“Hey, you deserve all of it, baby girl. The Archive and her other Guardians are so lucky to have you. We are going to have to celebrate your promotion soon!”
“Oh, we definitely will! As soon as you finish your stress-baking.”
I looked up at her in between spooning cake batter into miniature tins. “I amnotstress-baking.”
Byrd arched one of her perfect, straight brows. “My beautiful knightmaiden, I can clearly see the hostile takeover those desserts have performed of the kitchen, and I’msurethere’s more in the fridge. Hell, while we were on the phone, I have seen you make whipped cream, pipe it on a cheesecake, prepare cake batter, and pour it into admittedly adorable tins. There’s no way you baked all of that just for us and the families.”
I shook my head. “I think you grossly underestimate the sugar addiction in our combined households. It should bestudied.”
Byrd rolled her eyes, but she chuckled. “As true as that may be, you’re deflecting now, and… wait a damn minute, are you makingmacarons?”
“Imademacarons, you mean,” I said, pausing in my cake pouring to lift the tray of peach-toned macarons with tropical pink filling. As I showed it to her, I had an idea to further decorate the cookies with a streak of white. Didn’t I get some edible gold, too? I gave Byrd a goofy smile as I continued, “The colors reminded me of you, so I justhadto make it.”
She smiled fondly while shaking her head. “As precious as that is, Nat did mention that you start making alotof desserts the more stressed out you get.”
“Wow. First Clarkson and now Natassa? Why do the women in my life insist on betraying me like this?”
She laughed.“Well, to add to your betrayal, she did also mention that the desserts can get pretty convoluted and tricky if you are really anxious. She warned that things were really bad if you tried to make an opera cake.”
I didn’t say a word. My silence told Byrd aplenty.
She gasped, her eyes widening. “Ohmigods, youdid, didn’t you? I was totally kidding! That is one of the hardest desserts someone could make. How did you make that?”
I shrugged. “It honestly isn’t that hard. The layers are pretty annoying to assemble, I’m not going to lie, but once you find a rhythm?—”
“Quinn Garcia.”
“Yes, Miss Byrd Pierce?”
“What’s going on?”
Her tone was so gentle, sweet, and coaxing. It made me pause, slowing my mixing of a tiny batch of royal icing for the macarons.
“I just…”
Never missing a beat and always able to see past any of my walls, Byrd said, tone managing to get even softer. “Oh, baby… Is this about me going back to work so soon after waking up? I have been sensing your worry. I’m okay, though. I really am. I’m alittle tired, but I’m already so much better than when I first woke up. Isidora says I will likely just need a few more days to be fully back to normal from my magic being so used?—”
“Hey, hey, hey, Sweetness, I love you so much, but you gotta take a breath.Respire hondo,yeah?” I said, noticing and feeling some of her anxiety bubble over our bond even from this distance. I took some breaths with her a few times to calm her rambling spiral before it got too much. Once her breathing steadied and had been that way for a few moments, I continued, “Now, I love you. It’s that, and it isn’t just that, too.”
I took a breath in of my own, held it, and exhaled slowly and completely before I confessed. “My mom called me after you left.”
Byrd’s eyebrows furrowed with concern. “What did she say? Is she okay?”
I nodded, my throat straining around the words. “It was about Cooper’s hearing. It has been scheduled.”
Byrd almost tripped mid-step at the news. She found a bench to sit nearby, her body heavy with the gravity of the situation. She absentmindedly grabbed her mom’s obsidian pendant. “Holy fucking shit. When?”
“In about two weeks. But it’s not even about the hearing, if I’m being honest. It’s my father.”
“Are you nervous about possibly confronting him about his office?”
“It’s notjusta possibility. Ihaveto do it. Being the First Blade means that when my father fucked up, I had to be the one to bring him to task. I don’t get the luxury of silence. I have to show the Council that we weren’t the same, that his sins stopped with him and didn’t leak like venom into my legacy. If it were ever found that I’d known and hadn’t tried to act, then I would be seen as complicit, accused of conspiracy, and suffer the same punishment he did. It would come up during the hearingregardless, so I have to try and make him answer for what he did. If he’s repentant, maybe they’ll spare him, and it won’t be so bad. But, if he isn’t…”
“Then, what happens?”
I pressed my lips together, jaw tightening until the muscles complained. I didn’t want the words to leave my throat any more than they did. I so desperately wanted to run my hands through my curls, but I never touched my hair while I was baking. Besides, I was in the middle of pouring my royal icing into multiple piping bags and bowls to decorate the macarons in a few different ways, and the liquid didn’t give a damn about my anxiety once it was exposed to air. It only wanted to be a quick hardening decoration. So, instead, I filled the bags and bowls, twirled bags closed, snipped the smallest ends, put some baking brushes in the bowls, and anchored myself in the motions of adding abstract decorations to the cookies.
Byrd watched me patiently. She didn’t speak. She didn’t interrupt. She just allowed me the moment to process. Her brown eyes were gentle in that steady way that always made me feel like she was holding me even through the screen. My girl knew me too well, and I could feel the knots in my stomach untying themselves the longer I was in her presence.
