32. The Best Baker

The Best Baker

Luella

“You should be a baker,” Mia says, grabbing the piece of crusty sourdough from my hand and taking a bite. It’s been a clipse since I left the Domus Aurea. A clipse of planning and plotting and wondering why Cassius let me go.

“I was eating that,” I say, rising to grab a new piece from the table. Mia sits in her favorite rocking chair in the common area of my domus. I return to the bench below the window so I can see the small pond behind my domus. “Besides, I have a job.”

“A job,” Mia laughs around the bread. “I guess you could call it that. You do something dangerous that you hate.” I don’t know that I hate all of it. There are parts I rather relish. And, does it matter if you’re called to it? Janus didn’t bless me so I could play chamaeleōn for myself.

“I could say the same about you,” I say, stuffing a piece of bread into my mouth.

“I don’t hate my job,” is Mia’s curt reply.

“Well, the dangerous part,” I amend.

“The difference is, I love it.” Mia takes another bite. “Oh, and I receive compensation.”

“I love parts of this, even if it’s not a job. And you know I don’t need the money.” My pater hadn’t been rich, quite the opposite, but I’d gotten enough from him. Between that and small amounts I’ve stolen from my praeda, I have plenty. Enough not to work and to pay Mia for all of my potions and poisons.

Mia raises her eyebrows. “Which part?”

“The part where your backroom is empty, for longer.” I watch a goldfinch hop along the edge of the pond, probably looking for bugs. Just like me.

Mia sighs. “I like that part, too.” I can feel the tension in her as she wrestles with something. She wants to say more.

“What is it?” I ask, turning to her when the goldfinch flies away.

“The Dominus is hosting a ball,” she says quietly. “To find a wife.”

“What about the Praetor?” I ask.

“What about him?” Mia’s brow furrows.

“Have they replaced him? Is there an uproar about it?” Maybe this is all a ruse because Cassius regrets letting me go. Does he think I’d come to the ball and he could arrest me?

Mia crosses her ankles. “They already replaced him with a Senator, and the Senator had a cousin who took his role. They’re saying he died of exertion.”

“No mention of his wife?”

“No.” Mia shakes her head. “They don’t like the Tisiphone rumor. It makes it seem like their behavior isn’t okay. No one from the republic will mention you and I bet your wedding papers were never filed.”

I look out the window. “So, a ball?”

“Taln and I have had a girl each night. All blonde. All terrified. A few even said he called them by your name.”

“Stones,” I say.

“Stones is right. He’s obsessed with Skylar. This ball? I think it’s him trying to find you or the perfect replacement.”

How do I maneuver him into picking me without looking exactly like Skylar? I don’t want him to be too suspicious. “All blue eyes?” I ask.

“No, after the first one eye color has been mixed. All floras, though.”

“I have to go.”

We're more aligned than ever, and Mia doesn't argue.

I reach for the colored stones in my pocket and close my eyes when I feel the cool surface. I concentrate hard on my brow bones, cheekbones, and nose. Shift the set of my eyes, my skin tone until I feel the familiarity of something I know to stay away from. My real face. I pull back, just a bit, and then open my eyes.

My blonde is more wheat than Skylar’s had been, and my eyes are a greenish blue instead of Skylar’s sapphire. I raise the cheekbones, but keep the pert nose. My freckles are gone, replaced by barely tanned skin. “How’s this?” I ask Mia.

Her eyes widen just a bit. “You look… beautiful. Like someone I used to know,” she says, voice soft, sad. I nod and finish transforming my body. It’s not painful, exactly, just uncomfortable. Like stretching sore muscles. I’ve done it more times than I can remember, drained my stones hundreds of times.

I wonder for the first time what will come after this, when I’ve finally reached the last name on my list. Him. Will I hunt monsters for the rest of my life, or will I really feel satisfied? Will I rest? Could I, knowing about Mia’s back room?

“I think I’d be a good baker,” I say, finally replying to Mia’s first thought.

Mia smiles, coming to sit beside me on the bench. She leans her head against my shoulder, and I rest mine against hers. We’re quiet, both lost in our own thoughts. Is she thinking about her husband, Agrippa? I’m thinking about mine. The vows and contracts and bodies.

The way I’ve been broken and formed, new each time, so that I’m never really me, except when I’m with her. My bread, my irritation, my sharp edges. I can only show them to Mia, and maybe to Janus.

When Mia breaks the silence, I try not to wince at her words, at the pleading in them.

“You’d be the best baker.”