“A pity you have to leave so soon,” said Evaine coolly. “I was about to take a leek and potato pie out of the oven.”
Rolan gave a soft moan. He’d always tried to turn down Evaine’s offers of free food out of pride, or out of respect for his pa’s opinions on her charity, or to make a point to Anaya.
But not once had he successfully turned down her leek and potato pie.
It was decadence on a plate. His mouth was already beginning to water.
Luc paused in the doorway, which he’d opened a crack. A warm wind curled in, curious and lazy, to ruffle the hem of his cloak, as if to tug him back inside.
“Is that an invitation tolunch?” Luc asked, as if “lunch” were a fight to the death, not a meal of delicious, delectable leek and potato pie.
“Is that a request tojoinus?” returned Evaine, her voice equally cold, grinding her mortar. Whatever was in there had to be dust by now.
Rolan and Anaya glanced between the pair, eyes wide. They moved slightly closer to each other, like two mice seeking warmth in a winter gust.
“I am not the barbarian you people think I am,” Luc replied, his back still to the apothecary, his fist a knot around the door handle. “I do know how to hold a knife and fork.”
“We peoplehardly spare a thought for reclusive, arrogant Arcanists at all,” Evaine retorted. “But poor Rolan looks half starved. He clearly needs a good meal.”
“Iampretty hungry,” Rolan announced. He regretted speaking at all when both Arcanist and apothecary turned their withering glares onhim.
Anaya gripped his arm. “Then come on! There’s plenty of food. And I made an apple tart. Well. Itriedto make an apple tart. It’s sort of… wet, but I think it’ll taste all right.”
“Apple tart?” Rolan grinned. “Iloveapple tart! That settles it. C’mon, Luc, stop glaring and come eat.”
He followed Anaya through the beaded curtain to the kitchen, where the mouthwatering, knee-buckling aroma of leek and potato pie wafted from the stove. He threw himself onto a stool at the table and grabbed a wooden fork while Anaya tended the fire under the stove, adding another log and prodding it gently into place with a poker.
A moment later, the beads parted and Evaine glided in, her chin high. She didn’t say a word, she only went to the stove and took out the pie, gripping the hot pan with her apron.
“Your hair’s looking better,” Anaya said to Rolan.
He scraped a hand over his choppy hair which had grown an inch or two since Luc had shorn it off.
“I’ve started brushing it every day!” he said proudly. “Well. Noteveryday. More like… every other day. Well. Once a week, at least. But still.”
“That’s a new shirt,” Anaya said.
He nodded. “Luc made it. He’s an all right tailor, turns out. Probably comes from having to stitch up so many Cryptic bites.”
At the stove, Evaine tensed, just as the curtain of beads rustled again.
Luc stepped into the kitchen, his tall, broad form filling the room.
“Take off the cloak if you’re going to eat,” Evaine said curtly, not looking at him. “That thing casts such shadows, you’ll hatch a Cryptic under my dining table.”
“I did not say I was going to eat,” Luc grunted, but he removed the cloak.
Anaya put down four plates. “Do you often get bitten by Cryptics?” she asked Luc.
“He does,” said Rolan. “All the time. They chew him up and spit him out, and he gets up and just keeps fighting. It’s the power he carries in his blades, y’see.”
“Boy.”Luc shot him a narrow look of warning.
Rolan swallowed. The Arcanists’ ways weren’t exactlysecret, but he knew from the history books he’d read that most of them didn’t like to talk about how they wielded Arcana. It made other people feel uncomfortable or something. Rolan didn’t see why. He just thought it was awesome. Maybe if everybody saw Luc fight a massive Cryptic, they’d be more awed than scared of him.
“Anyway,” said Rolan, “I killed my first Cryptic last night.”
Evaine turned around, drawing in a sharp breath. “You let him dowhat?”
