Eight Candles, One Sanctum

Saturday. A birthday. I could tell from the hats.

Eight of them, which I now know is as many as the sanctum will take, with the birthday girl at the front in a cloak her grandmother had clearly sewn by hand. Her father went in too, because some of the class were nine and under and the rules say a grown-up must go in with them. He wore a paper crown. I respected the crown.

On Saturdays, I learned, the castle prefers classes of four or more. A pair who wanted a turn were told to ring the front desk on the day, or walk in and ask, in case a session came free. Two cousins of the birthday girl, who would have made ten, went into another room down the hall that started at the very same moment. Afterwards everyone compared notes in the foyer, very loudly.

I waited outside the walls with a cake of my own. It was meant to be an elixir cake. In the end it was just a cake. Crumpet ate the icing.