A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

“Being a wizard is almost all like that—you don’t know what you can do until you actually do it, and then sometimes you aren’t sure what you just did. There aren’t teachers who can help you, either. Everybody’s different, and there’s usually only a couple dozen magic folk in any given city anyway. A few hundred if it’s a really big city. Maybe in the army the war-wizards get special training, but down here, it’s all trial and error and a lot of wasted bread dough.”

Mona explains some basics about how magic works in the world of the novel, which becomes important as the plot progresses. This passage also lends detail to the world-building. Additionally, it depicts Mona’s self-deprecating comparisons between herself and “real” (i.e., powerful) wizards, which contributes to the theme of Leveraging One’s Talents. As the story progresses, Mona learns it’s not about what one’s magic does but rather what one does with their magic.

“I knew immediately who it was. Lord Ethan, the Golden General. The wizard who led Her Grace’s armies into battle. […] You may think that I’m being ridiculous, mooning over how famous a man is when I’m being accused of murder, but—well—it was Lord Ethan. The closest we had to a living legend, like one of the heroes in the old stories who slew monsters.”

Though the Duchess is by far the more politically powerful character in this scene, the focus on Lord Ethan speaks to Mona’s character. Like many teenage girls would be, she is enamored with the handsome heroic figure of Lord Ethan, even while facing possible imprisonment. Establishing her hero worship is also important to set up the later disappointment she feels.

“Knackering Molly was, to put it bluntly, insane. She wasn’t stupid, though. There was a sharp, glittering intelligence inside the insanity that had learned early on that it was much easier to get away with being insane if you were also useful and had a little bit of money, and if people were just a little bit scared of you.

Molly was, like me, a very minor wizard, but her talent was even weirder. She could make dead horses walk.”

Knackering Molly’s introduction paints a detailed image of the character, including her ability, her presumed psychological condition, and hints of the underlying trauma that likely caused this condition. This description retains the wry, darkly humorous tone Mona uses throughout the novel, while also once again demonstrating her fixation on minor versus powerful magic.

“[M]y attacker was a ten-year-old boy. I wrenched away, turned and faced him. He wasn’t big. My neck was probably about the highest he could reach. He was wiry, but he looked skinny and underfed, like a stray dog. His eyes were way too big for his face, and the grime on his face was marred by tear tracks.”

Mona meets Spindle in this scene, the second major character in the novel. Spindle is vital to the plot in several ways, especially because his arrival makes Tibbie’s death more personal for Mona, rather than merely a random event in an otherwise normal life. He also provides vital support and saves Mona’s life several times in the novel.

“‘Got you!’ crowed the Spring Green Man, as he took a last step forward, and I flung the bucket with Bob the sourdough starter over him.

The man screamed. It was shock at first, and then it was pain, because Bob was mad. I’d pumped as much of my panic and terror into the dough as I could.”

The second antagonist, the Spring Green Man, appears for the first time, though his presence has already been established through rumor, Tibbie’s death, and Molly’s warnings. Additionally, this scene showcases Bob’s effectiveness as a weapon and defense, which gestures to Bob’s role as a symbol of Mona’s fear and desire for safety and protection.

“‘Somebody did it,’ said Spindle stubbornly, dropping his chin onto his chest and glaring at me. ‘Guards never care about people like us, as long as we don’t make trouble. They’re trying to wipe magickers out now so you don’t make trouble. They started with Tibbie, and now they’re goin’ for you.’”

This passage contributes to the theme of The Obligations Associated With Power. Mona believes that the constables, as adults with legal power in her community, can and should help her following the Spring Green Man’s attack. However, Spindle has a better understanding of social power and knows that the constables will do no such thing. Unfortunately, Mona approaches the constables, who attempt to capture her, before she understands this herself.

“Molly didn’t apologize for having left us for so long, or yell at us for leaving. I’m not entirely sure if she realized that she was a grown-up and we were kids, or if she knew and it just didn’t matter to her in the slightest. Maybe that sort of thing didn’t apply any more. If grown-ups were trying to kill you, did that make you an honorary grown-up? If so, I would have preferred to just grow up and get my period like a normal person.”

This passage also contributes to the theme of The Obligations Associated With Power because Mona feels that adults automatically have a duty to protect the children in their care. Because Molly fits into the category of grown-up, she should care more about keeping Mona and Spindle (the kids) safe. However, Mona begins to understand that her situation is unusual and such distinctions may no longer matter.

“The magic I try to do deliberately doesn’t work nearly as well, unless I’m panicked, like when I made the getaway-bread float, or brought Bob the sourdough starter to life. There’s something about stark terror that really gets magic working.”

Mona offers more explanation of how magic works in the world of the novel while also reinforcing the concept that her baked creations symbolize her emotions. Though terror may be the prevalent feeling that inspires her magic, as in the case of Bob, her animated creatures have the capacity to symbolize any emotion.

“If I got to a city, I still might have to leave again, or live in a wizard’s quarter, or get registered by the government as a known magicker. That was what I was trying to avoid. It seemed like once you agreed that the government could put you on a list because of something you were born with, you were asking for trouble. Sooner or later somebody like Oberon would get hold of that list.”

Mona makes explicit several aspects of the theme of Difference and Prejudice. First, she explains that such prejudice can be widespread and influence both the social and legal aspects of one’s life. Second, bowing to discrimination in even seemingly benign circumstances will always ultimately lead to more extreme forms of prejudice, including violence and extermination.

“And then the last thing in the entire world that I expected to happen, happened.

‘Oh, my dears…’ The Duchess’s face crumbled. ‘I know. I know. And I don’t know what to do!’

And she burst into tears.”

Mona has been working under the belief that the Duchess must not know what is happening, because if she did, she would surely have done something to stop it by now. The revelation that the Duchess does know of Oberon’s scheme, is a blow to Mona’s faith that those with power will use it correctly to protect the people in their charge.

“[S]he didn’t look much like a ruler right now. She looked smaller than she did in the parades and when I’d seen her at court. Smaller and older and a great deal more tired. When she walked, there was a faint hint of a shuffle, as if one of her knees pained her. There were purple half-moons under her eyes, and her brief tears had made her nose red and shiny.”

When Mona sees the Duchess in Chapter 5, she describes her as an average middle-aged woman, though she still possesses a dignified bearing and sense of control that Mona finds impressive. Now, however, this dignified image of the Duchess is truly shattered and Mona sees her as she really is: a tired, older woman with little strength and a defeated attitude.

“It is not so simple. You must understand, Mona, the ruler of a city is not an absolute power. The Council also wields a great deal of control. Usually that’s a good thing. It keeps a bad ruler from making things unpleasant for the citizens. But it can also lead to problems, particularly if someone on the Council has an agenda of their own. Oberon leads the Council and he is…skilled…at making other councilors see his way of thinking.”

Despite everything that has happened, Mona still believes that the Duchess can and will use her political authority to stop Oberon. However, the Duchess quickly disabuses her of the notion that she has much political power at all, despite her title, and argues that there is little she can do without sanction and support from a network of nobles, councilors, and the army.

“‘Have you ever done any message work?’ asked Gildaen, stirring the water with a finger.

‘Uh…’ The question surprised me. ‘I work with bread, sir. Just bread.’

He snorted, eyeing the gingerbread man sitting on my shoulder. ‘And I work with water—just water. I admit bread’s a little more specialized, but I suspect you could work something out. Convince your message to appear on a scone or something.’”

The motif of “just bread” appears throughout the novel. With this phrase, Mona compares her minor ability disparagingly to what she imagines powerful magic to be, while also defending herself against any demands that she use her ability to its fullest potential. Gildaen resists this interpretation. The entire conversation between the two in this scene forces Mona to reconsider her understanding of what powerful magic looks like and what she might be capable of.

“I say again, giving magical life to inanimate objects is not a function of size but of intelligence and duration. The life force of an elephant is no greater than that of a mouse, merely it lasts longer and is greater in intellect. If you would give life to the unliving, it matters not whether it is as large as a mountain or as small as a housecat, the spark of life differs not in power.”

This is a passage that Mona reads from the book, Spiraling Shadows, that she finds in Gildaen’s room. The Duchess allows her to keep the book, which proves invaluable in helping Mona understand the theoretical structure of how she animates her baked creatures and expands her imagination of what she might do with such an ability.

“But he only looked at her, and said, very calmly, ‘You could have ruled a dozen cities, if you had the stomach for it.’

‘I have no desire to be responsible for so many lives,’ said the Duchess coolly.

He nodded once. ‘You always did lack vision. It does not matter. You will regret this night’s work.’”

Oberon and the Duchess demonstrate different ideas of what power means and what is used for. Oberon believes power is its own goal and feels that there is no such thing as too much nor any limits to what a person may do with such power. The Duchess, on the other hand, understands power to be in service to other people, making her responsible for the lives under her protection, a responsibility she does not take lightly.

“It should never have come down to me. It was miserably unfair that it had come to me and Spindle. There were grown-ups who should have stopped it. The Duchess should have found her courage and gone to the guards. The guards should have warned the Duchess. The Council, whoever they were, should have made sure the Duchess knew about the proclamations. The Duchess should have had people on the street who reported back to her. Everyone had failed at every step and now Spindle and I were heroes because of it.”

Mona explicitly states the core idea of the theme The Obligations Associated With Power. She argues that people like the Duchess, the Council, the guards, and adults in general, had the ability and the duty to stop Oberon before people died. They failed in this duty, forcing children who should never have been responsible for the situation, to fix in their stead.

“Uncle Albert glanced over at me. ‘But as 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. Or try to fix it. […] How else are you gonna have heroes?’”

Uncle Albert’s story about being in the army as a young man demonstrates his deep empathy for Mona’s situation. His explanation of what a hero is and how such labels are gained complicate ideas about how one’s talents are used and who is responsible for such use. The novel returns to this concept in the final chapter in a conversation between Mona and Lord Ethan.

“I turned away. I felt ancient, like I’d aged a lifetime standing there. The Mona who had spent the afternoon putting jar lids onto sourdough starters seemed distant and young and innocent, and the Mona who had found a dead girl on the bakery floor was some other person from somebody else’s life entirely.

It’s a strange way to feel when you’re fourteen.”

Mona’s narration here captures the feelings of weariness and resignation that one often feels in times of great stress and trauma, particularly when children are forced to handle adult situations. She laments the responsibility that has been laid on her shoulders, which should not be hers to bear, but which her role as the last wizard in the city has forced upon her.

“The dough under my hands was bad. I could feel it. There was malice in it. It wanted to hurt people. I fed that as much as I could, pouring all my anger at the sight of the burning fields into it, and all my terror at the news that the Spring Green Man had escaped.

By the time I was done, you wouldn’t have had to worry about rat poison. The dough would try to choke you before you even managed to swallow it.”

As before, Mona’s baked creatures represent her deeper emotions. This is especially true in the case of her gingerbread saboteurs, who contain all her anger, fear, and desire for destruction. This proves especially effective as the gingerbread men wreak havoc in the Carex camp.

“I scrambled down, just in time to see Aunt Tabitha reach the Carex. The enemy warrior clearly had no idea what to make of the berserk woman charging at him, with her housedress flapping madly over her jingling armor. He gaped at her. Aunt Tabitha whacked him with the hammer so hard that his helmet got knocked halfway around his head, and he fell down. She kicked him a few times. Aunt Tabitha had very definite opinions about people who tried to invade her city.”

This depiction of Aunt Tabitha is simultaneously incongruous with her image as a large, soft woman in flowery dresses, and perfectly fitting with the core of competence that lies just beneath the soft exterior. This image is both humorous and inspiring, proving that one does not need to be a warrior to fight when needed.

“Elgar spat. ‘That idiot. Once he took the city, I was going to kill him anyway. A wizard-emperor! Just think of it!’

I guess really bad people all think they’re using each other and being really clever about it. And they all want to be in charge. You never see them stabbing each other over who gets to be the baker.”

Elgar, the Spring Green Man, reappears right in the middle of the Carex invasion because he is more intent on getting revenge against Mona than on saving himself from the oncoming attack. He is obsessive and mindlessly focused on violence. This scene also highlights the way evil power-hungry people are willing to betray even their own allies in the pursuit of dominance.

“I knew, even as I hung limply in Aunt Tabitha’s grasp, that this would be the end of me. I had pushed the magic much farther than I thought I could, but it was done. If I tried to pour that much of myself into the slug, it would be with the energy that kept my heart beating and my lungs moving. I could send it oozing across the battlefield and blow it up, but that would be the last thing I did.”

Mona is willing to sacrifice her own life to protect the city, thus fulfilling the imperative of Leveraging One’s Talents in service to the community, despite her young age and the fact that it should never have been her responsibility in the first place. Mona’s character development from unassuming baker to powerful wizard and defender of the city thus reaches its culmination.

“Knackering Molly had called the dead horses of the city to its defense, and the horses had come. […] Some were so old that there were hardly any bones, just clouds of dust formed into the shape of running horses. That magic that held them together was so much stronger than anything I could do—than anything I’d ever seen—

It was no wonder the army had tried to recruit Molly. The amazing thing was that they’d ever let her go.”

Just as Mona is willing to sacrifice her own life, so too is Molly, who understands better than most what sacrifices one may be forced to make in service to others. Despite, or possibly because of, her previous traumatic experiences, she makes this decision both for the city’s sake and for Mona’s, to keep her from doing the same thing.