Klin’s hands shook so severely as he tried to pour wine from the bottle to a glass that Orenda snatched it from him and poured it herself.

“My fingers are flyin in there,” Sarya said, “But I don’t know if’in I can get all that down. I’m right worried I’m gonna miss somethin. They all scream and holler- you want all of it?”

“You’re the fastest scribe I have,” Orenda lamented to the kitchen and glanced out the window to look over the crew that was still diligently working to clear the rubble. Several people had been pulled out of the sizable gap that had been created and Orenda watched a human woman with silver hair apparently arguing with an earth elf holding a staff.

“They ain’t lyin,” Mary Sue mused, reading over the report the head of the merchant’s guild had been kind enough to provide, “but I’ll tell ya- I seen this comin. I told ya it was gonna be an adjustment.”

“They don’t adjust to nothin,” Klin muttered to the glass he had emptied and held out his hand so Orenda gave him back the bottle.

“I wonder what happened to the mages,” Orenda asked, still watching the rubble, still watching the doctor, Bunni Brigaddon, and the healers working on the people who had been saved.

“Oh, they’re dead,” Klin said, “Did I not tell ya’ that? I thought I told ya that. I… I ain’t smart. Ya gotta keep on me sometimes.”

“All of them are dead?” Orenda asked, “Klin, we need at least one of them to question.”

“I didn’t do it this time!” He begged, “They done that to themselves! They dropped the whole tower down on they heads! I thought them bunny people was supposed to keep that from happening!”

“Yeah, we might need to recruit some more folks, Rendy,” Mary Sue said, “On account’a- Sonny was doin rounds last night like he was supposed to, but we can’t feel magic. A mage coulda knowed they was in there way earlier than Sonny.”

“We have very few mages within our ranks,” Orenda said, “I… I’m not sure we have enough mages to perform surveillance every moment of the day. You know… I didn’t think it would be like this, truth be told. I didn’t think it would be constant assasination attempts and valid economic concerns.”

“Yeah, all leadership is,” Klin said as he drained the bottle into the glass he had, once again, emptied, “is constant bullshit. It’s just wakin up every day and gettin waylaid by bullshittery.”

“Be that as it may,” Orenda said, “such is life. This is the world, there is no other. Let me see that report.”

“You know what we need?” Mary Sue asked with the tone of someone asking a question solely to provide an answer, “We need us some kind’a… any kind of economic system built on labor, so like… any kind’a economic system, necessitates a lower working class to support it. I always thought the nobility was rich. If they ain’t, we’re gonna have to get some money together to send out to poorer areas like Seaweed and the Mountains a’ Death until they can figure out a way to stand on their own feet. I didn’t notice how much a’ this money was just bouncin back and forth.”

“Yes,” Orenda said, “I also assumed the empire was significantly more wealthy than it truly is. I didn’t realize that most of our seafood was imported from the Water Continent, most of our industrial manufacturing was done in the Fire Continent… Why don’t we do anything here? Why is it so much cheaper to buy these things than to make them?”

“We could make it more expensive,” Mary Sue said, “I mean… has anybody ever tried to mine in the Mountains of Death? Any big ol’ mountain chain like that oughta have minerals and ore and whatnot in it. Why are we buyin that? I mean, we could set up some government funded mining operations, get some folks workin in that area, and they’d have to spend the money they made there, right?”

“But none of the manufacturers will buy more expensive materials mined here,” Orenda said, “The dwarves in my homeland really know what they’re doing, we don’t. They don’t have start-up costs to recoup; we will. We can’t compete with them; they’ve been doing this for centuries.”

“But you know Kroathy real good,” Mary Sue said, “Couldn’t she send somebody over to show us what to do? I mean, I can dig to hell and back, far as that goes-”

“What the hell happened outside?” A man darted into the kitchen, instantly recognizable as one of the Brigaddons with his silver hair and eyes. “Also, second question- well, not a question, more of a comment really- no, wait, I guess it is a question-”

“Did you run here from the house?” Mary Sue asked.

“I wanted to show Rendy these new plans I got set up- I need a lotta copper wire. Y’all got like… a lotta wire? Like a whole lot of it? Or can you order some from Bubby and Ali? ‘Cause I need to get me like… a dinin’ table spool size amount a’ wire. Made outta copper. I need a shitton of it.”

“Xaxac darling,” Orenda said as she took in the red lines that spanned from the corners of his eyes to his silver irises, “When is the last time you slept?”

“I don’t need sleep,” he said, “I’m runnin’ on innovation!”

“And frost?” Orenda asked.

“And frost. And caffeine! No, but look at this,” he shoved Klin away from the table, reached into the bag on his hip and pulled out several folded up sheets of paper, which he began to spread out. “So this works; this straight up works; we done tried it and it works. What I’m gonna do is get me a central hub on our property near my lab, right? But also another hub in every province. Now we run the wire from hub to hub, probably underground- then from the hubs we run the wires out, like to houses and shit-”

“What does this do?” Orenda asked.

“Right!” He said as if he had forgotten something important, “You ever, when you was little, play that game with two cans and a string?”

“No,” Orenda and Klin said in unison.

“Oh, right, nobody had a childhood but us- thank god for good parents,” Xacac Brigaddon the Second said, and seemed as if he meant to continue, but was cut off by his sister.

“God damn,” she said in annoyance, “Junior, folks can hear you when you talk. You ain’t fit to be around nobody. Lock yourself up in that goddamn lab lose all common sense-”

“Sorry,” he interrupted, “but y’all know canned food is a thing, right? Like preserved food? Like they make cans outta tin an’ put food in um? Look- you know how strings make sound?”

“No?” Orenda said, but she was a bit impressed when Klin spoke in disagreement and seemed confused that he knew something she didn’t.

“Yeah,” he had said, and when Orenda continued to stare at him he amended, “I play the fiddle- can I have another bottle a’ wine?”

“You play the fiddle?” Sarya asked.

“I reckon,” Klin shrugged, “I mean, not good. I don’t… can’t write songs or nothin like you do but I can play a little bit.”

“You wanna get together some time?” She asked, “I reckon all of us oughta be tryin to spend more time with Rendy’s man.”

“I… uh…”

“Focus, people!” Junior proclaimed, “strings carry sound on accounta all sound is is vibration- but copper carries energy almost unchanged. So if’in I, we, insulate it real good I can get sound to carry even better than the talkbox, on accounta that peters out after a little bit if you ain’t got a real good pickup-”

“Please slow down,” Orenda begged, “What is a talkbox?”

“I gotta head back to the wagon,” Junior said, leaving everything laid out on the table, “I gotta go put somethin on the roof and run some wire! But think about it! I need you to sign that decree sayin I can dig up everybody’s land and get me just an absolute shitton of wire! And that it was my idea! Sign it!”

He ran from the kitchen in the direction of the dining room, and Orenda stared down at the plans he had laid out on the table. The schematic was labeled: Brigaddon Communications Systems: Quick as a Jackrabbit and showed a map of the entire continent. He had explained it well enough, going by the map of where he intended to place these hubs, but she wasn’t sure what it was all supposed to do.

“So about this econ report,” Mary Sue said just as the door opened and Anilla poked her head in.

“Rendy!” Anilla announced, “We think we’ve got everyone out! But… it’s… there’s bad news! I hate to give bad news!”

“What is it?” Orenda asked.

“There’s thirteen people dead!” Anilla said, “Ten of them weren’t supposed to be here, but three of them were people who worked for you!”

“Three casualties in a botched assassination attempt,” Orenda said, more to herself, to help process what she had just heard, than to anyone else, “We can’t… can’t keep doing this.”

“Them nobles hate us,” Klin said.

“Shut up, Klin!” Orenda snapped, “I know that! I know they hate me!”

“Not you,” Klin said to his empty glass, “not just you. Us. They hate us. They liked Xandra. Xandra give em money and power and we took it away. They thought they was safe… folks… get real mad when they realize the world wouldn’t never a safe place…”

“Shut up!” Orenda demanded, and she did not know that flames were springing from the place her heart had once been, did not know that her eyes were red, “I mean it! Do not speak to me! Do not open your mouth!”

“Yes, your majesty,” Klin set the glass on the table, fisted one hand in the small of his back and the other over the place his heart had once been, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”

Orenda would not be given advice on how to deal with anything from a genocidal warmonger who wouldn’t know real leadership skills if they bit him. Orenda would not take any sort of advice from a monster. But she could not say as much, because she was the only person in the room who knew that she was looking at the Emerald Knight.

“You need ta calm your ass down before you set the whole damn place on fire!” Mary Sue commanded, “Ya damn armor’s sprung up! Don’t holler at him! He’s right! If we don’t do somethin, this is just gonna keep happenin. They do hate us. It ain’t just you! We was all there, we all fought. We don’t know who’s loyal and who ain’t, and we need to find out! That shit’s important!”

Orenda took several deep, calming breaths.

I have no need of this armor, she thought loudly in an attempt to communicate with the god in her chest, stay down.

The fire burned out.

“We can’t compromise with them,” Orenda said, “We can’t give an inch.”

“Meet me in the middle says the unjust man,” Klin sang, and Orenda noticed his words were slurring.

“You take a step forward and he takes a step back,” Sarya joined in.

“Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.” They finished together.

“Well, we need some kind’a plan,” Mary Sue said with great practicality.

“We simply hold the course,” Orenda said, “The kingdom will adjust. We’re already moving gradually. Eventually the nobility will be nothing; they’re going to be replaced with elected leadership positions. Once they’ve become adjusted to the judges we stop giving them appointment power for lower positions. We do it so gradually that when the time comes to replace them they won’t know what hit them.”

“Your majesty,” Klin said in a voice barely above a whisper, “We need… not the nobility but… the people. We need the people to like us. I don’t know how to do that. Ain’t nobody ever liked me before.”

“Let’s… concentrate on one thing at a time,” Orenda demanded, “Anilla, figure out who has been slain in this heinous act and contact their family. Mary Sue, darling, if you would start writing out some notes for me to work into a speech that I can give to the press later-”

“I’d actually let Sarya do that,” Mary Sue said, “she’s got a way with words that I ain’t.”

“Sarya, love, could you-”

“I’ll write ya’ a helluva speech,” Sarya said, “But are we goin back to talk to them nobles or are we gonna cancel that?”

“I…” Orenda felt her body shaking and felt the heat pooling in her chest and wondered why. This had never happened before; she had never felt this overpowering, constant annoyance before, day in and day out, that built and built and built with no outlet. Orenda had never been a princess, so she had never been prepared to be a queen. The stone in her chest ached with a pulsating energy that threatened to burst free, and she ran Klin’s chant over and over in her head.

Stay down

Stay down

Stay down.

“Rendy?” Mary Sue asked.

“I CAN’T DEAL WITH ALL OF THIS!” Orenda shouted, turned, and marched to the cabinet, which she slammed opened.

“I’m gonna run down to the cellar, get some more wine,” Klin mumbled before rushing to do so.

“Rendy?” Anilla asked.

“Ani, darling,” Orenda said as she slammed things onto the counter: ginger, flour, sugar, “go and do as you were bid. Find out who has died and alert the family.”

“Um… ok,” Anilla said, “Are you sure? You look stressed.”

“I’m sure!” Orenda snapped and began to throw ingredients into a large bowl.

“What’cha doin there, Rendy?” Mary Sue asked.

“I’m making cookies,” Orenda explained, “I rather like cookies and I don’t need a fire. I can heat the oven magically.”

“Yeah, I still don’t think we got time for that,” Mary Sue said.

“You mightn’t have time for it,” Orenda laughed, “I’m immortal! I’ve all the time in the world!”

“A’ight then,” Mary Sue looked at Sarya, who shrugged, “Want me to tell them nobles not to come back?”

“Let’s speak of something else.” Orenda said as she worked, “Let’s... speak of printing presses and press releases. Is your father’s book ready to go to print?”

“Sure is,” Mary Sue replied, “I got it edited. I love my daddy but he couldn’t write to save his life. Still, I reckon it’ll be the first mass market print of anything wrote by a human in… ever.”

Orenda floured the counter and dumped the dough out onto it, thinking of a woman she had known in her childhood named Susan who had taught her to bake. She enjoyed the tactile feeling of the dough bending to her will under the pin; it wasn’t the perfect circle that Susan had made, but it was, as the saying went, good enough for government work. She wasn’t sure she had any cookie cutters, in fact, she hadn’t spent much time in her own kitchen, so she dusted her hands and turned the tap to rinse away the flour had collected there, thinking how nice it was to have a tap rather than a pump.

She was overly aware of the silence, but did not seem to register that it was her turn to speak. She wasn’t sure why the silence clung so thickly in the air as she hunted for a baking sheet and eventually found one.

Were there really no cookie cutters in the kitchen? In a castle? She was a queen, but she had no cookie cutters. Had she married Toli, she was sure she would have cookie cutters in that tiny ship’s galley. She was sure she would know where everything was.

The thought of the sea made her ill, and that made her realize that she may have already been ill. She became aware of the terrible headache that lingered behind her eyes as she rubbed shortening over the pan to grease it and eventually gave up on finding any cookie cutters, took Klin’s empty glass, turned it upside down, and cut the dough with the rim before peeling up the circles and placing them on the pan.

“Make due,” she said to herself, as she adjusted them pleasantly, “Make due and find solutions.”

She did not see the looks Mary Sue and Sarya exchanged as she shoved the pan into the oven; she had something to do now, so she placed her hand on the side of the large oven, too big for a single pan of cookies, and the medallion she wore around her neck, the rings she wore in her ears, and the stone that sat in the place her heart had once been began to glow as the room filled with the delicious scent of sugar and gingerbread.