A Dash of Cinnamon

Katharine Espin Tarnath III let the door slam and dropped her bag to head upstairs. She slipped off the heavy black ceremonial robes - how anyone was supposed to wear these in the heat of summer, she didn't know - and pulled a long T-shirt over her head instead.

She padded downstairs barefoot, luxuriating in the cool of the shaded townhouse, and headed for the kitchen. Her professor was going to want to see a demonstration at the meeting tomorrow, and she wasn't going to disappoint.

The smell of baked goods sent a shiver of pleasure down Katy's spine as she made her way into the kitchen. Pastries in glass jars filled every available space - shelves, countertops, tables. Usually sultry and lethargic in the heat of day, they came alive with surges of dark energy at her approach. A particularly aggressive strudel knocked its jar off its perch and fell to shatter on the floor.

She burned it with a twist of the hand and sighed. The German types had always been troublesome.