He set the knife aside, leaving the slice of cake untouched.
“Gods don’t want for anything. Not truly. But before you…there had been an agitation building inside. This burr that poked at me, this sense that something wasn’t whole, wasn’t complete. I didn’t know what would fill it. I didn’t know how to stop its ache. But when I heard your very foolish parents making those very foolishplans, I realized I’d found what I’d been searching for. I’d found you. I felt you. I could feel who you were. Who you’d become…You captivated me, Hazel.”
My chest felt too heavy to breathe. “You’ve never told me this part of my birthday story.”
“I suppose I should have…. Once I found you, I was selfish. I made the trade with the Holy First and she granted me three candles. Three lives with you.”
He made a pained noise and crossed from me to the fireplace. He ran a finger over the mantel, tracing memories.
“It was agony waiting for you to arrive. I didn’t know what to do with such an interminable length of time. So I waited and I planned. I plannedeverything. I knew you’d have blond hair and deep blue eyes. Your mouth would pucker into a little rose. I imagined your smile, your laughter, the sound of your voice. I pictured our lives together, all the things I’d teach you, the things you’d show me.”
As he spoke, I pictured how his words might have played out. I saw myself take my first steps holding tightly to the Dreaded End’s fingers, watched as we whiled away childhood afternoons in a sun-drenched meadow, playing at tea, then checkers, then chess.
Regretfully, Merrick shook his head. “I was wrong, though, about so many things. About everything, I suppose,” he reflected.
Merrick’s admission stung. “What a disappointment this freckled, dark-haired creature must have been.”
He turned back to me, his eyes bright with emotion. “Never a disappointment. Always a wonder.” He reached out and touched my cheek. “Today I look at you and wonder what you might have become if I’d not saddled you with dreams of only my own making.”
It was the closest thing to an apology I’d ever heard from my godfather, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. I felt as if I should saysomething to absolve him, but I couldn’t find it in me to ease his guilt.
“I don’t know what I would have been. I suppose I never will,” I admitted honestly. I offered him a smile, but he didn’t return it. “Let’s eat,” I said, holding out my hand to draw him back.
One hug. One embrace would erase the hurt and frustration and disappointment, and we could go back to muddling along together, an unlikely pair that somehow worked.
“I’m not hungry,” Merrick said. I’d never heard him so sad before. “I…I think it’s best if I leave you to your celebrations, here, in your new home. At court.”
“Just like you wanted,” I pointed out, my voice light, hopeful he’d find enough pleasure in that to smooth over the moment.
“Just like I wanted,” he agreed. He crossed to me then and pressed his papery, dry lips to my forehead. “Happy birthday, Hazel.”
He was gone before I could answer, slipping through a void of his own making. I sank down in the nearest chair, feeling a strange pain across my chest. I felt as though I was about to cry, though I couldn’t see the point in it.
Merrick was unhappy—with me, with himself, with the situation we were in—and there was nothing to be done about it. I couldn’t soften his pain, I couldn’t find a way to make him smile and forget about it. After years of tiptoeing around his changeable moods, doing everything I could to keep him light and happy, I felt a complete failure to be so helpless now.
I wondered when I would see him again, if another year would go by before he returned to me. Or two, or three, or an entire decade. How long did it take for a god to make peace with their shortcomings? How long would he stew upon this? And what was I meant to do with my time while I waited?
There was a knock at my door and I rushed to answer it, foolishly thinking it might be Merrick come back. But when I threw it open, breathless, as I anticipated seeing my godfather there smiling, shy and contrite, I was only disappointed. The hall was empty save for a serving cart.
On its top tier, perfectly situated in the center of a golden charger, was a white plate bearing a square of dark cake studded with slivers of walnuts. It warmed the air with cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg and smelled like my childhood.
A single lit candle had been stabbed into the cake, wholly unassuming, plain and white, and reminding me uncomfortably of the one I’d given away.
Curious, I brought the cart into my suite.
I picked up the fork resting alongside the plate, marveling at how Leopold must have persuaded the kitchen staff. I was certain it wouldn’t be right, sure that Cook had added fistfuls of brown sugar or candied ginger to punch up the flavor, to create something intriguing and playful for the palate.
He hadn’t.
It was simple and nutty, a recipe far too rustic to ever be served to this court.
It was the most perfect cake I’d ever eaten.
And Leopold had been the one to give it to me.
I pictured him as he’d been in the garden, more serious and thoughtful than I’d ever guessed possible, and remembered how the sunlight had played across his features, warm and radiant, and my heart jumped within my chest, feeling almost like a wish.
With a wistful smile, I blew out the candle.
