A Dash of Magic: A Bliss Novel by Kathryn Littlewood

returned to her kitchen.
    Rose closed her eyes and focused on recalling the recipe. Balthazar’s calligraphy was so unique—so ornate, so perfect—that Rose found she could easily picture the recipe as he had written it, including the ingredients, the measurements, the temperatures, and the times.
    She “read” the ingredients out loud to herself. “White flour, eggs, vanilla, butter, lovers’ whispers.”
    Purdy wrapped her arms around Rose and squeezed. “Go get ’em, lovie.”
    Rose looked down at her little sister. “Wish me luck, Leigh.”
    Leigh ignored Rose. “The décor in here is dreadful,” she said, looking at the ceiling and sighing. “If a space is meant to be grand, it must at least attempt to employ the conventions of rococo. Where are the whimsical stucco stylings of the Wessobrunner School? Lily Le Fay prefers the Wessobrunner School.”
    “What is she talking about?” Rose asked.
    Purdy sighed. “Before we left home, I tried to whip up a batch of Scones of Simplification. Even though I knew they weren’t perfect, I fed her one this morning and it backfired. And now she’s fixated not only on Lily, but on art history as well.”
    Rose shook her head, wondering if she’d ever get her sweet little sister back.
    Jean-Pierre waddled from his floating cupcake carriage to the front of the stage and seized the microphone. “The time has come. You will have one hour in which to prepare your first dessert. You may keep track of time there!” Jean-Pierre pointed to the wall above the doors, where there hung a big black clock in the shape of a baking timer. “Ready. Set. Bake!”
    Purdy hurried off with Sage and Leigh to join Balthazar and Albert in the opera box, leaving Rose and Ty to swim—or sink—in cookie batter.
    Rose hurried to her ingredients and found a sack of flour and a tiny brown bottle of vanilla. She opened the red refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs and a stick of butter. She arranged her ingredients on the wooden chopping block in front of a mixing bowl and exhaled noisily. “Okay. Here goes. Ty, can you get the measuring spoons?” she said.
    But Ty was already too busy talking to the camera. He leaned casually against the chopping block with his arms crossed over his chest, flexing his biceps. Rose recognized the pose, another standard weapon in Ty’s arsenal of handsomeness—he called it “The Manly Man.”
    “There’s nothing harder than baking,” he crooned into the camera, running his fingers along the stiff red spikes on his forehead, “or more rewarding. I’ve sacrificed everything to be here. My spring break . . . everything. It makes dating difficult, of course, because I pretty much bake from the moment I wake up until the moment I take off my shirt at night and go to sleep. But I’d be willing to lay down my spatula for the right woman.” He winked into the camera as it drifted over to Rose.
    It was a curious sensation, being filmed. There was something about knowing you’re being watched—knowing that someone thinks you are interesting enough to record your face and actions and words for eternity—that was a little bit dizzying. It propelled Rose forward as she gathered the measuring cups and dumped two cups of flour into the bowl.
    “Whoa,” said Ty, pointing to Aunt Lily’s kitchen, where no less than seven cameras were capturing her every elegant move. “Why don’t we have that many cameras?”
    “It’s not about the cameras, Ty,” Rose said. “Just get the blue mason jar.”
    Ty retrieved the jar, opened it, and used a metal spoon to scoop up every last bit of grayed almond butter. He plopped all of it into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients.
    Rose stirred, and the batter turned bloodred.
    “Ah, red! The color of passion!” said Ty, winking again at the camera.
    As Rose continued to stir, the red dissolved into a gritty black. She stirred and stirred, and the mixture grew thick and gummy and heavy, until finally it