Chapter 40: Chapter 42

Smiley face pancakes. I'd been expecting something fancy and elaborate, like filet mignon or Lobster Newberg—two things I would've never been able to eat anyway—but never smiley face pancakes served in plates that belonged at a ten-year-old’s birthday party.

Not that it wasn't delicious. The Belgium chocolate Midlo had used to make the smiley faces was heavenly, its creaminess and silky flavor something gods would've bargained their immortality for. And not that the plates weren't pretty awesome. I loved the colorful glitter circles and spirals on them. It was just the colossal contrast between all these…rainbow colors and ashen, gothic things that was really hard to process. Everything on the table looked so out of place, including Comus and his lollipops and his circus-y clothes, and…and the ginormous pet of the house, Nero.