“Functional and fashionable,” said Christopher, his tone an intentional mirror to hers when she had been speaking of the milk fruit. “So is it weird for you? Being a god?”

The Baker hesitated before putting her milk down. “Let’s clear this up,” she said. “I am not a god. I’m a baker. I bake things. Any magic in my food comes from the world, not from me, and I can’t help it if here, my brownies are always perfect and mysteriously double as roofing materials.”

“Sorry,” said Christopher. “I just thought—”

“I’m not here to convert people, or to preach, or to do anything but make a lot of cookies. A continent of cookies. When I’m done, if the door opens and sends me home, I suppose I’ll make cookies there.”

“Do you have a name?” asked Kade.

“Layla,” she said.

“Nice to meet you,” he replied. “I’m Kade. These are my friends, Cora and Christopher. Rini, you already know.”

Layla nodded to each of them in turn. “Nice to meet you. You all had doors of your own?”

“Goblin Prince,” said Kade.

“Mermaid,” said Cora.

“Beloved of the Princess of Skeletons,” said Christopher.

Layla blinked. “I was with you right up until that last one.”

Christopher shrugged easily. “I get that response pretty often.”

Rini didn’t say anything. She was miserably flicking chocolate chips from the wall, sending them clattering down into the junkyard below them. Layla sighed and leaned over to put her hand on Rini’s shoulder.

“Breathe,” she said.

“I think one of my lungs has stopped existing,” said Rini.

“So breathe a little more shallowly,” said Layla. “Just keep breathing. The baking will be done soon, and then we’ll see what we’ll see.”

“Rini was worried,” blurted Cora. Rini and Layla both turned to look at her. “About the timing. Um. If Sumi died before she was born, and we bring Sumi back to life now…”

“Oh, that’s simple,” said Layla. “You bring Sumi back to life now, and she returns to school with the rest of you. For us, Sumi is a grown woman, not a teenage skeleton. She’ll have a few years with you before her door opens again.”

“Are you the one who opens it?” asked Kade.

“No,” said Layla. “I get here a year after Sumi does.”

There was a momentary silence before Christopher asked, “If we’re in the future—our future—right now, does that mean that if I looked you up on Facebook once I have Wi-Fi again, I’d find you, like, twelve years old and living in Brooklyn?”