Page 121 of Enchanted Kingdom
“Tiny!” Maurice exclaimed. “You’ve done it again.”
It was the day Owen and I were supposed to have gone to Nerede. But we couldn’t go. I was doing my best to still get out of my room for most of the day, to not mope the day away. Owen and I left food for our friend, and then I made him walk me over to the lake to see if there was any change.
There wasn’t.
That evening, I decided I wanted to bake some cookies, so Owen had brought me down to the kitchens. I ended up helping with the bread for the dinner meal for the royal family and then made cookies afterward. I only made a half batch, since it was just Owen and I, but Maurice and Owen were quickly making all the cookies disappear.
The fact that Maurice’s eyes were bugging out while he chewed made me laugh. “Thanks, chef.”
Owen let out a moan as he grabbed another warm cookie.
I smirked at him.
Around a mouthful of cookie he said, “These are amazing, Jorah.”
“I gathered that.”
“Teach me how,” Maurice demanded. “I wish to know the recipe.”
My eyebrows went up. “You wantmeto teachyou?”
He nodded aggressively. “Yes. Right now, if you’re willing.”
I handed him the clean bowl I had used for the dough and started directing him. “The base is really quite similar, and then what you put into them, be it peanut butter or candies or chocolate chunks, can fluctuate.”
“All of it,” Owen demanded. “I want them all.”
Maurice was slowly adding in the flour, when I stated from the stool next to Owen, “Not too much stirring. You can over stir the dough just as you would with kneading bread.”
From behind us, I heard Keir’s voice say, “She’s teaching Maurice how to bake now?”
Owen spun and shushed him loudly.
“What?” Keir asked.
Owen swatted the air toward him. “If you’d shut up already, there will be more cookies to eat. Let the woman work.”
I snorted a laugh. “If Maurice can bake as well as he cooks.”
Maurice scoffed. “If Tiny here is a good teacher.”
I wasn’t about to go down like that. “If Maurice can listen as well as he can jest.”
Maurice tipped his head back to laugh, the sound booming in the now mostly empty kitchen.
“Unbelievable.”
I spun, not knowing that Prince Krewan was also in the kitchen.
“Your Graces,” I greeted as I turned back toward Maurice.
Keir snickered as he kissed the back of my head and placed his arms on either side of the counter around me. “Could you say that any less enthusiastically?”
“Yes.”
Owen choked on a laugh in agreement.
Prince Krewan slid into the stool next to mine. “I just cannot decide, Jorah Demir, if you are feistily defiant, or defiantly feisty.”
