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Years had passed since they'd done their traditions, which might mean these were no longer traditions, but each year had a really good reason. First mum was sick, then she passed, then they had just fallen into the hells and had more important things to do (understandable), then the Elturel expulsion happened. With so much upheaval, peace felt precious, and Cal didn't plan to waste it.
He stood at the entrance of the Blushing Mermaid, not quite sure if he should have his hands in his pockets or not. Everyone who went in and out sized him up, and if he dared to smile—which he sort of did automatically, his mouth naturally wanted to smile at people—they glared. If Lia were here, she'd glare right back until they backed off.
Not that he was scared. He could take a punch. When he was a kid, he used to tie pillows all over himself so Lia could use him as a moving target. So Rolan could see how far thunderwave sent him flying. No, he just really didn't want Lia nor Rolan to know what he was doing here.
"Package for you." Mattis appeared behind him, dressed like a little patriar, his hair pulled back into a low knot and several necklaces around his neck. "This took a lot of work to get."
"Thank you," Cal said, counting out gold. "Tell Mol thank you, too."
"She accepts thanks in the form of gold."
"Are you eating? Do you have a safe place to sleep? Alfira said you haven't been back to your room in a few days." The adults tried to get Mol and Mattis to move into the communal house, but the kids only trusted gold. Lakrissa even tried paying them to stay in the house. Mol refused. Mattis used the funds to build out his network, started bringing sketchy types around, then declared that he was losing money by staying there and abruptly disappeared.
At least Silfy and the others had warmed up to the idea. And sometimes Mattis did end up back in his bed. He was a lot like Lia and Rolan at that age, and mum's attempts at getting them to fall in line only made things worse. They would claim that's why she went easy on Cal, but privately Cal thought he was simply better behaved.
"I'm fine," Mattis said. "Peachy, even. Got another delivery after this. You're not the only person asking for found property."
Cal opened the package, flipped through the pages, then handed over the gold. A little more than the price, but Mattis deserved a treat.
"It's kind of fun, too," Mattis mused. "Going legitimate, that is. What did you want the book for?"
"Traditions."
~*~
"I've already named you my beneficiaries. This doesn't matter from a legal standpoint," Rolan grumbled, but he signed the paper anyway.
"It's not about the law," Lia reminded him. She shook fifteen signatures worth of cramps out of her hand. The clerk sitting across from them looked bored out of her mind. "It's about Cal."
"Don't lecture me. I made this happen."
"You bankrolled it. I did all the leg work."
The clerk perked up. The last time someone had a fight in here, she got to go home early. A Fist versus a wizard! The clerk's money was on the Fist, even though she still wore the trainee uniform. Unless the wizard actually used magic, of course. Please, let the wizard use magic!
"I did some of the work!" Rolan said.
"You hired a lawyer."
"Excuse me for being busy." Scritch, scritch. Another signature down. He shoved the pen towards her and she jerked her hand back. "Don't tell me you're still not over that."
"You stabbed me with a pencil!" Lia took the pen.
"I didn't think it would hurt you. I was twelve."
"I still have the scar." She did, a dark mark on the back of her hand, like a freckle.
"So do I!" Because, in his infinite child wisdom, he'd immediately stabbed himself, too, as if making them even would make everything alright. "Anyway, I apologized."
"Because you thought we were going to die." Rolan had been in a panic about their injuries, convinced he'd given them lead poisoning. They'd hugged and worked each other to tears over their upcoming demise until Cal had the presence of mind to tell an adult. And this was how they learned that pencils used graphite.
"You told me eating my spells would recycle magic," Rolan pointed out, taking back the pen for another signature.
She snickered. That had been a good one. His entire mouth had glowed. "You told everyone in class about my underwear."
The clerk gasped, a little too loudly. In her defense they weren't fighting yet and she needed to egg them on. They didn't even look at her.
"Gods, I'm so sorry about that one," Rolan said.
"It's fine. I told them about the time you turned your tail pink. Anyway, Cal was worse, with his pranks."
Cal, once, convinced both of them that their mother's new lime cream pie recipe was horrible. He got nearly a year of his own pies until they figured it out, then he started sprinkling the pies with ground coriander, which tasted fine to mum and Cal but tasted like soap for Lia and Rolan. He swapped Rolan's clothes out for larger ones and convinced him he was shrinking. One winter, when Lia wouldn't stop teasing him about how much his feet had grown, he soaked all her socks and hung them outside. The winter of the frozen socks.
Cal's pranks were legendary, and he never took them too far.
Lia took back the pen for the final signature. "And… done."
The clerk sat back, disappointed.
~*~
The book listed finely ground sugar, butter, milk and a dash of extract for flavor. Cal waved the bottle over the bowl and hoped what splashed out wasn't too much.
A note in the margin read, "Sift the sugar." Like, sifting through it? He dug at the sugar with a spoon. That seemed pointless.
One of Rolan's shelves had to have a dictionary. Probably five. A half hour later, Cal had a definition–to pass through a sieve, how interesting!–and a cookbook about baking that was slowly convincing him he wasn't smart enough to do it. He didn't have a sieve, or even a scale, which the book insisted was important, and Rolan's scale was used for things like powdered beetles and arsenic.
But he would do his best, like he always had. He mixed everything together until the thickness seemed right.
With careful, nervous dabs, Cal wiped blobs of frosting onto the cake. They slipped off the sides instead of smoothing out, leaving a smear of wet on the cake before plopping onto the counter.
He mixed more frosting. Thicker, this time. Kind of grainy. He smeared more on.
The frosting peeled off the side, taking part of the cake with it, too. Fine. The cake seemed awful, anyway, with its sunken middle and cracked top.
Maybe he needed a professional. And more of the extract stuff in this bottle. He'd used the last of it on the frosting.
~*~
Mattis sat on the counter of Sorcerous Sundries when Lia and Rolan arrived back, kicking his heels on the counter.
"Delivery for you!" he said, holding up a packet.
"Tower, write out inventory on the larder," Rolan commanded. He plucked the packet out of Mattis's hands and opened it up, examined the contents, then handed it to Lia, who did the same.
"It's all here," she said. "How? How did you find it?"
"I have my sources," he grinned.
"Mol did it for you, didn't she?" Rolan asked.
"Hey! I can do things on my own. I'm more than the face of the operation." But yes, Mol had.
While Rolan paid him, Lia examined the tower's inventory of the larder. For someone who seemed to like cooking, Rolan's larder was very empty, missing exactly what they needed even though those were larder staples. Although, knowing him, Rolan probably liked seeming like he liked cooking more than actually cooking. She wrote down what they needed to buy for their next project, then rummaged behind the counter until she found a long length of twine, tying it around the delivered packet into a nice bow.
Not good enough. Not good enough at all.
"Rolan," she said. "Before we go, grab some more gold. We're making a few extra stops."
~*~
Danis expertly turned a cake on a platter, smoothing frosting on with a flat knife. In the last hour Cal learned what a sieve was, that he needed to cool the cake before icing it, how finely to grind the sugar and that he was beating the frosting for far too long.
"You try," Danis said.
Where Danis's frosting came out lovely, his was uneven, the honey-brown of the cake peeking through. He tried again and again, but it wasn't working.
"Want me to do it?" Danis asked.
"No. I need to." In Elturel, Cal had known the city so well he could deliver anything in less than twenty minutes. He could read devilish legalease without getting a headache. Carry very heavy things. Hunt. Weave, knit and crochet a variety of nets, bags, and clothing. None of those skills were helpful now, though.
Lia and Rolan even had bigger social lives than he did, a complete turnaround from Elturel and his decade-ish of carefully cultivated friend groups. Not that he was mad about it, of course, he was glad they were meeting people. More like he was… lonely. The few friends he'd made—Danis, Dammon, Geraldus—were busy most days, building out their own families or careers while he worked the back in his brother's tower and moonlit moving boxes for the Fists. Riding his siblings' coat tails. The least he could do was learn to ice a cake.
"Did you think about my invitation?" Cal asked.
"I'd love to come, but I'm busy tonight," Danis said. "Sorry."
That brought the grand total of attendees to... Cal. Probably Lia and Rolan, he checked their schedules and they were open. No Dammon, no Alfira, no Geraldus. Still, no point in dwelling, not when there was frosting! He spun the platter too quickly, and the cake wobbled apart. "Ugh. You can do this, Cal. You got this."
"You do got this," Danis said.
Slowly he spun it, arm shaking as he tried to keep the icing on.
"Gently," Danis warned, his tone bringing Cal back to the day he brought home a hurt rabbit, the poor thing quivering and unable to move around the shaft of an arrow. In hindsight, it would have never survived, but he'd been eight and hadn't known that. He hid it in a box under his bed. Lia found it in a heartbeat, of course, and he was so scared she'd rat him out, but she got Rolan and he went to the library to research while she went to the shops to gather supplies and they fed the rabbit and kept it warm until it passed, Lia holding his wrist as Cal–who'd always had heavy hands–petted it. Even now, hunting rabbits with Lia, they had an unspoken agreement to only take a shot if they were completely positive it would be a quick kill.
As gently as he'd stroked the rabbit, he brushed the cake.
"Don't think about putting the frosting on the cake," Danis prompted. "It's already on the cake, you're only smoothing it out."
Like a mill, sort of, like when he and Lia used to gather berries in the summer, mash and boil them with sugar, dry the goop in the sun and run them through the rolling mill in the kitchen, until they had long sheets of fruit leather. Cal would sneak a bite every roll and Lia would still give each of them exactly half, to make up for when she finished hers first and snuck into his stash to steal some.
The knife and the cake were mills, and the frosting was the berry goop, being rolled to a thick layer.
He pulled the knife away. "It looks… perfect. I did that?"
"You did that!" Danis said.
"I did that." Cal grinned.
Danis hefted a metal canister. "And now, piping."
~*~
Rolan frowned at the clerk, who tried to keep a haughty posture but it was hard with the wizard of Ramazith's Tower glaring at her. Their biggest customer! Usually he sent his brother to pick up the orders, but today he was here in person! And mad about it!
Gods, and a Fist guard stood next to him, also glaring. What had she done to deserve this?
"You have no essence of almonds?" he confirmed.
"N-no. No saer. Almond harvest was poor this year. Sold the last bottle this morning."
"Damn," Lia said. "You've known about this for a tenday. You should have shopped earlier."
"How was I to know the harvest went poorly?" Rolan snapped.
To the clerk she said, "How about vanilla orchids? Essence of vanilla?"
The clerk shook her head. "Sold out of that, too."
"I'm gonna find this essence buying arsehole and pour each bottle down their throat. Rolan, you don't have any essence of vanilla in that entire tower?"
"Lorroakan could not abide the smell of vanilla. I used all of it tainting his shampoo."
Lia smiled, proud, then quickly frowned because Rolan was ruining everything.
"Why didn't you restock it?" she demanded.
"Vanilla? That's only useful for low brow magic."
"Like what?"
"Romance," blurted the clerk, who couldn't sit through another round of bickering. "Revitalizing… you know. Relationships. If you two need some…"
They both looked at her, then at each other.
"Gods, no!" Rolan said.
"He is my brother."
"And look at her."
Lia whacked him with her tail, he hit her back, and she stepped on his foot.
"Sorry," the clerk said, so full of regrets.
"You're certain we need this essence?" Lia asked.
"Completely. I had that whole book memorized, back to front."
"Can't we just substitute it?"
"This is a science! Just like one cannot cast a spell without all the components, one cannot–"
"I get it." Lia hefted their bags. "I got the rest of the stuff, at least. Shall we?"
The clerk sighed in relief.
"Wait." Rolan glared at the small display on the counter. "One of these."
This time, the clerk waited until they were gone to relax.
~*~
Cal placed the last of the flowers in a bowl and set it on the table. With only the three of them and their busy schedules they rarely used the grand dining room, but for tonight it would suit his purposes. It took a couple tries to figure out the fireplace—which was free standing, wizards got all the impressive stuff!—and a few more to arrange the chairs but he had everything ready by the time he heard the portals buzz. He met Rolan and Lia at the portal.
"Gods, I'm never going to get used to these portals," Lia groaned, rubbing her forehead.
"Already made you some soothing tea," Cal said.
"Cal! You're home!"
Rolan picked up the bags she had been carrying. "Excuse me. I have work to do."
"Oh. How late?" Cal asked.
"A few hours."
"Right. Well. Join me in the dining room, after. I've set up a surprise."
"I want to see!" Lia said.
"No! I need your help," said Rolan.
At the same time, Cal said, "It's for all of us, all together. I can help Rolan, too."
"No."
Cal looked at Lia. Surely she would make Rolan let him help.
"You relax," she said. "I'll help Rolan, then we'll come see what you did."
Cal stepped aside so they could pass. Rolan pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it over. A small peanut truffle, one of Cal's favorites.
Cal said, "Thank—" The door closed behind them.
Cal sighed, then bolstered himself. It meant he got a few more hours to prepare, that was all.
~*~
"Cal?" Lia called.
"He said he's in the dining room." Rolan carried a platter with a rounded silver cover.
"He told us not to go in there."
"It's my dining room—" Rolan went quiet under Lia's glare, then said, "Excuse me. Our dining room." Most of the tower was his, but the shared parts, with shared responsibilities and shared use were just that—shared. Lia always said that if she cleaned a space she got to use it, and Rolan hated cleaning. "He said he wanted to show us all something. We'll end up there anyway. We really need to handle this before the others arrive."
Lia knocked on the dining room door and pushed it open. "Cal?"
Cal was curled up on a pile of pillows, in a little ball, his knuckle pressed against the tip of his nose so he wouldn't snore, because even in sleep he had to be considerate. He clutched a book to his chest. The pillows were piled under a tent like the ones they built when they were kids, in front of a fire like they play-camped when they were kids, and on the table a cake and decorations, just like when they were—
"Oh," she said. No one had done a cake since their mum died. Well, no one until today.
"Gods," Rolan said. "This is why we couldn't find essence of vanilla. How is he so much better than us at this? Don't tell him I said that."
"He thinks about other people before they ask him to," Lia guessed, kneeling next to Cal. "Hey, Callie? Wake up, Lil Toot-toot."
"Don't call me that," he mumbled, opening one eye. "Oh, no, I missed you coming in! One moment—"
He yanked a cord. Confetti and ribbons fell from over the door, dusting Rolan in cheerful color that did little to overcome his natural grumpiness.
Loudly and happily Cal held out his arms and said, "Welcome to my birthday! The cake is ready to decorate, I have skewers for us to roast and we can sleep in the fort. I made your get-along jar, found some horn candles and bought ribbon, I couldn't find an entire copy of the old boxed games but I found a few partial ones and put them together so we can still play. Or—" He faltered as Lia and Rolan exchanged a look. "—W-we don't have to, I only thought it could be fun. Like how we used to do it."
"Used to do it," Rolan repeated.
"I did everything by the book." Cal held it up.
"Is that mum's…?"
Yes! A handwritten book outlining every holiday their family had ever had and detailing how it went. Lia and Rolan bowed their heads over it. Here was the time Rolan, completely overwhelmed by the idea of celebrating a birthday, hid under a table for an entire day. The first few years they had to do shared birthdays to get him to even put on the ribbons. The time Lia got a little wheeled horse and accidentally ran Cal over, then backed up and did it again. Rolan, when he bit his lip so badly it scarred. The year Cal refused to wear anything but Rolan's clothes. The last time Lia was taller than both of them. Each event was accompanied by little sketches. Mum paid an artist to come by all day and draw them.
Rolan said, "The time Cal ate all the cake decorations before we got to use them! I forgot about that!"
"Look, that awful shirt Rolan used to wear," Lia smiled. "Not a good look for you."
"Ah, when Lia cut her own hair," Rolan said. "Mum didn't let you have scissors for two years after. A good look for you, though."
"Aw, look! Rolan after he burned off his eyebrows trying to light the candles! Mum should have taken away your magic."
"That was an accident."
"And a very good look for you."
Cal held out the get-along jar. They both dropped in gold and went back to the book.
Every sketch had mum, laughing, smiling, joking around and holding her kids. Lia smoothed the page so they could all see her face again. Each of them had their own private memories of whining and fighting with her about the portraits. None had any regrets.
Rolan gestured to the cake on the table. "Is that her recipe?"
"Yup!" Cal nodded. "I even learned to ice a cake. It's a Big Birthday's job to make the cake. And all the party guests help decorate." Big Birthday meant an adult's birthday, usually their mum but eventually Lia and Rolan, and Little Birthday meant kids. Even though Lia and Rolan started their own Big Birthdays when mum got sick, they always maintained that he wasn't old enough for one. He stopped asking when mum died.
Technically, today was his first Big Birthday.
"Cal, Big Birthdays don't exist. We're supposed to throw a party for you, not you for us," Lia said.
"But you said…"
"We only told you about that Big Birthday rubbish because you were too little to bake a cake for mum."
"You did it until I was sixteen." Cal had been so excited for when he was old enough to do it and… embarrassment warmed his cheeks. He'd never questioned them. "Wait, the skewers, the set up. I thought that was my job."
"No! It's our job. We throw you a party. All you do is provide drinks. We even made you a cake today, although…"
Rolan set their platter on the table. A sunken puck of a cake sat there, likely a result of no essence of vanilla, essence of almond or baking soda. Or too small a pan, or over mixing, or under mixing. Cakes had more ways to go wrong than right. Like Cal's that morning, their icing was patchy.
"We…" Rolan cleared his throat. "We opted to order dinner, after this embarrassment. It will arrive soon."
The part of Cal that didn't feel like a fool was touched, but out loud he mumbled, "I thought I was doing our family traditions. Everyone lied to me? Babied me? I'm not a kid anymore."
"We wanted to treat you. You do a lot for the family," Rolan said.
"Like what?" he laughed. "You two provide everything. I'm just here!"
"In every big, complicated thing, there is something minor that makes it all work perfectly."
Minor. Great. Cal's face went hotter.
"Minor but powerful," Rolan quickly said.
Lia gestured to the cake. "Like this. We were only missing a few ingredients, but… well. I'm sure if we compare them, yours would be better."
"We should do that," Rolan said. "Gods, the two of us spent all day working on this, twice the amount of resources you had, and you outmaneuvered us at every turn. Look at these decorations!"
"You did all of this and all we did was…" Lia looked at Rolan. "Give him his gift."
"My gift?" Cal nearly pointed out that he was too old to get gifts, but he was realizing that was another one of his mother's forgivenesses dressed up in a lie.
Rolan pulled two colorfully wrapped packages out from the recesses of his robes. Cal tore them open.
"Mum told me she did it, but I could never find the proof, so we hired someone who could," Lia said. "It doesn't change anything, obviously, but you were saying how you wished we were a family in every way. If it's important to you then…"
Adoption papers, from years ago, naming Rolan legally his brother. The ink blurred as Cal's eyes went misty. So mum had officially adopted Rolan.
"I don't care either way," Rolan said airily. "It's a piece of paper, it doesn't matter."
"It doesn't and it does," Cal said, voice thick.
"Then we went today and filled out more paperwork," Lia said. "None of this is official until we turn it in, but… well. You've always talked about this. You don't have to do it but if you want to, our side is done."
Papers for new names. A new family name, so they would all match. Something that would tie him to them even when they were apart.
Cal said, "You don't have to—"
"We want to," Rolan said. "Well, I do. I recall Lia having some choice words to say about a certain culture's marriage traditions—"
"Gods, Rolan, shut up," Lia groaned, stuffing another gold piece in the get-along jar. "I also want to."
"Thank you." Cal wiped his eyes on the back of his hand.
"Are you crying?" Lia laughed.
He nodded.
"Get over here, you—" she squeezed him tight, rubbing her horns against his head in a tiefling noogie, and dragged Rolan into the hug with her tail. "Happy birthday."
He hugged them back so hard he picked them up.
"Now where's that ribbon?" Lia said. "Your horns are looking mighty plain."
"I'll prep the candles," Rolan said. "Oh, and a spell for lights. We'll need lights, of course."
The portals buzzed, and by the time Cal had his eyes mostly dry Bex and Danis were stepping into the room, each carrying a dozen fortune pies, then a few minutes later Geraldus dragged a stuffed Cal so they could beat the bad luck out of it. Dammon provided the stick (a new spear) and the rest of the tieflings trickled in with platters and gifts, the room filling with laughter and music.
Lia tied the last ribbon to Cal's horn—one for each year, falling behind him like a cape—and Rolan finished clamping the candles to his horns, because it wasn't a tiefling birthday without at least three fire hazards. They grabbed Cal and pulled him into the middle of the room.
Rolan held up a hand. Light flared and filled the ceiling above them. Lia popped a bottle of bubbly and yelled, "Now, let's get the party going!"