Cinnamon Rolls and Villainy

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

I f Ayc Waylonder wasn’t so damn good at making cinnamon rolls, he’s certain the Sovereign of the Everadyn fae would have slit his throat a decade ago. Well, that, and she believes that killing a divina will curse all seven clans of her people with three generations of bad luck. But considering the magical gift the divine supposedly gave him seems rather useless, Ayc believes it’s mostly just the cinnamon roll thing.

Even now, the Sovereign pins him with a look that declares that, if Ayc makes one wrong move, then curses and cinnamon rolls can be damned. She’ll end him once and for all, right in front of the dozens gathered in Wyntra Castle’s great hall.

“As I said,” she begins. She’s allowed her front canines to sharpen, a unique Everadyn fae ability. The points snap close to Ayc’s ear as he slides the platter of freshly baked rolls beside her plate at the head table. “Give my people a good show and don’t embarrass me. ”

The command lands like oil on fire beneath his skin. The aching blaze that lives there flares then fades back to a simmer.

“Do not set anything on fire again,” the Sovereign hisses, “or I swear…”

The Sovereign’s sharp fingernails dig into her throne’s armrests. Her metallic red nail polish gleams against the dark metal of the throne, which is carved into the shape of a gryphon, its wings forming the high back. Ayc retreats a step, out of her reach. Her claws are just as deadly as the gryphon's. Ayc bears the faint white scars on his throat and chin as a testament. He’s lucky. She’s punished others with far worse scars.

“Yris,” Fennix, her righthand man, the First of her Five, warns from his spot standing at her shoulder. Even with her sitting, Fennix, with his thick, blond beard and ruddy cheeks, only stands a head taller than Yris. More than once, Ayc has heard Fennix boast that his great-grandfather was a dwarf and credit this ancestry with shaping him to be a profoundly gifted warrior. Such statements were generally swiftly silenced by Yris’s threats to remove him of his beard—and occasionally his tongue—if Fennix doesn’t cease boring them.

Fennix is not unique in his heritage. Quite commonly, Everadyn fae have rich and blended ancestry. The crowd gathered around the tables behind Ayc are a rainbow of beauty with skin and hair in every imaginable shade, from the white of snow to the brown of the Elodie Forest to the black of midnight. A few are the rarer shades of pink, green or blue. They're all so vastly different, and it doesn’t matter to most of them .

Everadyn is Everadyn, no matter how thin the blood. All of them are beautiful in their own way.

Ayc supposes, if he didn’t consider Yris the villain of his own life story, he might have found her beautiful, too. She wears her hair, as she always does, pulled back in a severe updo that displays the golden circlet on her forehead. Her dark velvet gown contrasts her icy skin tone. She is, objectively, beautiful. The same way Ayc imagines sirens and dragons are beautiful, though he’s never seen one outside of books. Ageless and breathtaking and, most importantly, deadly.

“Take a breath and smile, my lady,” Fennix reminds the Sovereign. “Regent Amos is looking your way.”

He nods discreetly at a male sitting at a nearby table. Pale as snow, the male uses the long sleeve of his sky-blue tunic to shine an already sparkling spoon—all so he can pretend he is not looking at the Sovereign.

Yris paints on a smile like a skilled artist, but her frigid tone doesn’t change. “Do you understand me?”

Her eyes flash momentarily from green to silver. That silver gaze, the one all Everadyn fae’s eyes shift to when they are angry, still sends a shiver down Ayc’s spine even after all these years living in the fae court.

Ayc dons a broad smile, the one he’s learned to shield himself with whenever he feels afraid. He sweeps a bow. “Of course, my lady. I live to make you happy.” Reckless fool that he is, he barely hides the sarcasm in his voice. He swiftly straightens and whirls to face the great hall. “My wonderful fae!”

His booming voice echoes against the stone pillars and into the domed roof. High above his head, sunlight filters through stained-glass windows. Each window bears a symbol of an Everadyn clan: a sun for the Lux Aester, a moon for the Noxumbra, three stars for the Lycendi, a rose for Bromalis, an ocean wave for the Sal Maris, a flame for the Audori, and a tree for the Totus Omni. It casts the room into a multitude of colors, shining on the faces of the crowd as they turn toward Ayc.

The children and a few adults utter a cheer, knowing what's to come. Yris’s court magician has come to give his show.

Ayc spreads his arms wide. “Happy Sovereign’s Day!”

Ayc has dressed grandly for the occasion, trading his usual flour-dappled apron and batter-smeared shirt for a brown vest with a loose, long-sleeved white shirt beneath. A satin ribbon holds back his shoulder-length brown hair, and gold rings bedeck the lobes and helix of his ears. He has decorated every finger with rings and black fingernail paint. His leather bracelets are the only accessories that do not gleam. The inch-wide, braided leather is worn and the metal square at their buckles is long faded. He’s worn them since childhood.

“I’m thrilled to see so many come to celebrate the fiftieth year of our Sovereign’s reign,” Ayc continues, as he saunters toward the crowd. “Though I think we all can agree she doesn’t look a day past her fifth.”

Laughter ripples through the crowd. Yris’s gaze stabs at his back. Ayc doesn’t dare look behind him. Instead, he searches the hall and finds what he’s seeking for at the base of the nearest pillar where neither the candlelight nor the sunlight reaches. Shadow. All that Ayc needs to perform his best trick.

Ayc approaches it with wide, sweeping strides, attempting to mimic the fae grace his tall human frame can’t quite manage. Despite the pain tonic Ayc stole from Xylie’s shelves and drank down this morning, the stiffness in his back reminds him of its presence with every step. Sometimes, the pain is a whisper, and sometimes, it’s a scream, but it’s never fully gone. Distractions, like this, help.

“Let’s give the Sovereign a round of applause!” Ayc claps his hands together once. Golden sparks fly from his fingertips.

The children cheer, but the adults only applaud politely. For a people used to the wonders of magic, such a display is lackluster. Many divina are blessed with profound gifts. Telepathy. Shapeshifting. Dreaming of the future. Ayc’s abilities are nothing of the sort. He long ago proved to Yris that his only use—besides his baking skills—is to entertain.

“Do you want to hear a joke?” Ayc asks, still moving through the crowd.

“Yes!” one brave child yells from a nearby table. He wears the traditional tunic of the Noxumbra, a material that flows like liquid night.

“Good!” Ayc calls back, as he discreetly undoes the clasps of his leather bracelets. “Because I’m going to tell you one, anyway. Why should you never insult a dragon?” He slips the bracelets into the pocket of his trousers, trading it for a pinch of the powder hidden within. “Because they get all fired up!”

Ayc snaps his fingers, and the powder ignites. Purple flames shoot from his palm. The Noxumbra child shrieks in delight. Someone at the table nearest Ayc whistles, and he turns toward them.

A pair of fae both gift him with flirtatious smiles, so alike that they must surely be twins. They both wear rouge across their sharp, pale cheekbones, blue crystals in their eyelashes, and a crown of flowers weaved within their hair. Their entire group at the table is dressed in the rich, flower-embroidered textiles of the Bromalis: tunics that blend pinks, reds, and oranges until it resembles a setting sun.

Ayc gives the twins a wink and swirls his hands to show the crowd his palms are empty. Then he closes his hand into a fist, stretches it forward, and opens his fingers once more. A white rose lies on his palm.

“For you, my love.” Ayc offers the rose to the first fae, whose hair is shorn close to their head.

They blush as they accept the offer. Ayc repeats the gestures and offers a second rose to their twin, whose own hair cascades in ringlets of gold down their back. They meet Ayc’s eyes boldly and reach for it, just as Ayc slides a foot backward into the shadow.

And he disappears.

The crowd sucks in a breath, including those who have seen the court magician perform before. This is the only truly astonishing part of Ayc’s performances. Everyone searches the room, but even their fae eyesight can't see him.

“Now you see me,” a voice says from above. The crowd tilts back their heads to find Ayc standing in the shadowed rafters far above. He winks at them. “And now you don’t.”

He vanishes again.

The crowd murmur and turn in their seats, until Ayc reappears again at the other side of the great hall, closer to the large, carved doors at the main entrance. They all applaud now, and Ayc grins triumphantly as the sound thunders through the hall.

Ayc fingers the powder in his hand, preparing for one last trick. “You have been a wonderful audience… ”

The great hall door creaks open. And she enters.

Ayc’s breath freezes on his lips. She has slipped in so quietly he doesn’t think anyone else has noticed. The long, tight spirals of her thick hair look nearly violet as it descends her back, clipped back above her pointed ears—the way she’s worn it for years. Dark, scale-like armor covers her black shirt and breeches that hug every inch of her wide, strong warrior’s body, leaving little of her brown skin exposed. As she strides into the hall, her eyes search everything, before locking onto him. She stills. He can’t see her eyes from here, but he has never forgotten them. He doesn't know what mystical creature runs far back in her blood, but he knows her eyes shift through dozens of shades, from brown to blue to green and back again.

Loraphne, the Sovereign's daughter, has returned.

How long has it been since he last saw her? It’s been four years since she first left for the Adamant, the school for elite warriors. Four years since her presence stopped being an everyday torment. She’s only been back a handful of times since, her visits as brief and wretched as a ghostly haunting.

“You’re on fire,” whispers a small child, sitting at a table close to Ayc.

Ayc jerks his attention back and flashes a smile. “Thank you!”

Then he feels the bite of heat against his wrist. A small flame nips at the edge of his sleeve.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thinks, as he waves his arm in overly-feigned panic, like he meant for this to happen. Laughter erupts as he seeks a way out. His throat tightens, like a hand has clamped around it. He was told not to set things on fire, and he knows the consequences of disobedience .

Some fae in the crowd begin to mutter, not buying his smile.

Someone rises from a nearby table, a pitcher in one hand and a cane in the other. They take two limping steps toward Ayc and then thrust the contents of the pitcher toward Ayc. The water splashes over his face and onto his sleeve. The flame extinguishes. The crowd hollers with laughter once more.

When Ayc’s vision clears, he’s met with a familiar scowl.

Peregrin’s stormy gray eyes match the paleness of their ashen skin and the blond hair they wear shaved at the sides and only slightly longer on top. Dark green veins weave across their skin, snaking from the collar of their plain tunic and traveling up their neck. Like their cane, those veins are a reminder of the cursed blade they took in their leg two decades ago. Before that blade, Peregrin was a commander in Everadyn’s aerial army, but now they are a fighting instructor at the Wyntra school who sometimes take pity on outcasts like Ayc.

“Thanks, Peregrin,” Ayc mouths. The tautness on his neck eases, allowing him to breathe.

Peregrin only grunts and returns to their seat.

“See, all is well,” Ayc says to the crowd, rolling back his scorched sleeve to show the unblemished flesh beneath. He pointedly doesn’t look in the direction of the Sovereign or her daughter as he slips his hand into his pocket for more powder. “Thank you, and good day!”

He tosses the powder at his feet and disappears in a cloud of smoke and flames. When he reappears again, he’s in the hallway outside the side entrance to the great hall, his heart hammering. He leans against the wall, slips his leather bracelets back on his wrists, and hopes, as he always does, that his performance is enough.

Ayc’s divina gift is a talent that has spared his life for the last ten years. It’s the only reason he’s here, a baker and an entertainer who serves the fae Sovereign, and not dead or suffering like the rest of his people in his homeland of Aluina.

And if the Sovereign ever discovered it’s all a lie, nothing and no one could save him.

TEN YEARS AGO

It was the best batch of cinnamon rolls he’d ever made.

He remembers it clearly, even now: the artful swirl on the tops of the buns, the perfect shade of brown on the edge, and the way the smell of cinnamon permeated the air as he pulled the pan from the oven in Creed Castle’s apothecary. He remembers thinking that his mother, who died only eighteen months prior, would have been proud. And he remembers how he nearly dropped the pan when a scream erupted from the hallway.

His entire body jerked, but he didn’t have time to fully register the noise before the door to the apothecary slammed open and collided with the wall inside. Bottles of powders, elixirs, and dried plants trembled on the shelves. Ayc’s hands, still in the oven mitts he’d pulled over his leather cuffs, clutched the pan of rolls tighter as a cloaked figure swept in.

The first thing he noticed were her eyes, burning bright like silver flame .

The second thing he noticed was that she was young, a girl no older than his own twelve years.

The third thing he noticed were the swords she carried in each hand, slender and slightly curved, their hilts a gleaming black. She extended one toward his chest.

“Is there anyone else here?” she growled, her lips drawing back to reveal canines far sharper than his own.

She was fae.

Ayc’s heart stood still. His mother had always told him he had no reason to fear the fae—at least, most of the fae. The Everadyn fae, with their silver eyes and seven clans, who lived south across the Bellum Sea, were allies to Aluina. The Tenebra fae, with their glowing green eyes and their winged horses, happily shared their island in the warm Southernmost Sea with humans. It was only the third race of fae, the Drakr, who meant humans any harm, but they were kept out of Aluina by wards, powered by ancient magic.

But with this strange fae girl before Ayc and a sword pointed toward his chest, his mother’s advice meant nothing. Ayc trembled so hard he couldn’t remember how to move his mouth. He could only stare at the fae girl, taking in the dark curls peeking out of her hood, her brown cheeks, and the strong chin that lifted high as though she balanced a crown on her head.

Someone so dangerous shouldn’t be so beautiful, he thought.

“Did you hear me?” she snapped. “Is anyone else in here?”

She kept the sword trained on his chest and glanced around. Behind her, a flood of cloaked figures rushed past the open door. More screams ripped through the air. Ayc trembled harder .

“Where’s the master of this apothecary?” the girl asked.

Finally, he found words, though he couldn’t make his voice louder than a whisper, “He… he went to deliver her majesty’s medicine.”

The silver faded from her eyes, revealing a royal blue that seemed just as unnatural. “Very well. Let’s go.”

Go? How was he supposed to convince his feet to move?

When he didn’t budge, she sheathed one sword, seized his arm, and shoved him into the hallway with the pan of cinnamon rolls still in his hands. She pressed her sword toward his back, only a whisper away. With the smallest pressure, the slightest hesitation, it would pierce his clothes, his skin… his spinal cord.

Ayc stumbled down the hall of Creed Castle, passing by the exquisite tapestries and the handful of torches that cast dim light down the corridor. Around the corner, two familiar courtiers clung to each other, as two tall, cloaked fae barked at them to hurry.

“Follow them,” the fae girl commanded.

His mind scrambled as he stumbled forward. Why were the fae here? What should he do? He needed to do… something .

“Do y-you, uh, like j-jokes?” he stammered, not quite sure why.

“What?” she snarled.

“J-jokes. Like, what happens if a witch has twins?”

She didn’t answer.

“You can’t tell which is witch.”

The girl didn’t laugh, didn’t acknowledge he said anything at all. Ayc’s mother used to laugh so hard at that joke that she’d have to wipe away a tear. His own eyes pricked with moisture at the memory. It’d been a while since he cried over her, but at that moment, he missed his mother so much it felt like she'd died yesterday.

The women ahead of him started wailing; the fae shoved them around the corner, roaring at them to be quiet. At the end of the hall, a small staircase led to a massive red door Ayc immediately recognized. They were headed to the throne room.

“What—” Ayc tried again, desperately trying to distract from the pounding of his heart. “What about the one?—”

“Shut up!” The girl shoved him up the stairs and through the door.

In the throne room, residents of the castle—all people whose faces Ayc knew, but whose names he didn’t—were lined up in rows, paired off with cloaked figures who must have been more fae. Past them, he glimpsed the stage that held the throne… and the bodies.

A sword pierced the chest of Aluina’s king and pinned him to his throne, his eyes wide and mouth agape, frozen in an eternal look of terror. His queen laid at the foot of her own throne, as though she’d been cut down as she attempted to run. Her blood cascaded down the steps of the thrones’ dais, to where her son and his wife—the crown prince and princess—had fallen together. Their hands interlaced in a pool of crimson. A dozen bodies of guards, whose last act was a vain attempt to protect the royal family, sprawled across the floor of the throne room, some drenched in blood and some twisted in unnatural positions that could only be caused by sorcery.

Ayc’s mouth opened in a silent scream. Despite living in the castle, he'd never met the king and queen, but the crown prince had spoken to Ayc a couple of times. The simple act always seemed far too kind, considering Ayc was nothing more than a simple, peasant boy from the northwest province of Aluina.

The fae girl shoved Ayc forward and steered him into line with the others. “Don’t move.”

Ayc couldn’t if he’d wanted. It took all his will to remain upright and to hold on to the damn pan of cinnamon rolls. The steam still wafted off them. The smell of cinnamon burned in his nostrils, entwined with the metallic scent of blood.

Two fae marched before the line of prisoners. A short male with pallid skin and a thick beard held a paper and a quill. The other was a woman who reminded him of ice: pale and cold and eyes that froze him through as they glanced over him. Later, Ayc would learn that this was Sovereign Yris and her First, Fennix, but for now, he only instinctively knew he should fear them, the way a small child knew to fear the dark.

They spoke in the Everadyn language, not his own tongue of Aluinic like the fae girl had been speaking. But Ayc’s mother had insisted he learn from the time he was little. Later, Evander, the master of the apothecary, continued Ayc’s lessons to ensure he remained fluent.

“That should be all of them, my lady,” Fennix said. “I counted twice.”

Yris glanced over the line of whimpering, pleading humans. Her eyes flashed silver. “Very well.”

Her head snapped toward Ayc. His knees nearly buckled, and only the girl’s hand on his arm kept him upright.

“Loraphne,” Yris said. It was only one word, heavy with command.

“Yes, Mother.” The girl—Loraphne—turned to face Ayc. She lifted her wicked blade to his throat .

The human’s whimpers grew into shrieks, but Ayc couldn’t hear them as terror rippled through his every nerve.

The fae were going to kill him.

They were going to kill all of them.

“Please,” Ayc begged the girl, his voice cracking. “Don’t do this.”

Loraphne’s hand shook. Her eyes bled out into a dull grey, like she was trying to make them silver, to show her rage, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

His pleading turned to sobs, his cheeks hot with tears. “P-please don’t do this.”

Her fingers readjusted on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes shimmered like diamonds with tears she didn’t dare let fall.

“Stop!” the man beside Ayc yelled in the Everadyn language. “He’s divina! He’s divina! ”

The girl jumped and pulled her blade back. Everything stopped. The sobbing. Ayc’s trembling. Even the Sovereign froze.

In his fear, Ayc hadn’t noticed that Evander, his master, stood next to him. The fae holding Evander captive clamped a gloved hand over his mouth.

“Let him speak,” the Sovereign commanded.

The fae dropped his hand.

She moved toward Evander—toward Ayc—in a slow prowl. Ayc’s tremble returned. “What did you say?” she demanded of Evander, switching to flawless Aluinic.

Evander did not flinch. The years had made his pale skin worn and his body bony and slender, but he seemed powerful as he dared to meet Yris's eyes. “The boy is divina. Touched by the divine. If you kill him, you will bring a curse upon your people. ”

Ayc’s master had told him about the divina once. They weren't the sorcerers who were born with an innate ability to cast spells and shape magical forces to their will. Nor were divina the alchemists who used science to harness magic, or even the elementals who controlled a single element. Instead, divina were said to be touched by the divine the fae believed in, given a single unique gift.

But Ayc didn't understand why Evander said he was divina… because he was nothing more than an ordinary boy.

“How do you know those words?” the Sovereign asked Evander.

Evander lifted his chin proudly. “My great-grandfather was a Tenebra fae. He taught me well.”

Yris shook her head. “Divina, like all magical affinity, is rare in humans.”

Down the line, a woman whimpered. A nearby fae silenced her with a slap. Ayc winced at the sound of flesh against flesh, but Evander remained steady. “Rare, but no less powerful.”

Yris stared at the apothecary, deadly still, for a moment that felt like an eternity. Then she turned her silver eyes upon Ayc. With a suddenness that took Ayc’s breath way, she was before him. Loraphne stepped aside.

Yris’s hand seized Ayc’s chin, her sharp nails pricking at the tender flesh of his throat. A bead of blood raced toward the hollow of his throat. “Tell me, child, what is your ability?”

Ayc’s mouth parted, but no words came out. Lie. He needed to lie, but what could he tell her? His heart pounded so hard he heard it like a scream in his ears.

“He has not demonstrated it yet,” Evander said. “I knew his mother, and I took him in after she died. I have tried to teach to him, but he’s young and a human. It may take time. But he has the mark.” He nodded his chin toward Ayc. “On his arm. Show her, Ayc.”

Cool sweat beaded on Ayc’s back. Before he could make himself move, the Sovereign’s claws yanked back his sleeve. He clutched his pan to keep from dropping it, not sure why, except he needed to grasp onto something. There, on his forearm just past his bracelet, was a single pink mark. His mother had told him it was an old burn he’d gotten from the oven rack when he was little. But it also looked like… a thumbprint.

Touched by the divine.

Yris’s eyes flashed again. “Did you bake those?”

“W-what?” Ayc stammered.

Yris reached into his pan and tore off a chunk of cinnamon roll. She took a small bite, and her eyes fluttered closed for a moment. She turned away and walked back toward Fennix. Ayc could breathe again… if only a little.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Fennix said, loud enough that Ayc could hear, surely not thinking he understood the fae language. “But we can't let the boy live. Lahlis said everyone in this castle. That was the deal. The Drakr lord is not one to trifle with.”

Ayc’s knees nearly buckled, as though the ground had been ripped from beneath him. No, it can’t be. Surely, he’d heard them wrong. The Everadyn couldn’t be here because the Drakr fae asked them. The Everadyn were Aluina’s allies; they protected them from the Drakr—the monsters who haunted Ayc’s dreams with their glowing red eyes, and mouth full of fangs, and pale skin so hard, only a tungsten blade could pierce it. Centuries ago, the Drakr arrived from some distant land on ships and, according to legends, the backs of dragons. They attempted to conquer every land they saw. Despite years of bloody war, Everadyn and Tenebra gave not an inch of their land, but the Drakr stole what had once been the eastern coast of Aluina, everything past the Untamed Mountains. The only thing that stopped them from taking everything Aluina had was the Everadyn fae. Their sorcerers and alchemists helped Aluina build wards to keep out anyone who was not human or a friend to the humans.

But now… now, something had changed. The Drakr and Everadyn had made a deal. The death of everyone in the castle for… well, Ayc couldn’t imagine what could be worth a price so high.

“Choose wisely,” said a fae from the crowd, one completely cloaked, whose voice seemed to echo, like two voices overlaid. From the shadows of her hood, he glimpses only blood red lips and silver eyes. Ayc would later learn that this was the Sovereign’s Second, Onanna, a powerful sorcerer. The rest of the Sovereign’s Five were also in the crowd that day, too, but he wouldn’t know that until much later. “The divine will repay the boy’s death.”

“But Lahlis—” Fennix began to protest, but Onanna interrupted.

“He did not choose his words as carefully as he should have.”

Yris chewed thoughtfully on the cinnamon roll and licked her fingers clean. The entire room held its breath, no one daring to speak, though mercy was only available for Ayc.

“Everyone but the boy,” Yris said at last.

Fennix nodded his head. “As you will it, my lady.”

“Loraphne,” Yris said, looking back to her daughter, “the old man instead. And then watch the boy. If he flinches, make him bleed for it.”

Loraphne nodded, adjusted her grip on the blade, and stepped toward Evander. The apothecary met Ayc’s eyes as the girl lifted her blade to his throat. Her hand was a little steadier this time, but only a little. Her eyes were not silver, but gray.

Ayc wanted to scream, to beg, for the life of this man who was all he still had in the world, who had taken him in after his mother died, who had lied to spare his life. But he said nothing.

“Never forget where you come from, Ayc,” Evander whispered.

“Loraphne, now!” Yris barked.

Loraphne jerked her arm. Ayc closed his eyes as warm drops splattered his face. Rain, he told himself. It was only rain. He had to believe it because he couldn’t flinch.

Screams prompted him to open his eyes again, but all he could see was Loraphne’s face, inches from his. As people around him begged for their lives, Ayc watched a single tear slip down Loraphne’s cheek, forming a trail that turned to red when it met the blood coating her rich brown skin. It was a tear he would never admit he ever saw.

That day, Ayc learned that not all mothers are good mothers. His mother taught him to bake and to tell jokes and that heroes were kind first and brave second.

Loraphne’s mother taught her to kill.

When Ayc looked away from Loraphne, it was done. Sticky blood coated the floor at his feet; the screams still echoed in his head. All these years later, and he still dreams about them. He remembers every moment of that day like it’s etched into his very bones .

In the aftermath, Ayc was alone, the only human standing in a room full of fae and dead bodies, still holding a pan of fresh cinnamon rolls frosted in bright rubies of blood. His teeth chattering, he lifted his pan, because his mother always told him there wasn’t much a good baked dessert couldn’t solve. And today was the first day he realized she was lying.

“W-would… would anyone l-like a cinnamon roll?”