Chapter Twelve Lyra #2
“Rab, read out the card for us, will you?” Kelly asked, sidling closer to Rab and fluttering her lashes at him.
Reluctantly, Rab picked up the envelope and slid a finger under the seal.
“ ‘Together, bake a Christmas spirit soufflé. If you are able to infuse the soufflé with warm Christmas spirit, it will levitate and sing a Christmas carol. If you fail, it will collapse and reveal one of your most embarrassing secrets.’ ” Disbelief crossed Rab’s face.
“Are you kidding me with this? Isn’t this a little harsh? ”
“We usually work our way up to these types of challenges, but since it’s a Christmas special, we’re diving right in,” Nevin intoned.
“See who draws first blood?” Rab asked.
“Ah, I see you have a touch of the dramatic.” Kelly winked at Rab. “Just my type.”
Is she hitting on him? My brow furrowed.
Rab flipped the card.
“There’s no recipe on here.”
“Right,” Nevin said, smirking. “We do expect our more experienced bakers to know how to make these recipes.”
Rab glanced at me.
“You ever make a soufflé?”
I nodded, biting back a grin. He looked adorably irritated, his hair just a touch askew, his face set in the permanent glower I’d grown used to seeing on his face whenever he’d run into me over the past year.
“Well, then, let’s crack on and get this over with.”
“Some people enjoy making these recipes.” Nevin stuck his nose in the air and drifted to the Christmas elves, who were already busy getting their ingredients ready.
“And some people enjoy running marathons too,” Rab muttered under his breath, and I couldn’t help myself, I snorted. Rab’s eyes flew to my face. “Do you think this is funny?”
“Um,” I said, pressing my lips together and bending to pull bowls off the shelves. “Mildly, yes.”
“At least one of us does,” Rab grumbled. He gestured to the table. “Well, go on, then. Make the soufflé.”
“So that’s not really how it works,” I said, stalling as delighted shrieks sounded behind us as Team Elf crowed over their recipe.
How was I going to hide my inverting magick while we did this?
“Right,” I said, grabbing eggs from the central fridge and faking a confidence I absolutely did not possess. “We need room-temperature eggs, so I’ll separate them while you prep the ramekins.”
Rab gave me a suspicious glance. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Obviously,” I said, and then promptly cracked the first egg backward. I mean, literally—somehow my magick reversed the shell and yolk so the shell dropped into the bowl in a gelatinous blob while the yolk bounced neatly into my palm. I blinked down at it.
“Is that… an inside-out egg?” Rab asked, eyebrows raised.
“Just a little kitchen magick,” I said, too brightly, tossing the mangled yolk into the compost bin and trying again.
The same thing happened. Again.
By the fourth egg, I was sweating. My hands were a sticky mess, and my thoughts scrambled.
My magick was supposed to help in small, convenient ways—whisking when my hands were full, chilling cream instantly, heating sugar to soft-ball stage without burning it. But not this. Anything but this.
I turned to grab the cream of tartar—and somehow, my magick whirled it into salt.
“You sure you’ve done this before?” Rab arched an eyebrow at the bowl of salt I now held in my hand.
“Yes,” I snapped, too loud, drawing the attention of two nearby camera operators. I forced a grin and turned to the other bowl on the table. “Sorry! Just really passionate about properly whipped egg whites.”
Rab looked at me like I was spouting nursery rhymes.
I took a deep breath and tried to stir the batter. My spoon started swirling itself—counterclockwise. The whites collapsed instantly.
“Oops,” I muttered.
“Don’t you dare say ‘oops’ again,” Rab said. “That’s the fourth time this bowl has curdled on us.”
I faked a cheery shrug and reached for the sugar. My magick decided now would be the perfect time to heat the bowl beneath it. The sugar melted instantly into a hardened syrup crust.
“Oh, for—”
“Lyra.” Rab’s voice was low. Controlled. “Do I need to take over?”
“No,” I said, biting my lip. “I can do this.”
Except I couldn’t. I couldn’t even charm a whisk to rotate the right way.
My magick flipped every step of the way—chilled instead of warmed, deflated instead of lifted, stirred when it should’ve folded.
Rab kept trying to interject, but I was too determined to try to make my magick work.
By the time the batter was in the ramekin, it looked like a sad, foamy porridge.
And then came the final step.
Already, I knew this wasn’t going to work. I knew it. There was no way that lumpy mixture in the ramekin was going to transform into a soufflé.
I closed my eyes. I had to conjure a warm Christmas memory. Something joyful, sweet, powerful enough to bind the magick and let the soufflé rise with song.
I tried. I really did.
“Sugar, spice, and tinsel bright,
Lift this treat with yuletide light.
Wrap it warm in joy sincere,
A taste of love and festive cheer!”
But the only memory that surfaced was the Christmas my parents spent the entire day arguing over my mother’s desire to take a vacation to Portugal and my dad insisting our finances couldn’t handle the expense.
I was eight, curled in the corner, combing my Barbie’s hair, pretending I didn’t hear the shouts.
My Christmas dinner had been two candy canes and a mug of hot chocolate made with water, not milk.
“Wait, shouldn’t I add my own memory too—”
My eyes snapped open. The soufflé gave a mighty puff… and collapsed with a dramatic sigh. A cloud of cinnamon-scented steam burst into the air and then—
The table glowed.
“Oh no,” I whispered, but it was too late.
A voice rang out, loud and magically amplified for the whole room to hear.
“Lyra MacGregor failed her biology final because she’d stayed up all night replaying her first kiss with Rab on her pillow.”