The Royal Academy of Magical Baking

Lyra was through the door and into her old room in an instant, but she froze at the sight that awaited her.

"Caramelle?"

The auburn-haired girl was standing in the kitchen. Cream, egg, and flour were splattered all over the walls. Purple sparks smoldered over every available surface: the telltale signs of a Presentation spell gone horribly wrong.

Lyra's eyes, though, were fixed on Caramelle's hands.

They were three sizes too large. Their consistency had also undergone some kind of transformation. Each finger looked shiny, airy, and fragile.

Rather like overwhipped meringue.

Caramelle stared at Lyra, eyes wide as she held up her bizarre new appendages.

"I… I messed up." Her voice was still stuck in that high, wailing register, as if it had also been whipped to an unnatural degree. "Oh, Lyra… will you help me?"

Some instinct deep within Lyra took over. Crossing the room, she wrapped one arm gently around Caramelle's shoulders and guided her out of the kitchen. Only once they were both settled on the couch and a fire was blazing in the magical fire pit did Lyra speak.

"What happened?"

Caramelle gazed at the fire without seeing it. "I — I was trying to get in some extra practice. To be ready for third term. That… that stupid spell…"

"Which one?" Lyra glanced over at the harsh purple light still shimmering over the kitchen like a demented heat wave. "One of those Madame Dacquoise terrors?"

"No." Caramelle's too-large fingers trembled, as if trying to clench into fists. "Master Glaze."

"Master Glaze?" Lyra echoed. "The Shine Spell?"

Caramelle nodded, her jaw rigid with the strain of pressing her lips together.

"But… but you know that one," Lyra stammered. "You mastered the advanced level ages ago."

"Not enough," Caramelle said savagely. "Not enough to do well in the exam. Not enough for 'virtuosic excellence.'"

"Caramelle —"

"'A tale of setting impossible goals,'" Caramelle went on, her voice rising shrilly as she quoted Professor Genoise. "'And exhausting oneself trying to reach them, and the devouring fear of falling short.'"

Lyra waited until the last shuddering echoes of those words had sunk back into her former roommate's shaking shoulders. Then, as quietly as possible, she asked, "How many times? Did you recite it, I mean?"

Caramelle's shoulders went still, then shrugged. "I don't know. I lost count."

"Oh, Caramelle…"

"I couldn't get it right!" the other girl shrieked, her flour-streaked auburn curls falling around her face. "It wasn't right. I have to keep doing it until it's right!"

"But Presentation spells are volatile. Unpredictable. You should never —"

"I know." Caramelle shook her head, forcing herself back into a desperate sort of calm. "Believe me, I know. I still had to try."

Lyra resisted the urge to poke the shiny meringue-esque fingers lying limp in Caramelle's lap. "Did you, though? Really?"

"Yes. But that doesn't matter now. What matters is THIS." Caramelle lifted her hands and presented them to Lyra. "Can you help?"

Lyra suddenly had to bite back a laugh. It wasn't like Caramelle was in any real danger, after all. Presentation spells were tricky, but they could always be reversed. And the large, shiny hands were ridiculous enough to be comical. They reminded Lyra forcibly of the circus clowns who sometimes partnered with Thespy's theatre troupe.

But there was nothing comical about the terror in Caramelle's eyes.

Averting her gaze from the humorous appendages, Lyra tried to sound confident. "Of course I can help. Do you know how to reverse it?"

"I think so. It's a pretty high-level Presentation spell. But there are some complicated hand gestures, and…" Caramelle shook her overwhipped fingers. "I can't manage that."

"Right." Lyra squeezed the other girl's shoulder. "A high-level Presentation spell… you need Professor Genoise, then. Come on. I'll go with you."

She started to stand them both up, but Caramelle pulled away and recoiled into a corner of the couch.

"I can't go to Professor Genoise!" she hissed. "They'll send me home!"

Lyra raised her eyebrows. "You think they'd punish you for something like this?"

"They wouldn't call it punishment. 'For my own good.' They warned me not to strain myself."

"Maybe some time at home would be good for you," Lyra said slowly. "I mean, just a few days, so you can head into third term strong, and —"

"Absolutely not. My parents…" Caramelle shuddered, curling into herself further. "It was bad enough not winning the second term Stellar Enchantment Pin. If I got sent home before third term even starts… I might not have a home to go back to."

Lyra didn't know what to say. She just sat down on the couch and placed her hand on Caramelle's. The other girl's shiny fingers even felt remarkably like meringues, but Lyra no longer had any desire to laugh.

"No professors, then," she promised. "What about Cardamom?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Caramelle shook her head firmly. "I don't want him to see me like this. And he'd just tell Professor Genoise anyway." Her eyes searched Lyra's face. "Could you do it?"

"The reversal spell?" Lyra raised her eyebrows. "I'm nowhere near that level in Presentation. I'd just make everything worse."

"But you could ask Cardamom to teach you," Caramelle said bitterly. "You could go see him right now. I'm sure he'd be thrilled. Isn't Sunday your 'date night'?"

Lyra dropped her eyes. "Not anymore."

A few moments of silence followed. Lyra had been so pleasantly focused on 'baking magic songs' over the past week that she'd managed to avoid thinking about the third-year Presentation Apprentice Baker. Now, though, the sting of their last conversation returned with a prickly vengeance.

To her surprise, Caramelle didn't pry. She just waited silently until Lyra was able to continue.

Eventually, Lyra took a deep breath. "No more 'date nights.' They were never really that, anyway. And no more tutoring sessions. He was… really disappointed when I didn't win the Stellar Enchantment Pin. Like I wasted his time, I guess."

"…Salts, Lyra."

Lyra had been staring at the fire, but the softness in Caramelle's voice drew her attention back to the other girl.

"It's okay," Lyra assured her. "I mean, it's not, but it will be. I just can't go ask him to teach me some high-level Presentation spell right now. I don't think he'd be happy to see me at all."

Caramelle's eyes narrowed. Somehow, though, Lyra could tell the simmering fury there was not directed at her.

"What… a… cad," Caramelle muttered, her eyes narrowing even further. "What a stodgy, overcooked custard."

Lyra smiled in spite of herself. "Do you mean Cardamom?"

"Of course." Caramelle shook her disheveled auburn curls briskly. "He's a flashy, spoiled lump of overspun sugar. Who needs him? Certainly not us."

"That's right," Lyra agreed, suddenly struck by inspiration. "We don't need him or Professor Genoise. There's a budding Presentation expert right here on this floor. One with a truly 'majestic' flair."

Rising again, she held out her hand to Caramelle. "Let's go see Mac."

Caramelle still didn't move. "I — I've been pretty horrid to him," she said, a tremble returning to her voice. "To all of you, really. Are you sure he'd want to help?"

Lyra smiled. "I am absolutely sure that Macaron Fondant would do absolutely anything for you."

"Why?" Caramelle covered her face with her large, shiny fingers. "Why should any of you care about me anymore?"

"Love's a mystery," Lyra sighed. "Both the 'friend' kind and… the other kind. Don't try to understand it. Just accept. We love you, may the salts preserve us all. And we're going to help you."

Taking both Caramelle's giant hands in her own, Lyra carefully pulled them away from the other girl's face and then used them to pull her off the couch.

"Ready to get back to normal?"

Caramelle gave her a watery smile, then looked down at her own hands with distaste. "Yes, please."

—

As Lyra had suspected, Mac's eagerness to help Caramelle was matched only by his concern. He insisted on first making her as comfortable as possible. Once she was settled on the couch in Whisk, he proceeded to bustle around, arranging pillows and increasing the magical firelight and fetching hot chocolate like a bespectacled mother hen.

"I'm glad I did all that research over the break," he said, plumping one more cushion and placing it gingerly under Caramelle's monstrous fingers. "Professor Genoise loaned me a book on counter-spells. He said my 'distraction' issue is especially dangerous in Presentation, and he wanted me to be prepared. Just in case."

He darted over to the half-unpacked bag lying on his bed and pulled out a large leatherbound book. Returning to the couch with it, he sat beside Caramelle and began flipping through the pages.

"Master Glaze's Shine Spell, you said?" Mac asked.

Caramelle nodded.

"And you don't remember how many times you recited it?" he asked again.

"Afraid not. I did it so many times over break, too. It's all a blur." She smiled shakily. "Maybe I should have been researching counter-spells, like you. Would have been a much better use of my time."

"You practiced that spell all through break?" Boysen asked incredulously. He shook his head as he handed Lyra a mug of hot chocolate. "I can't imagine that. Master Glaze is a bit much for me, even in small doses."

"It wasn't my choice," Caramelle sighed. "Well… no. That's not true. I probably would have been practicing anyway, even without my parents."

Boysen's voice rose higher. "Your parents made you practice this spell?"

"Not just this spell. My whole exam cake. Over and over, every day." Caramelle stared down at her overwhipped hands. "Not winning the pin meant something must be very wrong. They wanted to be sure I fixed it before third term."

"Sweet and savory," Boysen muttered.

Caramelle shrugged. "Like I said, I probably would have been doing it anyway. I wasn't satisfied with that exam either. I wanted to get it right."

"But the professors told you how to 'get it right'," Lyra pointed out. "They said you were working yourself too hard. You needed to relax."

Caramelle's laugh was brittle. "That word does not exist in my family's vocabulary. Sometimes…" She sighed again, her voice sinking to a low whisper. "Sometimes… I wish I weren't a Meringue."

"I can understand that," Lyra said sympathetically. Catching Boysen's eye, she remembered one of their conversations from first term. "What would you want to do instead? If you didn't have to be a baker?"

"Oh, I'd still want to be a baker," Caramelle replied. "No matter who my family was. I love baking. At least… I used to."

"You still do," Boysen assured her. "No one who has seen you work or tasted your creations could think otherwise. You just… got a little distracted." Grinning, he clapped Mac on the shoulder. "Like Fondant here."

"I've got it!" Mac exclaimed, oblivious to the hand on his shoulder. Spreading the book flat on his lap, he held out his hands over Caramelle's. "Okay, nobody talk. I need to concentrate."

He took a deep breath, then began waving his hands in a slow, intricate pattern.

Lyra hardly dared to breathe. Boysen, too, was absolutely still beside her. Even the fire seemed to be watching Mac perform the counter-spell.

Mac's pace never wavered. His hands moved with deliberate confidence, clearly an outward expression of the words being recited silently in his mind.

Seconds crawled by. Then minutes. Finally, just when Lyra was being to wonder if they would have to get Professor Genoise after all, a shimmer of faint purple light appeared around Mac's fingertips. It shone there for a few more seconds, the color faint but unmistakable.

Mac didn't stop. Lyra wasn't even sure he had blinked since beginning the spell.

Slowly, moving at the same measured tempo as Mac's hands, the shimmer began to spread. It drifted down from his hands towards Caramelle's, settling on her shiny fingers like violet snow. Lyra expected the light to sink into Caramelle's hands, but it just hovered over her skin, shimmering and glowing.

Caramelle gasped. The shimmer over her hands was deepening in color, as if leeching purple from beneath her skin. And as the light covering her fingers became more vivid, the fingers themselves began to shrink, slowly but surely returning to their usual size.

Still Mac didn't stop. Lyra and Boysen didn't breathe. The only sound in the room was the crackling of the magical fire as the counter-spell's glow brightened over Caramelle's hands.

Only when the light was so purple that Lyra couldn't see Caramelle's fingers through it anymore did Mac's hands pause in midair. He waited. His lips moved as if counting. Lyra found herself counting as the seconds ticked on.

One… two… three…

When she hit 'twelve', the sphere of purple light vanished, popping out of existence without a sound or even a flash.

Mac looked down at Caramelle's perfectly normal fingers. "Was… is that okay?"

Caramelle's gaze drifted up from her hands to his face. She stared at him for a moment.

Then she threw her arms around him.

"Okay?" she echoed, laughing through her tears. "That was brilliant!"

Boysen let them have their moment. Then he pulled them both up and joined the hug, bringing Lyra in with one long arm.

"You bet it was brilliant!" he crowed. "Congratulations, everyone. This is going down in the Whisk Whiz history books. Three cheers for Macaron Fondant!"

They unleashed a cacophony of noise that was equal parts joy and relief. Even Caramelle joined in, hooting and squealing with distinctly un-Meringue-ish abandon. The cheering went on and on for several minutes, raucous and undignified and horribly out of tune.

It was the sweetest song Lyra had ever heard.