Page 14 of The Tribes of Magic
I’d never seen her before in my life. And I would have remembered. She looked like the quintessential cookie-baking grandma, complete with a flour-dusted apron, rosy cheeks, and dimples.
Chef Grandma set a ball of kneaded bread dough into the bowl and covered it with a cloth. “I saw you on the news. You’re Savannah Winters. You saved the Spirit Trees.” She uncovered another bowl, reached inside, and started shaping cute little chocolate-chip rolls. “The Iron Wolf says it was his soldiers, buteveryone knows it was you. You were in the videos, fighting those terrible criminals. You are a hero.”
Blushing, I poked the rolling pin resting on the counter. “Well, I had help.”
“Yes, I know.” Her smile stretched wider. “Those two valiant Knights. Are they, by any chance, your boyfriends?”
I pretty much choked on my own tongue.
“Are you all right, dear?” she asked me, concern etched into her sweet grandma-face.
I coughed, trying to clear my tight throat. “I’m fine. Just fine. What made you think that they’re…”
“Your boyfriends?”
“Yeah.” I coughed again. “That.”
“Oh, well, it’s all over the GGG.”
“GGG?”
It sounded like a contagious disease. Or maybe one of those old candy brands from the World That Was before the Curse.
Chef Grandma grabbed a pastry brush and started painting beaten egg goo across the tops of her rolls. “GGG is Gaia’s Gossip Guide, of course. Surely you’ve heard of it?”
“Actually, no.”
And I didn’t want to. I did not need to watch the whole world gossip about me. It was bad enough knowing that they were doing it without seeing it for myself. I’d thought Kylie’s teasing was bad. Well, that was nothing. Apparently, someone had managed to turn my life into a global phenomenon. I clutched my stomach, fighting back the swirling storm of acid rising inside it.
“So which one are you going to pick?” she asked me.
“Which what?”
“Which Knight? You can’t have two boyfriends at once, young lady. That just isn’t proper.”
I must have wandered into some twisted alternate reality where Mrs. Claus tortured me with love advice while she baked me chocolate-chip rolls.
“The two Knights and I…we’re just friends,” I told her. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” she repeated, frowning.
She looked at me like I’d just ruined the ending to her favorite fairytale.
“What do you think you’re doing here, Savannah?”
Ainsley stood in the aisle between the steel counters, staring at me, arms folded in front of her chest.
“I was just helping?—”
“I told you to wait by the door, not fraternize with the kitchen staff. Hurry up. Get back to the other Apprentices. It’s almost time to serve the first course.”
The friendly chef offered me a sympathetic smile before I turned and walked away. So much for stealthily spying on Ainsley. I was really terrible at this.
“Where have you been?” Bronte hissed at me under her breath as I squeezed into the line between her and Dutch. “When Ainsley saw you weren’t here and no one knew where you’d gone, she totally lost it. Howdidyou manage to sneak away without any of us noticing, anyway?”
“Magic,” I replied with a slow, dramatic sweep of my hands.
“Really?” There was an eager spark in her eyes. She observed me closely, curiously, like she was waiting for me to show her some magic.
