“Yeah, I’m good,” Kaitha lied, swiping a hand across her eyes. “It’s nothing. What brings you here?”

“I had a question.” The mage’s eyes were eager and bright. “About our adventure last year.”

“Sure. Got another quest?” asked Kaitha, gesturing for Laruna to sit on the couch. “More undead?”

“No, no, no.” The solamancer remained standing. “You told me you had an epiphany, right? Like back on the plains, right before you stopped, uh…” Laruna froze, but the edge of the conversational cliff was about three paces behind her.

“Yes,” said Kaitha softly. “That was when I realized I had a problem with salve. It was the first step.”

“Right,” said Laruna. “But it was because of a dream, right?”

“I think it was more of a withdrawal-induced hallucination,” said Kaitha.

Laruna waved away the distinction. “Visions, dreams, same thing.”

“Is it?”

The mage leaned closer, her face a mask of manic optimism. “You met a turtle and a bird or something, you talked to them, and then you reached some inner insight.”

“Well, yeah,” began Kaitha. “It was a tortoise and a falcon, but it wasn’t so much a dream as—ow!”

“Sorry,” Laruna leaned back and held up a single strand of auburn hair. “Thought you had a loose hair on your tunic.”

“Oh.”

“Well, that was what I wanted to know!” Laruna thrust her hands into her pockets in an unconvincing display of forced nonchalance. “Thanks for the talk, but I just remembered that I’ve got a lot to do. I’ll let you know when a good quest pops up. Keep me in mind for the same!”

“But why—” Kaitha began, yet the solamancer was already out the door before the Elf could finish her question. The slam of her front door reverberated through the living chambers.

“Why would she keep my hair?” the ranger said to her empty apartment.

“Don’t you think that’s a little strange?” shrieked Queen Marja. “Don’t you think that looks odd to the servants and commonfolk?”

Preya Havenbrook, servant, commonfolk, and royal baker of Andarun, stopped inspecting the tea cakes on her tray for just long enough to duck under a flying platter. She stood atop a small stepladder that made it possible for a Halfling to work on the Human-sized counter in the middle of the royal confectionary in the Palace of Andarun’s labyrinthine kitchens. She was back to the frosting again before the china shattered against the far wall.

“What does it say when a king shuns his beloved! What do people think when a man spurns his marriage bed for… for paperwork!” the queen roared. Her eyes were wild and her face crimson as she eclipsed the door to the royal confectionary like a blood moon. “Why would anybody be reading dull papers instead of spending time with someone they love? The nobles must wonder if you even care for me at all! Do you?”

King Johan the Mighty stood in the door opposite Marja’s, the only other exit from the room. He wore an apologetic smirk as he opened his hands to the queen. “My love, of course I⁠—”

“You swore your love was true, and nothing could keep you from me!” Her face was crimson between the rivulets of mascara running down her face, and her hands grasped for any unfortunate crockery within reach. “You said you dreamed of me!”

“I do! My love, I surely do!” King Johan dodged a hurled teacup. It shattered against the great stove. “You just need to be pa⁠—”

“I have been patient!” Marja hollered. “What about our honeymoon to the Teagem? What about our state trip to Eadelmon?” She fumbled at the shelves, and a lady-in-waiting dutifully pushed a saucer into reach. “We were supposed to travel the world! It was supposed to be like the romance tales! But no! You spend all your time smoking with those suited buffoons and playing at hero with those louts in golden armor. I went looking for you last night and the servants told me you were studying records in the Royal Archives! The Royal Archives! We could have been together, and you were reviewing old paperwork!” She punctuated the accusation by hurling a porcelain gravy boat. It sailed past Johan and crashed onto the stone floor behind him.

“My love, there was a shipment I had to see to⁠—”

“Oh, so it was those strange crates you had shipped in from Umbrax! Do you think that makes it any better?” Another teacup sailed over the king’s head.

Johan held his hands up. He backed out of the kitchen, but not quickly enough. “I know it doesn’t. I know. But I just have this one… enterprise that I need to see to⁠—”

“It’s always one more thing! It’s never me!” shrieked Marja. “Is this our love story?”

Preya’s piping bag trembled a little, drawing a wavy line through the otherwise pristine pattern frosted onto the apple grundant tea cake. They were already talking about love now, and the pair were both in the bakery of the royal kitchens. A bead of sweat formed on her forehead, but a servant’s duty was to remain invisible, and Preya was nothing if not disciplined.

Johan and Marja’s encounters reminded the baker of the lottery games that they played during fairs in Mr. Havenbrook’s hometown; the ones where you dropped a stone down a board full of pegs or had a maiden toss an apple into a circle of buckets or, perhaps most applicably, where the farmers made a grid in the field using chalk dust and then sent a well-fed cow out over the field of green grass and white numbers. The king and queen bounced through the chambers of the palace as they shouted and crooned to each other, but it was only a matter of time before the cow of the cosmos relieved itself on an unfortunate room and all the servants within it. The rooms of a castle built into the side of a mountain lacked the sort of windows and spare doors that could give desperate servants an escape when simmering conflict erupted into fiery passion.

“My love, I dream of the day when I can spend more time with you,” crooned Johan. “But I have responsibilities. A sacred duty to serve the people⁠—”

“Oh, who cares about the people?” snarled Marja. “We were supposed to be in love! I wasn’t supposed to be back in my chambers reading my romance books while you muck about with the citizens!” She hurled a mixing bowl for emphasis. It trailed billowing white clouds of flour and salt as it sailed over the king’s head and out into the main kitchens.

“We will be together more!” said the king. “But with the economy where it is, and the dragon attacking… I just need a little more time for some plans to reach fruition. Once all this unpleasant business is settled, I can take some time away from all of this… governance.” His lips curled when he said the word, as though it carried an unpleasant taste. “Then I can focus on you, my love.”

Marja went from crimson to purple in a flash, but a moment later much of the color drained from her face. “Where my love goes, what am I to do but follow?” she whispered.

The king’s smile grew brittle. “Uh, I beg your pardon?”

“If you must govern, why not govern together?” Marja wore a hopeful smile as she strode into the confectionary. It gave the lucky baker near the door a chance to make a run for it. “I… I could rule alongside you, just like Isabellin and Archar in Lady of the Haerthwards, or Elenor and Roland in The Bandit King of Faerun.”

“Ha! Well, I don’t think that would⁠—”

“Why not?” The queen still wore her hopeful smile, but there was iron in her eyes now. “The queen can issue proclamations and make judgments. My decrees carry as much weight as yours. That’s the law, right?”

Sudden concern—almost fear—flashed on the king’s face, but Johan recovered quickly. “Ha! No! I mean, yes. Of course you have the authority, my love, but what kind of husband would I be if I made you use it? You shouldn’t have to sully yourself with such matters to see your beloved.”

“But I wouldn’t mind if⁠—”

Johan strode across the room, meeting Marja across from the table that Preya worked at. “Ha! I know you wouldn’t! But I can’t let it come to that. We need to take the opportunities we have now, and spend more time together!”

The kitchen girl took the opportunity to flee the confectionary. Unfortunately for Preya, the king and queen had come together at her table, one on either side of her stepladder, and both seemed oblivious to the royal baker nervously frosting tea cakes beneath them.

“Do… do you mean that?” Marja said in a quavering voice.

“I do. I have missed you, my queen.” The king embraced his wife, catching Preya between his golden plate armor and the voluminous folds of Marja’s dress. The stepladder fell away as the royal couple pressed together, and the baker was left dangling between a frock and a hard place.

“Oh, Johan!” squealed the queen.

Preya cleared her throat nervously, her feet kicking in the air, her arms pinned to her side. Unfortunately for the Halfling, Johan and Marja never spent much energy thinking about the little people. “The kingdom can wait,” Johan crooned. “Let’s rekindle our love, as Madren and Haela did in⁠—”

“—in The Milkmaid’s Cottage,” Marja finished with him. “Oh, yes, Johan. But when? Now?”

“No time like the present!” trumpeted Johan. “Ha haa!” A sweep of his arm brushed the carefully constructed tea cakes from the counter and dropped Preya to the floor. The baker suppressed a grunt of pain as she landed on the stone tiles, tea cakes raining down around her with sad little plops.

The king heaved the queen onto the table effortlessly. The old oak groaned in protest as Marja leaned back and emitted a high-pitched squeak, like wind escaping a novelty bladder. She laughed as Johan whispered something presumably salacious in her ear. Preya Havenbrook couldn’t hear it; the Halfling was already sprinting for the door as fast as her legs would carry her, clothing and pieces of armor raining down around her.