Page 14 of Flame and Sparrow

I didn’t.

My head was already spinning with enough confusing, conflicting thoughts. I didn’t want to introduce more to it—not at the moment, anyway. I would simply ask Cillian to fill me in on the details later, after I’d had food and sleep.

I flung open the pantry doors and considered the contents of its crooked and buckling shelves. Our increasing rebel activities had left little time for the odd jobs we usually took on to earn coin—yet our shelves were relatively full for once; Andrel had managed a deal with some hunters in the nearby village of Habostad, allowing them to kill on our land without interference in exchange for several loads worth of food and supplies.

It had made him miserable to do it. The marigold fields and the Nightvale Woods beyond them were full of sacred things, from important gravesites to old shrines, and to think that humans would be tromping through them, spilling animal blood, defiling whatever they pleased…

“But we have to eat,” he’d bluntly reminded us—and himself—over and over again.

And so we had. For the last month, our meals had been much more regular than usual, and I’d developed several exciting new dishes to record and file into the various recipe books I was creating.

But between the three of us and Kinnara’s company, there were ten mouths to feed this morning.

I frowned at the supplies upon the shelves. They suddenly seemed more meager than they had at first glance.

No matter; I’d just have to make it work somehow. I’d faced bigger culinary challenges. And Cillian was right to assume this would take my mind off our troubles—proof that he knew me as well as anyone these days, whether because of obligation or otherwise. He knew I loved to cook.

Or, more specifically, I loved the challenge of trying to cook despite the limitations we faced.

The contents of my pantry had always consisted of random goods either stolen or bartered or haggled for, even when I still lived with my family. Always different ingredients, never predictable amounts, and I loved trying to fit the odds and ends into recipes.

I saw it as another place to look for patterns. Each ingredient had certain properties. Different amounts of them caused different outcomes—but the outcomes were predictable if you paid attention. Mix this ingredient with this one, and it yielded this result. Combine so much of this element with so much of another and you could create something altogether new and delicious…or disastrous.

I learned through trial and error, diligent note taking, and now the highest shelf in the pantry was the fullest, lined with leather binders overflowing with neatly scribbled recipes that had been painstakingly organized into categories, and then into subcategories, and then into subcategories ofthosesubcategories…

Cillian and Andrel both teased me about my organizational systems, but at least I always knew where things were.

I didn’t need any notes for the things I planned to make this morning, so I simply wiped down the counters, lit the oven, and got to work.

There were apples that needed using. I plucked a few from the bowl on the well-loved and worn-down table in the corner, peeling and chopping them as I hummed softly, my hands moving in a familiar, relaxing rhythm.

Loud voices briefly interrupted my flow, but I only shook my head and went back to chopping more fervently than before. Chunks of apple were tossed into a hanging pot beside the oven without hesitation while I rattled off the rest of the ingredients to myself.

Salt, sugar, lemon juice, lard, cinnamon…

I frowned as my hand fell upon the small bottle containing ground cinnamon. Not much left, and who knew when we’d manage to procure any more.

I debated only a moment before I tossed the entirety of the bottle’s contents into the pot.

“Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. We should use the cinnamon,” I informed the painting above the table—or rather, the lady it featured. My eyes were often drawn to her while I was in this room. To the shining swirls of her silver and blue dress, the perfectly-formed coils of her dark hair, the jewel in the center of her delicate headpiece.

She was the Lady Lorralin, one of the first elves to ever be created, and supposedly once a favorite daughter of the upper-gods.

But in this painting, she was depicted not as a devoted companion of those divine beings, but as a warrior kneeling with her sword stabbed into a circle of cracked and rust-colored earth, her palm braced beside it, symbolizing an adherence to the planet beneath her feet rather than to the gods above.

The House of Mistwilde that I descended from claimed Lorralin as their ancestor. I’m not sure if I believed it—or any of the countless legends surrounding this elven lady—but I felt oddly grounded and at peace when I looked at her. Perhaps simply because hers was one of the few paintings that had survived the fires and destruction that had befallen this house. Survival amongst flames and ruin; I could relate to that.

As I lit the wood beneath my hanging pot, the voices across the hall rose once more. I opened the nearest window, both for ventilation and in hopes that the birds and the tree limbs clacking in the breeze might drown out the heated conversation.

I tried to focus only on stirring the syrupy concoction in the pot—on its sweet and spicy scents melding together, tempting me to taste it—and then on mixing and kneading the dough for the pastries I was making.

But before I realized it was happening, my head had tilted once more toward the hallway, and my ears were twitching, straining to pick out individual words. I closed my eyes, listening, forgetting I was still working my dough until I felt it becoming tough beneath my touch; I’d nearly over-kneaded it.

Cursing, I drew my hands away and wiped them on my front—only to realize I’d forgotten to wrap my apron around myself.

“One of those mornings,” I told the painted Lorralin, who stared back in what I convinced myself was solidarity.

Another loud voice—they were almost shouting now.

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