Page 36 of Wizards & Weavers
“All done,” Elyssandra announced, suddenly all smiles again, as if she hadn’t just massacred a defenseless colony of potatoes with all the ruthless efficiency of a killer. With a flick and a flourish, she flipped the knife so that her fingers grasped it by the blade. She held it out, offering the handle to Braiden.
“Th-thank you,” Braiden stammered, almost afraid to take the knife. The wood was still warm from her touch.
“Happy to help. Let me know if you need anything else. I love chopping.” She gave the two of them the sweetest of smiles, then traipsed off to her bedroom.
The door clicked shut. Braiden stared blankly at the wet knife, the fluids of murdered potatoes still staining its blade. He only realized that Augustin was still standing there when the wizard exhaled, as if he’d forgotten to breathe.
“You saw that, didn’t you?” Augustin asked. He raked his fingers up and down his face in a vague gesture. “Her expression. The look in her eyes.”
Braiden nodded, then shuddered.
“I’ve had to fly through rainstorms, travel in the winter time.” Augustin crossed his arms and rubbed his elbows. “Nothing compares. That was chilling.”
He seemed so unsettled. Braiden very nearly considered reaching out to give him a little hug.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Braiden lied, wondering what Elyssandra truly meant when she said she enjoyed chopping.
He brushed it all away as he returned his mind to the task of cooking. Even coldblooded elven killers needed to eat.
Braiden searched his memories, double checking to make sure that the ingredients available to him would combine to make something delicious, something good — and most of all, something tastier than whatever travesty it was that Augustin had planned.
Braiden smiled and set to work.
Chapter
Fourteen
Braiden selected a medium-sized pan— ornate and golden, naturally, to go with the elven aesthetic, though he hoped it wasn’t actually made out of solid gold. The elves could be snobbish, sure, but they weren’t delusional.
Augustin picked one of the smallest pans, cracking open a few eggs and mixing them in a bowl with a bit of milk. What was he up to?
“The finest scrambled eggs you’ve ever tasted,” Augustin boasted.
“That’s it?” Braiden said, scoffing.
“It’s the mark of a good cook. If you can make the basics well, then you can cook anything well. It’s all about the fundamentals.”
“He has a point,” Elyssandra said, like a traitor.
Augustin scooped up a pat of butter and tapped it into the pan, giving Braiden a little wink. Braiden turned his nose up and scoffed even harder.
He found a flask of oil that smelled crisp, as green as the bottle it came in. Olives. Perfect. If Elyssandra had indeed purloined this house and all its contents, at least she’d borrowed it from someone with fabulous taste.
When the oil was hot, Braiden scooped the potatoes and onions into the pan, welcoming the music of sizzles and crackles.
“Ooh,” Elyssandra said. “Those mushrooms I gathered, they’d be lovely fried up in a bit of butter. I’ll slice some right now.”
The cadence of Elyssandra’s chopping wasn’t as violent as before, perhaps because she knew better than to bruise the delicate mushrooms. They worked in happy silence, Augustin tipping his bowl of milky eggs into the pan, Braiden slowly softening the onions and potatoes, and Elyssandra’s knife rhythmically clacking as it met the chopping board.
Augustin flicked his hand toward his pan. The egg mixture swirled and curdled, caught in a whirlpool. The wizard had conjured a miniature tornado to cook for him.
“And that’s the secret,” Augustin said. “You have to be quick so you don’t overcook it. Otherwise, the egg gets rubbery.”
Braiden frowned into the wizard’s pan. “Your spell is helping to cool the egg down and keep it from setting, too. That’s cheating. I’m not going to learn decades of wind magic just so I can make these allegedly excellent scrambled eggs.”
“Decades? That’s going too far. I’m barely thirty years old.”
Braiden frowned into his own pan as he poured in his egg mixture. “And I’m barely twenty-five, but you don’t see me cheating with magic to make my eggs.”
