Queen Melisandra found her daughter behind the honeycomb bakery, kicking petals off the border blossoms with a heavy black boot. Melissa was fourteen, crowned, winged, and furious. She had refused three tutors in a month. She had burned the ledger of hive accounts on the kitchen hearth. Melisandra needed to raise a queen who could inherit the hive, so she herself could finally step back and bake in peace. Instead she had a daughter who spat honey at the word "duty" and a stack of unfilled cake orders cooling on the glass shelves inside. "You will come with me today," Melisandra said. She wiped flour from her hands onto her apron. "We are going to the swamp." Melissa lifted one dark-painted eyebrow. That was the closest thing to agreement Melisandra had earned all week, so she took it and walked, her daughter trailing behind with folded arms. The swamp restaurant sat on stilts over black water, lanterns swinging above a kitchen that smelled of smoked pear and burnt sugar. Zephyr Myrrh drifted out from behind the counter, chef's hat tall, blue eyes bright. "Melisandra! And the small storm cloud, yes? Come in, come in, mind the carnivorous lilies by the rail, they bite ankles!" Melisandra sat her daughter on a stool and spoke plainly. She and Zephyr had been friendly rivals for twenty years, trading recipes and stealing customers in equal measure. No one else in Chorastine understood confection like Zephyr. No one else could hold Melissa's attention for more than an hour. "Teach her," Melisandra said. "Not court manners. Not etiquette. Sugar work. Fire. Knives. The parts of ruling that start in a kitchen." Zephyr's laugh rattled the copper pans. "You want me to raise your heir on swamp pepper and caramel? Oh, this will be delicious." Melissa opened her mouth to refuse. Zephyr slid a warm tart across the counter before a word came out. She took a bite, chewed slowly, and set the tart down with the careful respect of someone who had just lost an argument. "One season," she said. "I'm not promising more." Melisandra kissed the crown on her daughter's head and left them there, Zephyr already tying a small apron around Melissa's waist and shouting about brown butter. Walking back through the reeds, Melisandra felt her shoulders drop for the first time in months. She had bought herself time at the ovens. She had also handed her only daughter to a rival, in a kitchen ringed by biting flowers, and the next letter from the hive council was already waiting on her doorstep, sealed in red wax.