Clover Emberly's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Clover Emberly had six days until the Baker's Crown, and her oven could bake exactly twelve honey-tarts at a time. The judges wanted forty on the tasting table, warm, matched in color, matched in crumb. She stood in her narrow shop in Lichenspire and did the math again on the flour-dusted counter. Four batches. Four different crusts. Four chances for the panel to mark her down and hand the crown to the shop two doors up, the one her mother used to say she'd beat before she turned thirty. Clover was twenty-nine. She had sunk her last coin into butter and good cinnamon, and the little iron oven in the corner ticked at her like it knew. She pulled on her coat and walked to the guild yard, where old kilns and broken ovens sat in the weeds. A round-bodied robin with a red breast hopped along the top of a cast-iron double-hearth, the kind bread-makers used before the guild switched to newer models. The bird cocked its head at her. Clover cocked hers back. The double-hearth was scorched but sound, wide enough for forty tarts in one pull. The yardkeeper wanted three silver and a promise she'd haul it out by nightfall. She counted her purse twice, paid him, and hired a cart. By dusk the old hearth sat in her shop, taking up the space where her display case used to stand. She had one oven big enough now. She also had nowhere to show her breads to customers, no coin left for the week's flour, and six days to bake her way to the crown before the rent came due.