Paper lanterns swung above the festival street in long red rows, throwing warm light across a thousand stalls. Loccy lifted her nose into the crowd, following one sweet trail past roasted chestnuts and a juggler's smoke.
"There," she breathed, pointing at a stall where cream-puff towers rose higher than her ears.
Hajin stopped mid-step, "Those aren't towers, Bun, those are siege weapons made of sugar."
A banner promised free pastry for a year to anyone who finished a whole tower before midnight. A hulking man in a flour-white apron sat beside the banner, patting his belly like a drum.
"Borrik Wide, eleven years undefeated at the Tarrow wharf," the man rumbled, "sit down, little miss, I'll be gentle."
"I'd like nine towers, please, I'm only a bit hungry," Loccy said, folding her hands politely.
"I'll bet you quit at three," he said, rolling his shoulders like a man with nothing to lose.
"Then I'll pay a pie for every tower she finishes," Hajin said, because he never learned.
