Page 4 of The Rake and the Cake

“Hopefully. But even if she’s not interested in that, there’s something about her. She’s so unlike anyone we know.” In particular their rich, pampered, and patently silly family. Including Brook herself.

Papa said, “Well, perhaps she’ll do for a long engagement, if nothing else.”

“Perhaps.” Brook would find a way… assuming Aisling was the least bit interested. She just needed a foot in the door to work her charm, generally speaking. “Thanks, Papa.”

How lovely to have a co-conspirator in the family, for once.

Chapter 2: Aisling

“And how’s your little oven, my songbird?” Dad asked.

Aisling winced. Did he have to make it sound so patronizing? Standing here among her family’s latest model steam engine and all its requisite parts, Aisling felt her technical inferiority keenly enough, thank you very much.

“It’s a great oven, Dad.” Darra, Aisling’s older sibling by two decades, came to her with their arms open.

She rolled her eyes but hugged them, planting her face briefly in their shoulder. Darra smelled of grease and the sharp tang of copper. Not only was Darra taller, like their father, but they’d also followed in the family footsteps; they were an engineer. An engineer with a very pretty wife about to give birth.

Mum looked up from the contraption on which she was working. She flipped up two magnifying lenses hovering over her right eye, leaving her looking at Aisling through her regular spectacles. “There you are! We wondered if we’d see you!”

“I brought some bread,” she said, taking the burlap sack from her tail and into one hand.

Darra chuckled but Mum couldn’t help but look askance at the extra limb. Aisling was aware that this was not because she minded, but because she’d offered to build Aisling a mechanical limb from automaton tech. Aisling had demurred, opting for body modification from a pioneering anatomancer, the unmistakable Laurel Lushroot. Mum had never quite forgiven her for that.

Tails didn’t need regular maintenance and repairs beyond what Aisling’s body already required. Mechanized prosthetics, while often stronger, did. At least, the kind Mum could build, since no one in the family had a lick of magic.

“Oh, good, I’m starved.” Dad accepted the bag with no more talk of the “little” oven that’d baked them.

“Did you bring the mushroom one I like?” Darra asked.

“Of course. I assumed you’d be here by now,” she assured them.

They dug into the bag, passing out favorites to everyone.

“Where’s Minala?” Aisling wondered.

“She’s too uncomfortable to travel. She’s having twins, did I tell you?” Darra grinned.

“Well… congratulations,” Aisling fumbled.

Apparently, that was the correct response, because Darra looked chuffed as they bit into their mushroom fougasse. “Mmm, amazing. How do you do it?”

“My silly little oven, of course,” she couldn’t help responding.

Mum set her Copperford pie on the sideboard, flicked her magnifying lenses back into place, and went back to work. She looked like an automaton, with that thing on. “Smells lovely, Aisling.”

Aisling smiled, though she wasn’t looking up to see it.

“You entering your little oven” –Darra said the phrase ironically, at least—“into the Innovation Awards?"

It was the only thing that could convince the family to leave the sanctity of their Copperford workshop and make the trek north to the Everend Market: The Innovation Awards. The midsummer market was famous for its competitive spirit as well as its amorous one, especially among the engineers and tinkerers of Gearwick.

“I am.” And it’ll beat your silly little engine. And then you’ll all stop patronizing me.

“Best of luck! This really is delicious, Ash. Don’t worry,” Darra said, mouth full of herbed mushrooms and bread. “You’ll get a stall inside the market some year soon. They couldn’t keep you out, with this bread.”

She sighed. “I have a stall inside the market now.”

“You do?” Dad asked, his cheeks full of pie.