“Hello!”
The voice at her elbow made Lucy jump. Heart thumping, she turned in her seat. Brother Liam Girard stood in the street beside her cart, smiling pleasantly. A couple of his ash blond curls peaked out from beneath a thick wool hood. Lucy unclenched her fingers from the reigns.
In spite of the crisp winter air, Liam smelled of fallen leaves and autumn bonfires. It was the scent of his power. Lucy’s friends used to make fun of her when she told them she could smell power. But she could, and the monk’s scent enveloped her now. She took a deep breath, rather liking the scent. Then the two pedestrians she’d stopped for finally passed in the street.
“I have to go,” she said to Liam.
“May I join you?”
Surprised, Lucy studied the monk’s face. Why would he want to ride with her? A tarp covered the back of her cart, and for all he knew, she still had deliveries to make.
“Get moving!” called a man from behind them.
“Climb in,” she said, scooting over on the bench. When Liam clambered up beside her, Lucy returned her eyes to the street and clucked her tongue, nudging the donkey forward. Keeping hold of the reigns, she tucked her hands into the grey wool of her own cloak. “What are you doing on this side of town?”
“I’m delivering the abbey’s next pastry order.”
Lucy frowned. “I thought you were only a visiting scholar.” She doubted the Knights of Azure, the religious order housed at the abbey, would send a visitor into the city on their business.
Liam shrugged. “I’m a visiting scholar already on his way to visit the prickly server at Baker and Company Café.” He winked. “When I gave your parents the abbey’s order, they told me you were out making deliveries.”
“Oh.” Lucy hadn’t realized he’d already been to the café. She directed the donkey over to the side of the street and stopped. “I’m returning to café now. If you’re headed back to the abbey, then I’m taking you out of your way.” She waited for him to get out.
He didn’t. Liam only slouched down into the seat, kicking his brown leather boots up onto the edge of the cart. “That’s alright.” When Lucy said nothing, he cut a sheepish glance her way. “That is, it’s alright with me if you don’t mind the company.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. If Liam were any other man, she’d suspect he was wanting to court her. He’d visited the café so many times these last couple weeks since he arrived in Azure city, always ordering a slice of cake. She had wondered if he’d meant anything by it. Cake and pewter had become something of a tradition for couples to exchange on the Festival of Valentinus, which was approaching.
She’d told herself she was being silly, but then one day he’d used his power to make a butterknife twist itself into the shape of a bracelet for her. As he gave it to her, his eyes had gleamed a warm brown like the cognac her father saved for special occasions. Later, it had struck her that the butterknife was made of pewter.
Of course, her mind went to courting. She flushed every time she served him a piece of her cake. But Liam Girard was only visiting Azure city. She reminded herself of that. He’d probably already be gone by the Festival of Valentinus. Besides, Benarian monks took vows of celibacy. She shouldn’t even be thinking of him like that. But … what did he want with her?
Lucy straightened a little and put her shoulders back. If he thought she had any interest in being his illicit fun in Azure city, then he could think again.
The monk must have noticed something in her features because he straightened, as well. “If you don’t want the company, then—”
“What do you want?”
“Me?”
“Yes. Why do you want to ride with me?”
He shrugged again. It was a favorite gesture of his. “I wanted to ask what you thought of the abbey.”
“Oh.” That made sense. Lucy turned away from Liam, looking over her shoulder to direct the donkey back onto the street and to hide her flushing cheeks. She might be nearing thirty, but that didn’t mean she understood anything about men. At all. She was the woman in the background, hair dark and skin dull enough to blend into the shadows, a busy server in her family’s business wearing work pants and an apron. She watched couples fall in love. She didn’t do it, herself.
“Lieutenant Katarina told me you’d made your first pastry delivery to the abbey,” he prompted.
“Who?”
“The head cook last week. Lieutenant Katarina showed you around.”
“Oh.” Lucy had forgotten to ask the woman’s name. She usually did better than that with people, but she’d felt overwhelmed. She’d dreaded making that delivery to the abbey.
Lucy resented all those people with power, and those were the people that the religious orders recruited. They walked around the city like they were something special. And when they started flinging around their power, people like her—people without power—got hurt. Lucy wanted to stay away from them, not tempt them with her family’s baked goods.
“The abbey was interesting.” She almost added, “The place smelled like a lemon grove,” but she caught herself in time. She hadn’t admitted to smelling power for years now. Why had she almost slipped?
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It was something.”
“I was about to talk about things I shouldn’t.” When Lucy glanced sideways to see his reaction, she found Liam’s eyes filling with something like delight.
“Talk away!”
Lucy returned her gaze to the street. The genial monk did put her at ease. She had to give him that. Taking a deep breath, Lucy said in a whisper, “But nobody talks about power.”
“I know,” his usually cheerful voice had sobered a little, “but I’m happy to talk about it with you.”
Lucy exhaled, glad but anxious, too. She knew this wasn’t a good idea, but she’d been wanting to talk with someone about what she’d seen.
“There were half a dozen Knights in the abbey kitchen peeling potatoes and another half dozen knives chopping peppers and onions all by themselves. And that was only the power I saw them using. How can you stand sensing all that power? It’s got to be overwhelming.” She didn’t mention the fact that her nasal passages had burned with the onslaught of scents. Her eyes had watered at the stench.
“It’s not too bad sensing others’ powers,” the monk said. “A person can only sense someone else using power if it’s the same power as theirs. For me, it sort of disappears into the background.”
Lucy frowned. That didn’t make any sense. She sensed all sorts of powers even though she had none. But she kept her mouth shut about that. Instead, she asked, “What kind of power do you have? Is it a power with metal?”
“I have a way with earth.”
“What do you mean ‘a way’ with earth?” she asked. “It’s not your power then?”
“Yes, it’s what you’d call my ‘power.’”
From the corner of her eye, Lucy felt him studying her, as if gauging how much she actually wanted to know. “I really am curious about this,” she assured him.
“I thought you hated us people with power.”
“I don’t hate you. I …,” Lucy’s voice trailed off. She sort of had gotten into the habit of hating people with power. The religious orders recruited them and gave them all sorts of training. It did something to people. But even though Liam was one of those people, she liked him. “I don’t trust you,” was all she said. “And I don’t understand.”
“Most people outside of the orders don’t understand. That’s the problem.”
Though he’d paused, Lucy didn’t glance over again. Horse and cart traffic had picked up as they drew closer to the center of the shopping district. The Baker and Company Café lay several blocks south of the main thoroughfare. Lucy had to keep her eyes on the street.
“The Order of Benar doesn’t use the term ‘power’ to speak of peoples’ abilities,” said the monk. “We call them ‘ways.’ ‘Power’ suggests control over something, but ‘ways’ suggest that people are simply created with certain ways of being in the world.”
“Huh.” Lucy kept her eyes on the trio of horses crossing in front of her. Perhaps she only imagined the warmth of Liam’s bracelet on her left wrist, but her mind went there. And she couldn’t help but observe, “So, you have a ‘way’ with flatware.”
Liam chuckled. “Some of the more aggressive orders don’t value ways with earth as highly as ways with mental energy, but my way with earth is strong enough that they’d likely have recruited me had I not joined the Order of Benar first. I would have joined Benar anyway,” he added quickly. “I value study as much as they do.”
“Good,” she said, directing the donkey down a side street so she could approach Baker and Company from the alley behind it, where they kept both cart and donkey. She glanced sideways at Liam again. “You said some orders prize mental energy more. Would you say that a majority of the Knights of Azure probably have power with mental energy?”
“Probably.”
Mental energy, Lucy thought as they turned into the alley. The citrusy scent. It had surprised Lucy, when she and Lieutenant Katarina had left the abbey kitchen full of people and gone to look at the refectory, how the scent of powers hadn’t diminished. Even beyond the lieutenant’s lemony presence, the otherwise empty hallway had smelled of citrus. Had people used so much power there over the years that its remnants had seeped into the stone?
“What’s wrong?” Liam asked.
His voice jerked Lucy back to the present. “I’m only thinking. Like you said, we don’t learn anything about this outside of the orders.” She felt Liam studying her face as she stopped the cart and put her weight into the lever that set the brake. “But,” she said, hopping out of the cart and onto the cobblestones of the alley, “that doesn’t tell me why they think you’re a spy.”
Liam’s eyes widened. “Who said that?”
Lucy smiled. She’d surprised him. “One of the Knights in the kitchen. He thought you asked too many questions.”
Liam’s smile returned, and it had some mischief in it. “Well,” he said, “I am on a bit of a secret mission.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. Then he glanced around to see if anyone else stood near enough to overhear. “There’s rumor of a hidden library,” he whispered, “a collection of books other than the one that everyone knows about.”
Lucy couldn’t help it. He’d piqued her curiosity. “Well?”
The monk crawled across the seat and hopped off the cart behind her, landing on the cobblestones. “The Great Discipline involved a very strict list of acceptable texts on the training and use of ways. Any training books not on that list were banned from the religious orders and required to be either burned or transported to the Abbey of Azure within the year. Supposedly, cartloads of books arrived at the abbey.” He paused, as if for dramatic effect.
“And?” she asked, impatient.
“And nobody knows what happened to them. They certainly don’t exist in the abbey’s regular collection, but there were no records of the books being destroyed after they arrived. It’s as if the banned books simply disappeared.”
When Liam said no more, Lucy walked around him to begin unhitching the donkey. “Someone could have destroyed the books quietly,” she said.
“True. It’s also possible the books were hidden away so that the highest levels of leadership could access them later.”
Lucy frowned.
“The Great Discipline didn’t only outlaw training of ways outside the orders,” he explained. “It also restricted knowledge of ways to a highly curated collection of knowledge within the orders. Rumor has it that people at the highest levels of leadership often know more than they let on.”
“More about what?”
“More about what’s possible with peoples’ ways.”
“Well, I doubt they left those juicy books laying around where any old visiting scholar could find them,” she said in a bored tone that belied her growing interest.
“True,” he allowed, following as she led the donkey toward its little stable, “but I’m not any old visiting scholar. I’m a highly extroverted, nosy monk who specializes in cultivating gossip. I hear about things that other people don’t.”
Lucy gave in and laughed. Then she studied him. “Alright,” she said, “if I give you pie and coffee on the house, will you tell me more?”
Liam grinned.
» Keep reading! Click here for Chapter 2
CAKE AND PEWTER: A NOVELETTE. Copyright © 2026 by Callie J. Smith
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, visit www.calliejsmith.net.
Cake and Pewter first appeared in Forever Yours: A Dragon Soul Press Anthology
(Dragon Soul Press, 2026)