Passive (Volume 2) - ON HOLD

6-Anna

3rd of Ice Moon, 436 AC

Royal Palace, King's City

The royal kitchens that serviced the queen and her nobles were scorching hot, despite the bitter, winter weather outside. Six massive ovens lining the walls, and two hearths, once at either end of the cavernous room, contributed to making the temperature approximately the same as an Akaran summer–or, in other words, unbearable.

Anna Sea wiped her dripping brow with her stained apron and resumed kneading the dough for that day's bread. The massive clock by the kitchen door announced that it was not yet five in the morning, but, soon, the nobles would be waking up, beginning, as Anna had come to know, with the queen's brother, Declan Sea, and his ilk.

She may have only been serving in the kitchens for a fortnight, but, already, she had the nobles' routines down pat. She also knew that, any minute, the head cook, a formidable woman called Emerson (no one quite knew if it was her first or last name), would come in from planning the day's menu in her office to inspect all her workers.

Sure enough, as the clock's hands came to point at a quarter to five, Emerson stumped out of her office and over to the massive chalkboard, upon which she wrote out the menu for the dinner service in the Great Hall that evening.

Anna read through it and stifled a groan. Beef Wellington, soufflés, popovers, and an infinite amount of elaborate pastries. Tonight promised to be the most difficult meal yet.

"All right," Emerson called, dusting off her hands. "Tonight is Lady Maile's birthday, and the queen wants a big feast." Anna didn't know who Lady Maile was, except that she was one of the queen's three ladies-in-waiting. "Jessamine, you're in charge of the cake. Anna, you help her." Anna curtsied, noticing that one of the pastry chefs, a girl of about her age, curtsied too. "Finish making breakfast, then the two of you are excused from normal meal preparations." She went on assigning the day's jobs, and Anna resumed kneading and flowering the bread dough.

When it had been kneaded to Emerson's formidable standards, she turned it out into a bowl, covered it, and left it to rise. Jessamine had just put a tray of elaborate pastries into the oven, and the two girls wound up washing the flour from their hands at the same time.

The other girl, who, up close, Anna could see was a few years older than her, grinned and dried her hands, then moved on to making sure her red hair was tucked neatly under her cap. "I'm Jessa," she said kindly. "And you must be Anna?" When Anna nodded, Jessa kept on talking. "So, for tonight's cake, I'm a bit at a loss. See, Lady Maile is a Fairchild, but they're not exactly in favor at the moment, so I can't do the usual family colors and crest on the cake. And nobody really knows Lady Maile, so I don't know what else to do."

Anna shrugged, her cotton dress rippling at the shoulders. "Maybe," she said softly, her voice trembling a bit. She wasn't used to speaking up in the kitchens. Emerson frowned on it, especially since she was just a kitchen maid. "We could shape the cake like something? I've heard of cakes shaped like castles before."

Jessa grinned at her, her green eyes alight. "Oh, that's it!" she cried. "I've heard Lady Maile likes to spend time in the gardens that overlook the harbor. We could frost the cake in blue, make bridges and docks out of fondant, and sugar ships, and make a replica of the harbor. Anna, you're brilliant! Come on, let's run it past Emerson."

Ten minutes later, they had permission, and Jessa set to work sketching what the cake would look like as Anna chopped fruit for breakfast, at Emerson's orders. It wasn't as if she'd even been in the city long enough to remember the details of the harbor, anyway, so she kept her hands busy, following Emerson's instructions.