TWO WILLS, ONE LOAF by Greg Lammers
She assured him, in her light mocking tone, that it was rising. But how could he tell? It looked to him like it was doing a whole lot of nothing. Not rising, not sinking, not twerking, nothing.
She sat on a stool, long legged, in the corner of the kitchen and laughed. Her laughter cut into him. It grew louder and sharper by the second. That laugh was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love and married her. But now that laughter, aimed at him from the corner of the room, was almost too much.
He focused on the loaf of peasant bread not rising in front of him. For fuck’s sake. He knew not to make these kinds of bets with her, to push her to use her powers for evil. But now it was too late. He’d made the bet. You buys the ticket and you takes the ride.
Two wizards faced off in a kitchen. One wizard focused her power on preventing bread from rising. The other used his will to make it rise. It would rise of its own accord eventually but it might not be in time. And if it didn’t he would have to pay. If she won he would have to do the dishes and take out the trash, again, like an ordinary human with his meaty hands.