Lyra Treble’s parents had always told her to ‘keep on singing.’ They firmly believed that every problem could be solved, and every good moment improved by breaking out into song. This meant the Treble household was never completely silent, even at night. Music is powerful was their family motto, and they lived by it.
They were bards, after all.
And it was good advice, generally. ‘Keep on singing’ had helped Lyra quite a bit over the years. When her mind was muddled or her emotions got tangled, even humming a tune could clear the air and lift her spirits.
But for the first time in her life, Lyra was beginning to wonder if her parents’ advice didn’t apply to ALL occasions. Maybe there were some moments in life where a little music-making might actually hurt more than it helped.
For example, the final entrance exam for the Royal Academy of Magical Baking.
Most of the day hadn’t been so bad. Just being at the academy was a thrill. The classroom they were using for this important event was airy and spacious, with a vaulted ceiling and big windows letting in lots of natural light. The mahogany paneling gleamed warmly in the morning sun. Each of the twelve candidates had their own mini-kitchen station, fully equipped with everything they would need to prepare their cake. Families and spectators had to wait outside. For hours, Lyra and the other eleven hopefuls had been lost in their own private baking worlds, the room filled with only the bustle of creation-in-progress.
But now the baking part was over. All that remained was the judging. That meant waiting while the academy’s three top chefs moved slowly from station to station, examining each cake in minute detail and making notes.
It also, apparently, meant absolute silence.
Lyra perched on the edge of her stool, resisting the urge to drum her toes against the rungs. The room was starting to feel far too big, with far too few people in it. Minute after agonizing minute crawled by, but still, no one spoke. Even the chefs did not confer as they looked, smelled, and tasted each candidate’s offering. The only sound was the scratching of their quill pens on their parchment notebooks.
Definitely not a time to ‘keep on singing.’
Lyra clamped her mouth tightly shut. She had a bad habit of humming without realizing it, especially when stressed or anxious. To distract herself, and hopefully keep any renegade notes firmly inside her soul, she studied her fellow candidates. The room was too large for her to see the far end, where the judges had started, but she had a good view of the half-dozen stations closest to her.
Directly across from her was a girl so covered in flour that Lyra wondered if any had gotten into the actual cake. If Lyra was remembering correctly, the girl had introduced herself as Ginger Crumble. Ginger looked even more anxious than Lyra. She was gripping the edge of her stool and craning her neck to watch the judges’ slow progress, oblivious to the fact that she resembled nothing more than a somewhat dusty ghost.
Beyond Ginger, at the end of the room, was a girl named Caramelle Meringue. Lyra wasn’t likely to forget that name quickly.
Not that Caramelle would ever give her the chance, of course.
The sight of the other girl sitting primly on her stool, hands folded serenely, her work-station as neat and perfect as the coils of auburn hair pinned atop her head, took Lyra back to earlier that morning…
—
Lyra had not slept at all the night before. She had made a noble attempt, mostly to appease her concerned mother, but gave up after a few hours and spent the rest of the night poring over her recipe, humming quietly. At an hour before dawn, she had dressed, slipped out the door of their small brownstone, and practically sprinted the few blocks to the Royal Academy of Magical Baking.
She had been so sure she would be the first to arrive that she even chided herself the whole way for her overkill eagerness. But when Lyra skidded to a stop outside the main gates, this girl had already been sitting at the extreme end of one of the benches, hands folded and auburn curls carefully arranged.
“Flavor, Texture, or Presentation?” the auburn-haired girl had asked, before Lyra could even catch her breath.
Lyra had collapsed onto the other end of the bench. “What?”
“Flavor, Texture, or Presentation?” the other girl repeated slowly, pronouncing each word with elegant precision. “The three tracks for the academy. Which are you going for?”
“I — um —” Lyra took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart. “I thought we don’t have to choose until the end of the first year. Right?”
“Texture is my specialty,” the other girl said. “The Meringue family has always gone for Texture. I’m Caramelle Meringue.” She extended one hand formally for a brief shake. “My tutor, Master Chiffon, said I’m already more consistent than Praline Puff was at my age.”
Lyra looked at her blankly.
Caramelle’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Praline Puff? Professor Puff?”
“Oh, Professor Puff!” Lyra’s head was swimming with details she had been trying to absorb about the Royal Academy, mixed in with all the recipes and spells she’d been cramming for the past few months. “She’s the headmistress for — um —”
“Texture,” Caramelle said coolly. “And my tutor would know. He taught Professor Puff when she was a student here.”
“Right. Your tutor… what was his name again?”
The eyebrows rose higher. “Master Chiffon? Former Headmaster of Texture? Current Royal Chef for Texture in the palace kitchens?”
Lyra tried to appear enthusiastic. The name was only ringing the vaguest of bells, lost amidst the deluge of extracts and enchantments swirling in her memory. But she didn’t want to appear rude or ignorant. “Of course,” Lyra said with what she hoped was appropriate awe. “The Royal Chef for Texture. I’m amazed he has time to tutor anyone, with such an important job.”
“He doesn’t, really, but he insisted. Old friend of the Meringue family.” Caramelle tossed her head. The auburn coils did not budge. “He said I show such great promise, it was an honor to assist my rise.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“That’s… great,” Lyra said, when a long pause indicated Caramelle was waiting for a response.
Caramelle nodded graciously. “I told him the honor was entirely mine. It is so important to find the right tutor. That’s what can really set you apart.” She swept an appraising glance over Lyra, studying her in the flickering light provided by the gas streetlamps framing the academy’s gates. “Who was your tutor?”
“Oh. Um —”
The arrival of a young man on a bicycle saved Lyra from admitting her tutor had been a tattered copy of Cakes, Magic, and You that her dad had found in a secondhand bookshop.
“Top of the morning!” the young man said, swinging off his bicycle and onto the bench between the two girls in one smooth motion. “Or maybe it’s too early for that. What comes before the top of the morning? What’s higher than the top?”
“The crown?” Lyra suggested.
A grin lit up the young man’s whole face. Standing, he bowed formally to both the girls. “Crown of the morning to you fair baking hopefuls. Boysen at your service, of the Berry household.”
“Ah, you’re one of the Berry brothers.” Caramelle’s mouth smiled, but her eyes did not. “Going in for Flavor, I suppose?”
“Couldn’t really do otherwise and hope to show my face at home.” Boysen flopped back down onto the bench between the girls. “You’re the Meringue kid, right? Carrot-Bell?”
“Caramelle.”
Caramelle’s smile had gone rigid, but Boysen didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s it. I knew it was Cara-something. Nice to meet you, Caramelle of Meringue.” Boysen turned to Lyra. “And what’s your story? What silly name did your parents foist upon you in the hopes of inspiring you towards culinary greatness?”
“I’m…” Lyra swallowed. “My name is Lyra. Lyra Treble.”
“Treble?” Caramelle’s eyes narrowed in undisguised suspicion. “I don’t recognize that name. Is it some experimental new pastry?”
“Not exactly.” Lyra swallowed again. Her mouth felt dry, like it wasn’t used to this much talking without breaking into song. “It’s a musical term. You know — treble clef, bass clef.”
Caramelle stared at her. “Your family… aren’t… bakers?”
“No,” Lyra confessed. “They’re bards.”
“All of them?” Even Caramelle’s perfect auburn coils seemed to vibrate in her astonishment, like they might spontaneously combust any moment. “Not a single baker in your whole family tree?”
“Afraid not.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Boysen said, taking advantage of Caramelle’s shocked silence to reinsert himself into the conversation. “Just because magical professions tend to run along family lines doesn’t mean they always have to. There was a girl in my brother Razz’s class from a family of carpenters. No one could touch her in Presentation.”
Caramelle recovered enough to shoot Boysen a venomous glare. Then she turned back to Lyra. “So are you going in for Presentation then? Think your performance skills will transfer?”
“I — I’m not sure.” Lyra had a sudden urge to hide under the bench. Instead, she tried to fold her hands as primly as Caramelle’s and forced her spine to stand a teensy bit straighter. “I do like to perform, but I like baking more. All of baking — Flavor, Texture, Presentation, everything. I love it all. And I want to get better. So I decided to enter the Royal Academy of Magical Baking trials, and now I’m here.”
“Lyra Treble…” Boysen’s eyes lit up even brighter. “Hey, I know you. You’re part of the Any Weather Bards! Salts, you guys are grand. It’s your whole family, right?”
“Yes. My parents and my brothers and me.” Lyra’s face flushed in a bewildering blend of embarrassment and delight. “You’ve been to a show?”
“Dozens,” Boysen replied. “Used to go every week, but then prep for the academy got too intense.”
Lyra glanced at Caramelle, but she was gazing at the gates, as if willing them to open and let her escape this ‘imposter.’
“Did you have a tutor?” Lyra asked, deciding to focus on Boysen.
Boysen groaned. “Try five. Each of my brothers took it upon themselves to ensure I was fully prepped for these trials.”
Lyra couldn’t help but grin. The air around Boysen radiated warmth, like a batch of cookies fresh from the oven. She could feel her exhausted nerves slowly starting to settle. “You have five brothers?”
“Three older, two younger. All absolutely determined to help me ‘reach my potential.’ Even the two youngest, who barely know a sweet spell from a savory, turned into little taskmaster terrors.”
“And your parents let them?”
Boysen gave a good-natured shrug. “The family that gets stressed together, stays together. Plus, we have a good record so far.”
“Good?” Caramelle echoed, suddenly returning her attention to her two bench-mates. “Perfect, rather.” She leaned forward, speaking to Lyra around Boysen. “Every single Berry brother has gotten into the Royal Academy. Both parents too.”
“That’s where they met,” Boysen explained to Lyra. “Dad didn’t make it past the first year, but Mom got all the way through to graduation.”
“They wrote a cookbook together,” Caramelle said, still directing her words to Lyra. “The Berry Basics. It’s part of Professor Honeycomb’s Flavor curriculum. Didn’t you know? Master Chiffon had me read it two years ago.”
“Wow.” Lyra’s frayed nerves flared up again, buzzing in agitation. She looked from one to the other of her two companions. “You both have a lot of… preparation.”
“A lot to live up to, you mean.” Boysen was still grinning, but a small sigh escaped him as he leaned back against the stone wall. “I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if things go south today.”
“You’ve got a fifty-fifty chance,” Lyra said encouragingly, employing the same mantra she’d been using to bolster herself during the past few weeks. “You’ve made it all the way to the final twelve, and they pick six of us to get in. Those are pretty good odds.”
“But it’s not just about today.” Caramelle’s voice dripped with false sweetness, like an overdose of some sugar substitute. “They pick six to start, of course, but only three will be left by the end of the first year. Three terms, with an exam at the end of each, remember? And the student with the lowest result gets dropped.”
“Asked to leave,” Boysen corrected.
Caramelle ignored him, giving Lyra a fake-sugar smile. “Of course, they also give an award each of three terms to the student with the top result. The —”
“Stellar Enchantment Pin,” Lyra rushed to say, relieved to find something she did know. “To wear on your chef’s hat.”
Caramelle smoothed her hair, as if already imagining a pin-laden hat atop the sleek coils. “Master Chiffon told me that today is very important. They choose six, but they’re also already getting a feel for the top three. He could usually predict who would be left at the end of the year, based on the results of this exam. He was rarely wrong.”
“But he was wrong sometimes,” Boysen countered. Then he turned to Lyra with a grin. “My dad says that’s the great thing about baking. Even after years, you can still be surprised. Always.”
That was when Ginger, the soon-to-be flour-ghost, arrived and was followed shortly by a boy who honestly looked like he might lose his breakfast any moment, along with everything else he’d ever eaten. Boysen and Lyra moved as one to comfort him. By the time they had learned his name was Mac (short for Macaron) and gotten him at least relatively stable, the rest of the candidates had trickled in. The gates opened just a few minutes after…
—
Back in the silent tension of the present, a movement in the corner of Lyra’s eye broke her reverie. She blinked, realizing she’d been staring unfocusedly in Caramelle’s direction for a while. If Caramelle had noticed, she gave no sign. She simply kept sitting on her stool, motionless and utterly poised, waiting for the judges to come and examine her truly gorgeous culinary creation.
She picked that work-station on purpose, Lyra realized. She knew they’d come to it last. Guess she wants to make sure they end on a high point.
The movement in the corner of her eye continued. Lyra turned to the work-station behind hers, and then had to stifle a laugh. Boysen was trying to get her attention. He was waving one of his towels discreetly below the level of the counter, so that only a bit of white flashed occasionally in view of the rest of the room. As soon as he caught Lyra’s eye, he grinned. He then proceeded to wrap the towel around his own neck and pretend to strangle himself.
Lyra was so fully occupied trying not to laugh that she didn’t notice the three figures approaching her work-station. A gentle cough from behind made her turn around.
She froze.
There, standing by the end of her counter, were the three most famous magical bakers in the country. She had plenty of time during her long wait to remember their names and positions.
Professor Praline Puff, Headmistress of Texture.
Professor Lavender Honeycomb, Headmistress of Flavor.
Professor Basil Genoise, Headmaster of Presentation.
They each gave her a kind smile and cordial bow, which she numbly returned. Then they all bent over her recipe scroll to learn what to expect when they sampled her cake.
Lyra’s judging had begun.