Page 27 of Homegrown Magic

“Decidedly not.” Margot giggles.

“I’m getting it, and one for you as well.”

Margot starts to protest, but Yael is already handing over money for both the purple hat and a matching green pancake-shaped one for Margot.

“Now,” Yael says as they walk away from the hat vendor, “we have matching hats and a wager. Whoever can sink the most axes into that”—Yael points to an ax-throwing booth near an enormous oak tree with a target painted onto its trunk—“wins both dinner and the only bed for the evening.”

“Agreed, but I’m not wearing this hat.”

Yael frowns. “I insist. I’ll let you have the first ax throw.”

“Done,” Margot says with a laugh as she settles the floppy hat over her braids.

Yael grins back at her as they walk toward an ax-chucking stall.

Three quick rounds of ax flinging fly by—a blur of steel and hefty thwacks as the blades sink into the target fastened to an oak tree. Margot’s axes splay out from the center, while all of Yael’s are settled firmly near the roots of the tree.

Yael groans as Margot’s last ax joins the rest in the middle of the target. “You did warn me you were good at this.”

“I did. Now let’s find dinner. What do you feel like buying me?”

“Giant spider legs?”

Margot shudders. “Never again. What about a chili cone?”

“I’m not sure I understand the logistics of that exact food.”

“Didn’t come up much in your parents’ kitchens?”

“Nor in Auximia’s dining halls, I’m sorry to say.”

“Well, you have truly missed out. Follow me. The best food is back this way, near where the artisan booths will open tomorrow morning.”

They walk through a maze of stalls that smell like metal and lamp oil. The hum of magical machinery fills the air, louder even than the music from taverns and stages set up around the fair.

“Is that Poppy?” Yael asks, pointing to a familiar face in a booth across the grass lane. “The inventor from Bloomfield?”

“It is! I wasn’t sure I’d see her this year.”

Margot waves to Poppy, who stands behind a table at her stall, setting it up for tomorrow. Before they can go over to speak with her, a pair of young women, artisans Margot recognizes from previous fairs, approach her table, one of them clutching a broken clock. Poppy waves back and calls out, “Catch up with you later, hopefully!” and then turns to her colleagues.

“Are there many people from Bloomfield here?” Yael asks after they’ve secured two golden waffle cones full of a fragrant, spicy chili and large tankards of honeyed mead. Yael holds their cone at a distance, as if the chili will jump out to bite them rather than the other way around.

Margot shrugs. “Likely some have come to see friends, but Poppy is the only one I know of who’s here selling things. She’s more…ambitious than many in Bloomfield. She’s lived with her sister, Dara, for as long as I can remember, but Poppy has always wanted to travel to the Inventor’s Guild in Kingfisher. Not sure why she’s not done it yet…”

Her stomach grumbles, and Margot interrupts herself to take a huge bite of the chili cone. A rush of flavor—garlic, paprika, chili, and something just a hint earthy and magical, like mushrooms that have been growing at the roots of a willow tree and picked under a full moon—hits her all at once, and she groans happily.

“Is it really that good?” Yael stares skeptically at the dripping cone.

“Just trust me, please.”

Yael takes a small, tentative bite and then makes an appreciative noise.

“Told you,” Margot says, smirking. “Now let’s walk. I want to show you the night-blooming flowers, and there’s a band playing near the lake that I love.”

“Lead the way,” Yael says through another bite of chili cone.

Happily, Margot does just that.