Page 61 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

“Here, honey. Peel this turnip.” Brebie placed the vegetable in my left hand and a small knife in my right one.

I’d begged her to bring me here today, wishing to see what working in the kitchen was like. I also secretly hoped the cook might have something for me to do, something that I could possibly make my main occupation with time.

There was no way I could ever compete with someone like Alacine in cleaning rooms. But after having spent only five minutes in the kitchen, I doubted I could be as good as any of the people working here, either.

The head chef, a tall, elegant man with the grace of a dancer, was sculpting a giant snow-white swan atop a rose-pink crest of a wave on a marble platter.

“The ice-cream sculpture is for the celebration dinner for when the hunting party returns to Elaros,” Brebie had explained to me when we’d arrived at the kitchen a few minutes ago. “It takes days to complete. And it’s kept in a freezer in the cellar between the sculpting sessions.”

“It’s gorgeous!” I’d gasped in awe, which had earned me a smug glance from the head chef.

He had allowed me to stay and look around, though I suspected he was already regretting it. Wherever I stood, I seemed to be in the way of people working here. They moved swiftly between the tables, fireplaces, crates, and barrels, without bumping into each other. My presence broke the pattern of this well-coordinated choreography.

I squeezed into a gap between two tables and started peeling the turnip Brebie had given me. With the flurry of activity around me, I couldn’t help but feel like a child who’d been given a box of crayons and some paper to occupy her while the adults were doing the real job. But I didn’t complain. I’d peel a thousand turnips and then a thousand more if only that helped me keep the pet collar off my neck in the future.

“I finished!” I triumphantly displayed my peeled turnip.

The head chef didn’t spare me a glance.

The kitchen helper just sneered in my direction. He'd almost finished a bucket of carrots by now. By smoothly rotating each root vegetable between his fingers, he managed to peel the entire carrot in one rotation. The sight was mesmerizing. I could just stay there and watch him work. Or watch the head chef manipulate a butter knife like a sculpting tool to whip the ice cream into shape. Or admire the way anarienwoman deftly unmolded intricate shapes of jelly to be served to Queen Pavline and the few courtiers who hadn’t left with the king’s hunting party, choosing to stay in the palace instead.

Could I ever become as fast and efficient as the fae? Could I learn the skills most of them had been born to muster?

“Out of the way!” a woman carrying a tray full of dishes snapped, startling me.

I scurried back into my gap between two tables. Brebie hurried to me from where she was talking to someone by one of the giant stoves across the rooms.

“It’s nice, sweetie.” She took the turnip from me and placed it on the table where another woman quickly rolled it aside to make space for kneading bread dough.

“Can I do something else?” I asked.

Brebie shook her head. “You should go back to your room, now. We’ll need to get you dressed for Lady Dove’s tea party.”

I inhaled, ready to argue when the head chef’s cheerful voice reached me.

“Greetings, High General.”

The breath stayed in my throat. With my back turned to the door, I didn’t see him, but Ifeltwith my entire being when Voron entered the kitchen.

My face flushed with heat as he greeted the head chef behind me. Blood rushed from my extremities, leaving my fingers cold and trembling. I carefully set the knife I held down onto the table, lest I drop it.

His deep voice sounded right behind my back, “The hunting party felled a stag this morning. The king wishes to have the venison served at the dinner celebration upon their return to Elaros next week.”

Maybe he always spoke to the head chef in a clipped voice like that. But something told me Voron was curt because of me. Not because I wasn’t supposed to be in the kitchen. But because he didn’t expect to run into me here.

Ever since I’d kicked him out of my room, he’d been keeping his distance, just like I’d told him to. He hadn’t approached me, hadn’t spoken to me, and hadn’t searched out my company.

I did my best to avoid him, too. During the royal dinners, I’d refrained from looking around the room for him. No matter how hard it was, I didn’t even glance at the doors where he usually stood watching over the king and his guests. But like now, I’d often sensed his presence. I’d felt his stare on me, even as I’d forbidden him to look at me.

The kitchen staff was busy with preparations. Among all the bustling activity, the silence around us grew that much more awkward. When I could no longer stand it, I turned around, against my better judgment.

His gray-blue eyes looked straight at me, robbing me of breath.

“Hello, Sparrow,” he said evenly.

The sleeves of his black silk shirt were rolled up to his elbows. Clenching his right hand, he leaned with the fist against the table. The ropy muscles of his forearm bulged out, raising a thick vein under his pale skin. The short hair on the outside of his arm made me think of his bare chest I’d glimpsed when he’d taken his necklace off to give it to me. I’d been wearing it ever since. The smooth stone pendant nested neatly between my breasts, feeling like a gentle press of a thumb.

Raising my hand, I placed it against his necklace under my blouse, one of the very few non-transparent clothes I had in my extensive wardrobe.

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