Page 7 of Shadow Lord

And he is right. There really is nothing to be concerned about.

Chapter 4

Contingency Cake

The street Felix and Dis live on has the sort of houses that come with actual names instead of numbers, tall and Victorian and slightly smug about it. By the time we reach their gate I can already hear raised voices coming from somewhere inside, which strikes me as an excellent sign for the evening ahead. High Priestess Magdalene always said raised voices meant people cared enough to argue properly, rather than the sad, quiet kind of household where nobody bothers anymore. I’ve never quite decided if that’s wisdom or just something she said to justify the shouting matches over compost rotation, but I’ve kept it anyway.

I knock. Nothing happens for a moment, the voices continuing, muffled and indignant. Then the door swings open to reveal Felix, apron reading KISS THE WITCH, flour on one cheekbone, looking like a man who’s already had a very long night despite the fact it’s barely seven.

“He’s ruined the technical bake,” he tells me, by way of greeting.

“Dis has?” I ask.

“Yes.” Felix sighs heavily. “Third attempt at a choux bun this month. He’s taking it very personally.”

“Is that a Bake Off thing?” I ask.

“Everything’s a Bake Off thing,” Felix says. “I live with a man who has opinions about batter.”

I follow him inside, past a hallway lined with framed botanical prints that are far too tasteful to be Felix’s doing, and into a kitchen currently under what can only be described as siege.

And there, at the counter, is Dis.

I’ve known him since I helped Felix carry a secondhand futon up two flights of stairs and found a shadow being three inches from the telly, glued to Loose Women with the focused intensity of a general planning a war. I remember clocking it properly that afternoon, those blue eyes, sharp and vivid, the exact blue you’d get if you captured a piece of the twilight sky. It doesn’t startle me anymore. Mostly now I just think, fondly, there’s another shadow. He’s standing there in an apron considerably more serious than Felix’s, sleeves rolled, flour dusted across forearms formed of slightly swirling shadows, glaring at a tray of collapsed pastry as though it’s personally wronged him.

Behind him, on the fridge, a printed spreadsheet has been pinned up with a magnet shaped like a strawberry. Columns for ingredients and bake times, and something labelled structural integrity, that I decide, wisely, not to ask about.

“They will not rise properly,” Dis informs the room, staring forlornly at the disaster in front of him. “I have followed the method exactly.”

“Maybe the method’s wrong,” I offer, in case it helps.

“The method is not wrong,” Dis says. “The method is from a Nadiya recipe. Nadiya does not publish incorrect methods.”

“Good point,” I say.

“It is not a point. It is a fact.” He puts the tray down with a decisiveness that suggests the choux buns’ fate has already been sealed. “I will attempt again next week. This week, I have made a lemon drizzle instead, as a contingency.”

The contingency, when he produces it from beneath a frosted glass dome like he’s unveiling a museum piece, is genuinely beautiful. It catches the kitchen light, precise little candied lemon curls arranged along the top.

“A lemon drizzle with a mirror glaze,” he says, setting it down with the reverence of a man presenting a crown jewel. “Felix says the last one looked like a crime scene. This one does not look like a crime scene.”

“The last one absolutely looked like a crime scene,” Felix says, deadpan.

“This is slander I will not dignify with further comment,” Dis says.

“See,” Felix says, to me now. “This is what I live with. A dignified shadow being with a contingency cake.”

I laugh, because it’s funny, and because Felix says something similar every single time, the way most people would complain about their boyfriend snoring, entirely unremarkable, entirely his normal.

“Contingency cake is preparation. I believe in preparation,” Dis says, with immense dignity, ignoring both of us.

I feel my shadow step closer, the familiar prickle down my spine, except here, in this kitchen, in this house, it doesn’t stay a prickle for long. He steps fully into himself in the doorway, solid and tall and entirely present, none of the careful folding down he does everywhere else in the world. I don’t think I’ll ever get properly used to it, watching him choose to take up real space, allowed to just exist here without shrinking for anyone’s comfort.

Dis glances up and inclines his head, one warrior to another, the two of them exchanging something wordless and old across the kitchen. “You came.”

The room goes very slightly quieter. I don’t think anyone else notices it, Felix already turning back to the oven, but I notice, the way I notice everything about him.

“I was told there would be cake,” he says.