied Cora, fighting the urge to remind the Queen that she had already tried to have this conversation. When people wanted to think that they knew more than she did, she found that it was generally best to let them. “You seem so perfect for what you are. This world must have needed you very badly.”

“It did,” said the Queen. She leaned back in her throne. A chunk fell off of her dress and tumbled to the floor. “It called me here to bake cookies—cookies! Who wants to put more cookies into the world? No one needs that sort of disgusting extravagance. It wanted to make me fat and lazy and awful, like all the people who came before me. Well, what I wanted was bigger, and better, and I won, didn’t I? I won. What do you want, little renegade?”

“I want to learn to be…” Cora looked at the Queen’s trim waist, wreathed as it was in cake, and swallowed bile at the hypocrisy of what she was about to say. For Christopher, she thought, before saying, “I want to be like you.”

“Bring her closer,” said the Queen. “I want to see her eyes.”

Kade obediently marched Cora across the room. There were two guards, one to either side of the throne, neither close enough to intervene if things went south. That was good. Both guards had a spear, in addition to their swords. That was bad. Cora took a deep breath and kept her eyes on the Queen of Cakes, trying to focus on how necessary this all was.

When they were close enough, the Queen leaned forward, gripping Cora’s chin in bony fingers and tilting her head first one way, then the other.

“You could be pretty, you know,” she said. “If you learned to control your appetite, if you understood how important it was to take care of yourself, you could be pretty. I’ve never seen hair quite like yours. Yes, you could be a striking beauty. Staying here will help you. The best way to become strong is to surround yourself with the things you can never have. The daily denial reminds you what you’re suffering for.”

Cora said nothing. She was used to having people assume that her size was a function of her diet, when in fact it owed more to her metabolism and her genes, neither of which she could control.

The Queen smiled. “Yes,” she said, letting go of Cora’s chin and sitting back in her throne. “I think I’ll keep you.”

“Thank you,” said Cora meekly, and took a step backward, putting herself behind Kade. “Truly, you’re a monarch to be emulated—and overthrown. Now!”

Kade had been trained as a hero and a warrior, and had earned the title of Goblin Prince in Waiting with his good right arm. His sword was free of its sheath before Cora finished speaking, the tip coming to rest at the hollow of the Queen’s throat, pressed down just hard enough to dimple the surface of her skin.

“Don’t move, now,” he drawled, behind the safe shield of his helmet. “You want to hand over that flute you took from our friend? He’s sorely missing it. Cora?”

“Here.” She stepped forward, holding out her hand. The Queen of Cakes scowled before sullenly reaching into her dress and slapping the flute, now smeared with frosting, into Cora’s palm. Cora danced back before the Queen could do anything else.

“You’ll pay for this,” said the Queen, in an almost-conversational tone. “I’ll have your bones for gingerbread, and your candied sweetmeats for my dinner table.”

“Maybe,” said Kade. “Maybe not. Neither of your guards seems to be coming to save you. That tells me a lot about the kind of place you’ve got here.” Indeed, the guards were standing frozen at their posts, seemingly unable to decide what to do next.

Cora walked over to where Sumi was tethered, leaving Kade with the Queen. Sumi turned her head to look at Cora, spectral eyes over glistening bone, and Cora suppressed her shudder. This was not the sort of thing she was prepared for.

“Hang on just a second,” she said to Sumi, and walked on, stopping when she reached the first guard. “Why aren’t you trying to defend your boss?”

“I don’t know,” said the guard. “I don’t … None of this feels right. None of this feels real. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.”

Probably because he wasn’t supposed to be. He was meant to be tending a candy corn farm of his own, or fishing for some impossible catch within the waves of the Strawberry Sea. The Queen of Cakes was a dead woman as much as Sumi was, but unlike Sumi, she was dressed in skin and speech, still talking, still moving through the world. That had to warp things. For her to have a castle, she would need courtiers, and guards, and people to do the mopping-up.

“There are too many dead people here,” muttered Cora. Louder, she said, “Leave, then. If you’re not willing to defend her, you don’t have to be our enemy, and you can go. Get out and let us fix the world.”