Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children, #3)

Ponder sighed deeply before reaching over to touch her cheek—not the one with the emptiness where her eye had been, but the one that was still whole and sound, untouched by the nothingness that was eating her up from the inside.

“I don’t know, baby,” he said. “I told you when you went that I didn’t know. I’m just a candy corn farmer. My only part in this play was loving your mother and raising you, and I did both of them as well as I could, but that didn’t make me worldly, and it didn’t make me wise. It made me a man with a hero for a wife and a daughter who was going to do something great someday, and that was all I wanted to be. I never saved the day. I never challenged the gods. I was the person you could come home to when the quest was over, and I’d greet you with a warm fudge pie and a how was your day, and I’d never feel like I was being left out just because I was forever left behind.”

Rini made a small sound, somewhere between a gasp and a sob, and covered her face with what was left of her hands.

“The Lord of the Dead said that Sumi’s nonsense came home,” said Christopher abruptly. “Mr. Ponder, Rini told us about the Bakers. How they come and make Confection bigger and stranger in order to do what they need to do. Do you know where the oven is? Where they bake the world?”

“Of course,” said Ponder. “It’s a day’s journey from here.”

Christopher smiled wanly. “I guess it would have to be,” he said. “Can you show us the way?”





PART IV

THIS IS WHERE WE CHANGE THE WORLD





11

SUGAR AND SPICE AND PAYING THE PRICE

PONDER HAD GIVEN THEM each a bag of provisions and an item he thought they might find useful: a small sickle for Cora, a jar of honey for Kade, something that was either a white rock or a very hard egg for Christopher. What he had given Rini was less clear, since she walked side by side with her mother’s skeleton, hands empty, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Cora sidled over to her. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“My father gave us gifts because he had to, not because they’re going to help us in the here and now,” said Rini. “You can throw them away if you like.”

“I don’t know,” said Cora, who had never owned a sickle before. She thought it was pretty. “Maybe it’ll come in handy someday.”

“Maybe,” Rini agreed.

Cora frowned. “Okay, seriously. Are you all right?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’ve never been to see the Baker,” said Rini. Her voice was low, even awed. “I always thought I’d do it someday, maybe, when I felt brave enough, but I haven’t done it yet, and I’m a little scared. What if she doesn’t like me? Or what if she likes me so much that she wants me to stay with her for always, to be her kitchen companion and kept thing? I would do it. For my mother, for my world, I would do it. But I’d die a little more inside every hour of every day, until I was just a candy shell filled with shadows.”

“Wait.” Cora glanced at Kade and Christopher, alarmed. The boys were talking quietly as they walked, Christopher’s fingers still tracing silent songs along the length of his flute. She looked back to Rini. “We’re not going to see the Baker. We’re going to see the oven the Baker used when she made the world. Big difference.”

“Not really,” said Rini. “You can’t go into someone’s kitchen while they’re using it and not expect to see them.”

Cora stared at her. “I thought you said the Baker left a long time ago.”

“I said a Baker left a long time ago. One of them did. Lots of them did. The current Baker, though, she’s only been here since I was a little girl. She came through a door and started making things, and she’s been making things ever since.” Rini shook her head. “I guess she’s probably still here, even though the Queen of Cakes is alive again, because the Queen was never a Baker, not really, but she was supposed to be, and the world needs to be kept up if we don’t want it to fall down.”

“Oh sweet Neptune I am getting such a headache,” muttered Cora, massaging her temple with one hand. “All right. I … all right. We’re going to see a god. We’re going to see the god of this messed-up cafeteria of a reality, and then we’re going to go the hell back to the school and stay there until our own doors open. Yes. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to do that.”

“Cora?” called Kade. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Cora. “Just, you know. Coming to terms with the idea that we’re about to go hassle someone who is functionally divine in this reality. Because that’s exactly how I was planning to spend my afternoon.”

“Could be worse,” said Kade. “Could be the first god you were meeting.”

Cora frowned. “This is the first god I’m meeting.”

“Really? Because I assumed you were using the word to mean ‘absolute arbiter of the rules of the reality I’m standing in.’ Were you?” Kade cocked his head. “If you were, you’ve already met at least one god, and possibly two. Probably two. The Lord and Lady of the Dead, back in Nancy’s world, remember? They didn’t get those titles in an open election.”