Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet by Charlie N. Holmberg

crafted from stone carved into the far wall, and rusted iron bent into an oversized birdcage hangs from the ceiling. An old bed lies to my left, but its mattress is moth eaten.
    There’s a cauldron, an empty chest lying open, a set of drawers missing a few handles. A home once lived in but long since forgotten.
    “You will build it.”
    I whirl around in the doorway, scraping my elbow against the jamb. “What?”
    Allemas gestures to the house as though I hadn’t understood. “This. She wants you to rebuild it. With cake.”
    My jaw hangs open for a long moment before I can muster words. “You want me to build a house out of cake ?”
    “No. She does.”
    “Who on Raea is ‘she’?”
    “Oh, I cannot tell you that,” he says with a grin. “Specific instructions. But she loves children, you see, and so she wants a cake house. She was very excited when I told her about you.”
    I lean against the jamb, focusing on the buttons of Allemas’s vest to keep my mind from swirling. “It can’t be done. Cake doesn’t stand up like wood and brick. The mice and insects will devour it. The moment it rains, the entire house will dissolve!”
    “No, no, it will work,” he says with utmost confidence. “You will make it work. You will tell the cake to be strong.”
    “You expect me to wield miracles.”
    Allemas lifts an eyebrow, and I grit my teeth against the violent thoughts trying to worm their way up to my brain. This is not who I am.
    “You have become . . . fragile.”
    Memory of Fyel’s voice creeps up my neck like the light touch of fingernails. I reach back and touch the skin there and turn. There’s nothing behind me.
    Allemas is waiting.
    I grip the jamb with my cane-free hand. Sighing, I shake my head. “There aren’t even enough ingredients for me to do it.”
    “I’ll bring more,” he says, glancing at the few baking supplies the donkey still carries. “You will do it, or you will be punished. I’m a good master, see? I know how it works.”
    I stay upright thanks to my grip on the doorjamb, but inside I melt like hot frosting.
    Allemas glances at the donkey. Stares at her. Unloads her. “I’ll be back,” he says, heading back the way we came, dragging the beast with him. “Don’t try to escape,” he calls, but I can barely walk. Escape isn’t possible yet.
    I step outside, watching until Allemas and Maire disappear. Then, leaning against the house’s failing walls, I limp around its perimeter, trying to estimate just how much flour, sugar, and eggs it will take to coat the thing. Lots of eggs. Eggs are the glue of baking, and this building will need to be soaked in them.
    As I make my way to the side with the broken chimney—the one that connects to the stove I’ll be using—I see a glimmer just past the edge of the grove, near the roots of an aspen. For a fleeting moment I think it’s Fyel, and my chest surges with a mint-like sensation. The glimmer, however, doesn’t take shape. It sparkles as I move, reflecting the sunlight.
    I glance back at Allemas’s path and see nothing, so I limp toward it and stoop down to part the long grasses surrounding it.
    It’s a crystal.
    Leaning against a tree, I bend down, pick it up, and brush dirt from its surface. It’s about the length of my hand and clear, almost like an enormous grain of sugar. It’s been cut, but not symmetrically, and not in any way a wearer might find beautiful. It’s long, jagged, and iridescent, and I marvel at its colors as I roll it between my hands.
    I hear hooves entering the grove, so I shove the crystal under my shirt, hooking it under the bindings around my breasts. I limp back into the grove just as Allemas runs past the house, his face pale and panicked.
    When he sees me, he relaxes. “I brought more. You should start.”
    I eye the house again, then the sun. It’s finally begun to move again.
    While Allemas allowed me to rest on the way here, now that the real work has begun, he resumes his usual post