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A small man with a shining head bowed and gestured toward the food. He wore form fitting clothes like Dex, but his shirt was the pale yellow of the other servants. His black trousers looked slightly loose, but the dragon-covered bands seemed tight around his wrists.
"Baffor doesn't speak." Dex gave the man a nod. "Just tell him what you'd like and he'll put it on your plate." He waved toward Calista, who addressed Baffor with a smile.
"A little of everything."
Baffor nodded. Evidentially he could hear perfectly well. He picked up Calista's plate and stepped around the table, closer to the food. Tongue between his lips, he spooned food onto the plate. He arranged everything so nothing touched, then lowered it for Calista to see. When she nodded, he carefully placed it back in front of her.
"Thank you, Baffor." Calista's hands rested in her lap. It seemed here they waited until everyone was served before they ate.
In my family, everyone started immediately, as if the food might run out before we finished. So much for shifters being animals.
"The same for me please," I said when Baffor's eyes settled on me.
As he had done with Calista, he showed me the plate, laden with food in neat piles.
"Um, that looks fine, thank you," I said uncomfortably. What would happen if it didn't?
Baffor beamed. He placed my plate in front of me before he moved around to Dex. Only once he left did we pick up our fancy, silver forks.
"In case you're wondering," Dex said, a forkful of food halfway to his mouth, "if he didn't put the food on the plate properly, it would be thrown away."
"That seems like a waste of food," I said without thinking. "I mean—"
Calista snorted and her eyes narrowed. For the first time, she seemed annoyed.
"It behooves the servants to do their jobs right," she said, her voice tight.
Behooves? I presumed that meant they expected the job to be done right, every time. "I guess you don't want half-assed servants."
"Certainly not." Calista looked offended at the idea.
Great, I would get thrown out because of the tidiness of their dinner plates. Maybe my mother was right after all.
"She didn't know, Aunt," Dex said. "Things are different here from the way witches do things. It will take her time to understand shifter ways." He didn't speak like I was a lesser being, as the witches would.
I was used to being treated like I was the dirt under people's shoes. This made me uncomfortable and on guard. Why was he being nice? He had to have some kind of agenda
"I suppose so." Calista shrugged and looked at me like a mother would a kid covered in mud. Not hostile, but like I should know better. She lowered her eyes and began to eat.
Dex nodded for me to do the same.
Determined not to make an idiot of myself again, I stuffed a piece of a green vegetable, a pepper of some kind, into my mouth. If I kept it full, my mouth couldn't run away with me. At least in theory.
For a moment, the pepper tasted benign, if a little over-spiced. Slowly, heat leached from the spices and flooded into my mouth until it started to burn. My eyes watered. I reached for a glass of water and took a gulp. It barely took the edge off the fire which burned down my throat and into my stomach. There, it singed my insides, until I felt like I might burst into flame.
I sucked in a breath through my nose, but the spices had dulled my senses. I couldn't breathe enough of the fragrance from either the food or my company to soothe myself. On the verge of panic, I drank half the glass of water, until finally the sensation faded.
"Oh dear, are you all right?" Calista asked.
Someone slipped a handkerchief into my hand and I wiped my eyes. "Witch's food is a little…blander."
Hades, if all their food is this hot—Great, I made a fool of myself again, without meaning to and so soon after the last time. Maybe the sea serpents weren't so bad.
"I think the cook went a little overboard." Dex pierced a chunk of potato before he ate it. Around his mouthful, he said, "Should I have them executed?"
I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, until Calista laughed.
"We do like our food hot." Calista gave him a look, then turned a sympathetic smile to me. Apparently she'd forgiven my judgment of their waste of food. "Try the rice. It should be easier on the palate."
