Page 58 of The Black Witch

“So you have no clear image of her,” she says, cutting me off. “Unlike you, I remember her quite well.” She pauses a moment to stare at me, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line.

My brow creases in confusion. Why is she being so terse at the mention of my grandmother? Our greatest Mage. Our people’s Deliverer. Most Gardnerians worship her memory.

She stands up unexpectedly and gestures toward the door. “Very well, Mage Gardner. It would seem that it’s time for you to report for your labor assignment.”

For a moment I just sit there, blinking at her, then realize I’m been summarily dismissed. I gather up my papers and make my departure.

CHAPTER FIVE

The North Tower

I follow my map to a long building near the White Hall, enter and make my way through the sizable dining area toward a door at the very end.

An engraved wooden placard on the adjacent wall readsMain Kitchen.

I push on the door, and it swings open on heavy iron hinges. The corridor it opens into is lined with shelves stacked full of cleaning tools, and the smell of soap is heavy in the air. I walk toward another door just ahead and peer through its circular window.

Warm light emanates from the kitchen and spills out over me like a cozy blanket, the smells of food and well-banked fires filling me with comfort.

It smells like home. Like the kitchen in my uncle’s cottage. As if I could close my eyes, and when I opened them, I’d be home, my uncle offering me a mug of warm, mint tea with honey.

On a broad wooden table directly before me, a plump, elderly Urisk woman busily kneads a large pile of bread dough. She’s carrying on a quiet conversation with three other Urisk women doing the same. Almost all of them look like the seasonal laborers at the Gaffneys’ farm—rose-tinted white skin, hair and eyes. Members of the Urisk lower class.

The women laugh every now and then, the fragrant herbs hanging in rows from the rafters above their heads giving the kitchen the look of a friendly forest. A number of young Kelts joke with each other amicably as they go about washing dishes, tending fires, chopping vegetables for tomorrow’s meals. A small Urisk child skips about, her rose-white hair braided, the kitchen laborers skirting around her, careful not to spill hot water or plates of food on her head. She can’t be more than five years old. The little girl is holding some twisted wire and a small bottle, pausing every now and then to blow bubbles at people, the bread makers good-naturedly shooing her and popping bubbles before they can land on the piles of dough.

As I continue to watch the warm scene, relief washes over me.

To think Aunt Vyvian imagined working here would be so terrible. This is work I truly welcome. Peeling potatoes, washing dishes, pleasant people.

And then I seehim.

Yvan Guriel.

The angry Kelt. The one who hated me on sight.

But he doesn’t look angry now. He’s sitting in a far corner in front of a table. With him sit four young women—three of them Urisk, one a serious, blonde Keltic girl—all of whom look to be about the same age as me.

There are books and maps open in front of them, and Yvan is talking and pointing to something on one of the pages, almost as if he’s lecturing. Every so often he pauses, and the Urisk girls copy something down onto the parchment in front of them. Two of the Urisk girls nod at him when he speaks, concentrating intently on what he has to say.

These girls have rose-white coloration, like most of the Urisk in the kitchen, and are plainly dressed in aprons over work clothes, their hair pulled back into single braids. But the third Urisk girl is different. She reminds me of the Amazakaran—her hair worn in a series of beaded ropes, her posture defiant, her emerald eyes as intense as Yvan’s. And her hair and skin are as vivid green as her eyes.

The small, bubble-blowing Urisk child runs over to their table, to Yvan, and throws her arms around him, spilling almost the entire bottle of the bubble liquid down his brown woolen shirt.

I wonder what he’ll do, intense and angry as he seems to be.

But he surprises me. He reaches up and puts a gentle hand on the small arm that’s still wrapped around him, the little girl grinning at him widely. Then he turns his head to her and smiles.

My breath catches in my throat.

His broad, kind smile transforms him into a completely different person than the angry young man I saw earlier. He’s dazzling—more boyish than Lukas, but devastatingly handsome. The flickering lantern light of the kitchen highlights his angular features, and his brilliant green eyes, so hateful before, are now so lovely to look at—brimming with intelligence and kindness. Seeing him like this sets off a sudden bloom of warmth in my chest.

He says something to the Urisk child and squeezes her arm affectionately. The child nods, still smiling, and skips off with her bubbles.

For a moment I can’t take my eyes off him, and I imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of such a smile.

It’s all so wonderful. Friendship. Cooking. Children.

And, the icing on the cake, a large, gray cat walks across the floor.

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