A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

The group follows Joshua to a small hall where the loyal guards have gathered. The Duchess gives a brief speech to the guards, explaining that Oberon is a traitor and that with Lord Ethan and the army at least 10 days away, the guards are the last loyal force in the palace. Encouraged, the group walks to Oberon’s quarters.

They pound on the door, guarded by a handful of Oberon’s personal guards, and announce Oberon’s arrest for treason. Oberon steps out of his room, pretending his innocence and accusing Mona of tricking the Duchess and being the real traitor. The Duchess ignores him and says he is being exiled from the city. Joshua warns Oberon and his guards not to resist. To Mona’s surprise, Oberon surrenders. Joshua and several others escort Oberon and his guards out of the palace and into a carriage and drive them all outside the city walls.

The next morning, Mona returns home, explaining what happened and that she has now been exonerated. She worries briefly about Bob, but Aunt Tabitha assures her that he survived and is growing again. Satisfied, Mona believes this will be the end of her adventure.

Her life returns to normal for three days. However, she cannot sleep. She spends nights studying the book Spiraling Shadows and experimenting. If she bakes two pastries, leaves one in a room, and takes the other with her, she can somewhat hear anyone talking in the room near the first pastry. She suspects that if she uses her gingerbread men, she might even be able to see one room from another. She bakes more gingerbread men to experiment with. The gingerbread man she has kept alive for weeks now can wordlessly communicate with them. Clearly jealous, he orders the new gingerbread men to jump into Bob’s bucket to be eaten. Mona is shocked that this works.

Mona even enlists Spindle to help with her magical experiments. Aunt Tabitha tries to convince the boy to live with them, but Spindle runs away.

The next day, Mona argues with Aunt Tabitha. Visitors come to the bakery wanting to see Mona, who objects to being put on display and called a hero. She has not done anything heroic. She was simply afraid of dying and ran to the Duchess for help. She is also angry with the Duchess for not doing something about Oberon sooner, especially if the Duchess already knew he was a traitor. It should not have been up to Mona and Spindle, two children, to force the Duchess to find her courage and do the right thing.

Uncle Albert speaks to Mona, confiding that in his youth he was in the army during a brief war. He and other soldiers were stationed in a fort that was cut off by the enemy. Though no one attacked, they eventually ran out of food and the messages they sent to the government and the army were never answered. Finally, the commander surrendered to the enemy just to keep them all from starving. The enemy ransomed them back to Riverbraid. Surprisingly, when they returned home, they discovered that the quartermaster had been stealing the food and supplies meant for them, and no one had even received their messages asking for help.

Rather than admit their mismanagement and negligence, the government claimed they had been under a massive siege and labeled the soldiers heroes. Uncle Albert explains:

[A]s long as they gave us medals, that fixed it, as far as the army was concerned. You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don’t ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place (204).

Then Uncle Albert apologizes for not doing more to help Mona when the trouble started.

At the end of the week, the Duchess arrives. She calls Mona “the Wizard of the Bakery” (205) and requests her presence on official palace business. Spindle appears, demanding to go as well. The Duchess explains that Oberon has allied with the Carex and an invasion force is only two days away. Meanwhile, Lord Ethan and the army are at least five days away. The city has only one wizard left to defend them: Mona.

Mona objects, exclaiming that she only works with bread and will be useless against invaders. However, the Duchess begs her to try and promises that the palace kitchens will be at her disposal. Mona has an idea and asks the Duchess for as much bread dough as they can manage.

Mona prepares for the invasion. She plans to bake 14-foot-tall bread men to protect the walled city. The palace kitchens and every bakery in the city make bread dough and send it to the palace in batches, while blacksmiths construct huge human-shaped baking sheets out of hammered-down shields. The head blacksmith, Argonel, is resourceful and seems to have no issues taking orders from a 14-year-old girl. He, and many others, call her Wizard Mona.

The head cook in the palace kitchens, on the other hand, argues with Mona about every decision. Spindle reminds the cook that the Duchess put Mona in charge for a reason. On the second day, Aunt Tabitha arrives to help, bringing Bob with her. She takes over the palace kitchens from the head cook, who has been lectured and sent on her way.

Mona speaks with Joshua about plans to throw boiling oil from the top of the walls onto attacking Carex, but the walls are too narrow to do so safely. Mona instead suggests using Bob, recalling the way he had burned Elgar’s face. Joshua and Mona plan to make more of Bob and put bits of him in jars that defenders can throw from the wall with slings. Mona warns that this will not stop the attackers but should at least injure and slow them down. She gloomily supposes that Lord Ethan could probably stop the entire attack by himself. Joshua explains that the Golden General travels with an army for a reason. He might be a powerful wizard, but even he could not do everything by himself. Mona absorbs this quietly.

Mona spends the day making more of Bob, feeding the sourdough starter 50 sacks of flour, water, and some dead fish. By the end of the day, Bob fills six rain-barrels, which proves the concept of sympathy as discussed in Spiraling Shadows. Though there are six separate barrels, any order she gives to one barrel spreads to the others. She pours her fear about the Carex into Bob, who begins to hiss and lash out with doughy tentacles. They divide bits of Bob into every jar they can find.

Meanwhile, dough arrives from all over the city, ready to be turned into giant bread golems. While Mona confers with Joshua, a messenger pigeon arrives, giving her a note sent by Lord Ethan. The note explains that the army is on its way but will not be there in time. Lord Ethan urges Mona to be brave and creative in defense of the city. Mona is both encouraged that Lord Ethan has written to her personally and disappointed that he does not provide any concrete help. Finally, Joshua asks Mona to join him on the wall because the Carex have reached the outlying farms.

Mona, Joshua, and the Duchess stand on the wall overlooking the huge city gate. The Carex are in the distance, attacking the farms and burning everything to the ground as they head toward the wall. Mona weeps angrily at the mindless destruction. Spindle tells them that people from the Rat’s Nest have used the smuggler’s tunnels to go outside the walls and harass the Carex. They will not be able to do much damage, but every little bit helps. This gives Mona yet another idea.

As Mona heads to the kitchens, Argonel says the giant ovens will be ready and Harold warns Mona that Elgar has escaped the dungeons. Harold believes Elgar will try to leave the city and join Oberon, but Mona is less sure.

Then, Mona enlists Aunt Tabitha to help her make gingerbread. She adds cayenne pepper and rat poison to the dough, explaining that no one will be eating it when Aunt Tabitha objects. She wants to make these gingerbread men as nasty as possible. As she kneads the dough, she pours her magic and all her anger into it. When they are baked, they run around the kitchen destroying things. Mona tries to command them, but they ignore her until her main gingerbread man jumps down from her shoulder and communicates with them. To her surprise, he can control them.

Mona puts them in a bag and gives them to Spindle to take outside the walls and set loose. Then, the gingerbread men will wreak havoc in the Carex camp, spooking the horses, stealing weapons, cutting tent ropes, and anything else to keep the Carex from sleeping and making them tired, jumpy, and paranoid all night. Spindle takes the bag and leaves. Then Argonel arrives to announce the ovens are ready for Mona’s golems.