For the first time in her baking career, Lyra was excited about an exam.
True, her baking career was remarkably short until this point, especially compared to her classmates. But as she stood in the exam hall, watching the early dawn light filter through the windows and waiting for the professors to arrive, Lyra was struck by how good she felt.
The year of trials leading up to her academy acceptance had been… well, a trial. Lyra loved the baking part, but baking in public rattled her nerves. Being judged in public was even worse. She remembered keenly the jangled state of her insides the last time she stood in this exam hall, waiting for the final entrance trial to begin.
But now?
Lyra glanced around at her friends. Ginger caught her eye and made a face. Mac gave her two thumbs up. Boysen just smiled, his whole face lighting up in one of his special Lyra-only grins.
They had made it through the first term. Together, they had survived and overcome everything the Royal Academy of Magical Baking could throw at them. Thanks to their support, Lyra could confidently say that she was the best baker she could currently be.
Lyra returned Boysen’s smile. How could anyone be sad or stressed when surrounded by such warmth?
As usual, the only one who worried her slightly was Caramelle. The ladies of Pestle had stayed up late with their final practice run. Lyra knew they were both exhausted, but they had ended the night in remarkably good spirits. The sense of congeniality and partnership seemed to fill the room; Lyra could still feel it in the air when she woke up that morning.
Caramelle, on the other hand, did not appear fueled or inspired. She perched on her stool, hands folded, posture and hair both savagely perfect. She had barely said a word to Lyra all morning. In fact, she didn’t seem able to look anyone in the eye.
Lyra could only imagine the pressure her ‘Meringue’ roommate was under for this first final exam. She ached to help her friend, to return the support given so generously the night before, but it was impossible with Caramelle in this closed-off state.
“Aspiring Bakers!”
The imperious voice of Professor Genoise cut across Lyra’s thoughts. She abandoned her attempts to catch Caramelle’s eye and turned to face the professors.
“You have your instructions,” Professor Puff called out. “Your final entrance exam cake, using only spells and techniques you have learned in class this term.”
Professor Honeycomb’s eyes were sparkling so brightly, Lyra could see them all the way across the room. “You have been practicing diligently,” the professor said warmly. “We are proud of your progress this week, and for the whole term.”
“Now let us see that progress in action.” Professor Genoise spread his hands. “Two hours on the clock, and… begin!”
Lyra’s hands moved faster than thought. The recipe was like a familiar tune, and her muscles sang it expertly, weaving through each step with effortless rhythm. That familiar rush of performance adrenaline coursed through her whole body, setting all her senses alight with the joy of knowing she could do this. She was good at this.
She, Lyra Treble, was an Aspiring Baker. She belonged at the Royal Academy of Magical Baking.
And this cake was going to prove it to everyone.
Step one was mixing the cake batter, which meant the Texture spell came first. Lyra was glad. She was feeling more confident than ever before about this particular baking discipline, but she still remembered a time when she had stumbled over the spell. It was good to know she could get it over with at the beginning.
All five members of the Whisk Whiz Review had chosen Master Chiffon’s Aeration Charm for the exam’s Texture component. This was largely due to Mac’s enthusiastic advocacy during their Monday night meeting. Eyes shining behind his glasses, he had recited the entirety of Caramelle’s speech from week one about this particular charm’s efficacy for cakes. Boysen, Lyra, and Ginger applauded raucously, and even Caramelle let her exam-week severity crack for a moment, giving Mac a rare smile that rendered him speechless for the remainder of the evening.
Lyra had contributed by reworking the tune she’d created for the spell, adapting it for each of her classmates. She even obliged by singing it during their first few practice rounds. Caramelle declined this offer, but with such grace and gratitude that Lyra couldn’t be offended. It made sense, after all. If any of them could truthfully claim not to need Texture help, it was the Meringue.
All the other Whizzes had been thrilled with the song. Boysen claimed Mac had even invented accompanying dance moves, a claim Mac denied so violently that Lyra felt sorry for him. So when his foot started tapping and wiggling during one of his musical practice rounds, she pretended not to notice.
The memory made Lyra smile as she stood in the exam hall, steeling herself to launch into an intermediate level of Master Chiffon’s Aeration Charm. Caramelle had worked with her tirelessly on the equations to work out pitch, tempo, and number of repetitions. It was a fairly short spell, but Lyra had to get through it exactly twenty-seven times, and at varying speeds for each stage to guide the magically powered beaters.
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Lyra had never accomplished this without singing the charm in her head. In fact, she was still unable to perform any Texture spell without any mental singing, a fact she was careful to hide from her roommate.
Whatever Professor Puff might say, Lyra knew Caramelle did not approve of such musical ‘tricks.’ The Meringue barely tolerated her classmates’ use of songs to learn the spells. Lyra didn’t want to rock the mostly peaceful boat of their relationship by admitting she still needed music to have even a hope of accomplishing those spells.
Lyra took a deep breath. Keeping her lips pressed tightly together, she began creaming butter and sugar together, kicking off round one of the charm’s jaunty tune in her head at the same exact moment. The song surged through her fingers into the handheld mixer, locking the beaters’ movements into a swift, steady rhythm and infusing every ingredient with an extra shot of airy lightness. Thirteen rounds later, she added the eggs and vanilla, slightly moderating her pace for the next six rounds.
Then came the trickiest part: setting the handheld mixer aside, she slowed the song down to a gentle lullaby, using a spatula to painstakingly fold in alternate additions of dry ingredients and buttermilk. Eight agonizing rounds later, she was rewarded with a wave of vivid blue light. It poured from her hands in one radiant wave, encompassing not only the batter, but the entire bowl. The glowing blue orb pulsed softly once — twice — three times, once for each cake layer. Then it shrank rapidly, disappearing into the silky smooth batter, as quiet and demure as Professor Puff herself.
Lyra allowed herself a single sigh of relief once the cakes were in the oven. The batter looked exactly as it had the previous night, except maybe even a tad fluffier and more glistening. She glanced around, wanting to give Caramelle a grateful smile, but her roommate’s auburn head was bent over her own batter.
Lyra sighed and turned her attention to frosting. No spells needed here. This was where the Flavor instinct was supposed to kick in, informing her if the flavors she wanted to combine were sufficiently balanced.
Shaking out the lingering tension in her shoulders, Lyra found herself singing “All Gather ’Round” under her breath as she measured out a small dose of dried boysenberry powder. The juicy, sweet, slightly tart berry paired so well with her vanilla cake that it was a natural addition for her Flavor combination. Boysen’s delight with her plan had been a lovely bonus. It was like she had unlocked a whole new category of private Boysen smiles to savor for the coming term.
Lyra whipped heavy cream until stiff peaks formed. Still singing in her head, she added vanilla, sugar, and the measured boysenberry powder. Then she beat cream cheese into airy heights, carefully folded in the boysenberry whipped cream, and sampled.
Not enough.
Her gut wasn’t whispering. It was singing, as loudly as the ‘All Gather Round’ song trilling through Lyra’s thoughts. She smiled, adding a few more pinches of boysenberry powder to the frosting.
TOO MUCH, complained her Flavor-attuned gut.
Lyra stifled a giggle. She whipped up some more heavy cream, adding just vanilla and plain sugar this time. Then she folded it into the frosting, a tiny scoop at a time, until she guessed the boysenberry had been sufficiently mellowed. She tried a tiny taste, and her gut broke into a chorus of delight.
Just right! Just right! Just right!
Lyra sighed happily. She could practically see the green light that would be dancing over the frosting if she had been performing a spell. Even better, she could almost hear Chef Flax’s delighted laugh, rolling underneath the chorus of instincts in her gut.
He and Bumble were going to love this cake. Sprinkle too.
By this time, the layers were ready to come out of the oven. Lyra set them in the magical drawer, specifically enchanted to cool cakes down at an even rate without collapsing them, and set about final preparations for assembly. This involved hand-painting a few dozen boysenberries with a shiny vanilla-based glaze. It was tedious, but when she arranged them on her intricately piped frosting, the effect would be marvelous.
The task slipped by merrily as Lyra hummed to herself, surrounded by the pleasant background noise of bakers hard at work. Everything was going well — very well. Better than any practice session that week. All that remained was decoration, and with Caramelle’s tip from Cardamom about the precision spell, Lyra could move quickly without fear of sloppiness.
She was practically dancing as she removed the perfectly cooled cakes from the drawer. Holding her hands over the cake and decorative materials, she mentally recited Madame Temper’s Chant of Precision, taking great care to implement the modified inflection and extra line repetition Cardamom had shared with Caramelle. Then, her heart singing, she began the fun, though nerve-wracking, process of assembly.
That was when everything started to go wrong.
Perhaps ‘wrong’ was an exaggeration. The frosting did go on the cake. The layers stacked nicely and showed no sign of caving. Piping did occur. Berries were arranged.
But no streams of purple light appeared to pull the decorative elements together. Everything felt slightly off, as though the cake was missing some key factor to draw all the separate parts into a cohesive whole. Some magical factor.
But that’s what the chant is supposed to do, Lyra thought desperately. Her fingers itched, strangely heavy without the light of successful magic, but she didn’t dare recite the chant again. Presentation spells were notoriously volatile when performed too many times.
Looking around, she saw that all her classmates were putting the final touches on their cakes. There was a definite glow to each finished product, a quiet brilliance that made Lyra’s senses sing. These cakes were beautiful examples of a simple Presentation spell executed to perfection.
Lyra looked back at her cake. It wasn’t ugly or messy by any means. The frosting was smooth and creamy. The piping was mostly neat. The glazed boysenberries were a pleasantly shiny addition to her original design of red and pink roses. The cake looked all right, actually, but it was definitely lacking that exquisite glow.
It looks like a bard made it, Lyra realized, her heart plummeting down to her shoes. An enthusiastic bard with no formal training in magical baking. A bard’s best effort, sure, but… just a bard.
Not a baker.
There was no time to change it. Even as Lyra reached for the piping bag, hoping vainly to add a bit more pizzazz, Professor Puff’s voice rang out calmly through the hall.
“Time is up, Aspiring Bakers. Please place your cake at the end of your counter.”
Without another word, the three professors moved as one to Mac’s counter and began their silent perusal of his cake.
The first term final exam judging had begun.