RINI WAITED UNTIL her friends—were they her friends now? Had they bonded sufficiently in adversity that they could use that label? She’d never really had friends before, she didn’t know the rules—were almost upon her before letting go of her father and stepping back, letting him see them, letting them see him.

He was tall. They’d been able to see that from a distance, along with the unnatural yellow of his hair. What they hadn’t been able to see was that his eyes were like Rini’s, candy corn somehow transformed into an eye color, or that his hands were large and calloused from a lifetime spent working in the fields, or that his face had been tanned by the sun until he was almost as dark as his daughter, although his undertones were different, warm where hers were cool, ruddy red and peach, not amber and honey. They looked nothing alike. They looked absolutely alike.

Kade, who had known Sumi better than either of his companions, looked at Rini, and looked at her father, and saw Sumi in the differences between them, the places where she had been added to the recipe that, when properly baked, had resulted in her daughter.

“Sir,” he said, with a very small bow. It seemed appropriate, somehow. “I’m Kade. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you for bringing my daughter home,” said Rini’s father. “She tells me you’ve had quite the adventure. The Queen of Cakes is back to her old tricks, is she? Well, I suppose that was the only thing that could happen in a world where my Sumi never made it back to me.” He sounded less sad than simply resigned. This was the way he had always expected the world to go: snatching joy out of his hands for the sheer sake of doing it, and not because he, personally, had done anything to earn the loss. “My name is Ponder, and it’s a pleasure to have you on my farm.”

“This is no time for manners and moodiness, Daddy,” said Rini, with a little of her old imperiousness. Being near her father seemed to be bolstering her spirits, enough to remind her that, fading or not, she was still here; there was still time for her to fix this. “I found Mom. I found her bones in a world that didn’t know how to laugh, and I found her spirit in a world that didn’t know how to run, and now I need you to tell me how to find her heart, so I can stick them all back together again.”

Rini smiled at her father when she finished, guilelessly bright, like he was the answer to all her prayers: like he was going to make things right again.