If cake was a sacrament, the storm that followed was the benediction.
Kae kept the kid laughing for a solid half hour, doing terrible impressions of palace guards and reenacting “how to correctly stomp on an evil wolf’s foot” with Wolfie as the villain. Mara pretended not to watch, but the hard edges of her mouth softened.
When the last crumbs were gone and my son’s eyelids started to droop again, El shepherded him toward the bedroom with promises of cartoons and a fort upgrade. Mara followed, grumbling about sugar highs and bedtime.
That left me and Kae at the table, the remains of the pastries between us like a peace offering.
He leaned back in his chair, studying me. “You look like you fought archives and elders in the same day.”
“I did,” I said. “Archives were nicer.”
He huffed a
