Page 38 of Trapped By Claws
Cooking had been one of the few things in those final days that Erryn, Mama, and I could all do together. Sure, we tended to fight somewhere between peeling the carrots, chopping the onions, and kneading the bread. But usually by the time the table was full and the blue taper candles lit, we had settled our differences enough or someone had cracked a joke to clear the air.
My breath caught in my throat. I pressed my hand to my cheeks, pushing back the tears that welled up.
Those days were gone.
Maybe I could convince Corvin to let me go.
He wasn't nearly as dreadful or frightening as he might be, and the way he had held me last night…my heart stuttered. I swallowed hard. As much as I wanted to see Mama again and hug her, a sort of pain struck me at the thought of leaving Corvin.
This place wasn't good.
It was miserable and wretched.
Surely he'd find the idea of a new life and new home at least tempting.
Tagger thrust his snout against my hand again, asking for pets.
"Maybe both you and Corvin could come with me," I murmured as I gave him the belly rub he requested. He squeaked in pure happiness, wriggling on the table for a few minutes until at last he had had enough.
Now to decide what I was going to do with my time down here.
I crossed to the nearest of the locked doors and tested the handle. This time it yielded at once. The door creaked open. I peered inside.
My eyes widened, my hand flying to my mouth. "What!"
HEAT
This wasn't just a room. It was a cavern. A cavern stuffed with…things.
The cavern stretched beyond sight, lit with small pale-blue orbs near the entrance. As I stepped farther in, I realized there were additional chambers. Inside this place were all manner of items from various wrecks. Some must have been from theSeaforger's Pride, because they were still drying out: strips of cloth, crates of food, broken boxes, books laid out on flat surfaces. All tossed in without any organization.
He just collected things and laid them out here to dry before figuring out what to do with them.
I raised an eyebrow. From the looks of it, he never figured out what to do with half of it. And there was wood. Lots and lots of wood. Enough to be a fire hazard if anyone managed to get a flame ablaze in here.
Tagger trotted in after me. He scuffled about and rubbed his chin on a broken bit of green pottery. As he scurried along, he slipped between a shattered crate and a broken chair.
There was just so much in here. Corvin must have been gathering these items for years. How long had he lived in this place?
The dripping of water was the only sound aside from my own breathing to disturb the space. It was hard to take it all in. I paused as I glimpsed a familiar shape in the middle of the first storeroom, a large swell of black metal.
"Son of a scallop. He's got a whole woodstove!" I set my hands on my waist and shook my head, sighing. The man had brought in a whole woodstove. Not just one or two. Three! One was so large I had no idea how he got it in here unless he dragged it in while in his eel form. His jaws had to have ached holding that metal beast.
The second was worth little more than scrap metal.
But the third was an old dwarven woodstove intended for travel, whether in ships or on wagons. It was sturdy but manageable, similar to one I'd encountered many times over the past years.
The dark grey woodstove was not as heavy as some I had seen. It had been made with a particular type of dwarven steel that was far lighter and more durable than the iron that was used in the tavern where I first worked. One side had been dented, and the door hung crooked. But, with a fair bit of huffing, grunting, and shoving, I moved the woodstove out into the main room.
The air flow was the next thing to manage. There were numerous holes and vents in the ceiling and walls that might work. So I tested each one until I found a couple that would suffice. From there, I started putting up the pipes from all three of the wood stoves, having to fit them together and twist them.
In this way, the day passed slowly but almost pleasantly. The last time I had put together one of these stoves, it had been in a ramshackle halfway house that served as a tavern, a general store, a flower shop, and a tiny hospital. Mama had been too busy with her translations and notes to see all the work that wentinto it, but I had been proud of myself for managing to fix the stove and pipes with precious little help from anyone.
Not that I blamed them. The shifters were dealing with a condition that sent them into rapid shifting. They had to take medicine regularly just to keep their human forms.
Tagger, at least, vocalized his appreciation of my actions. He chirped as he trailed along behind me, investigating each pipe and circling the stove multiple times.
I searched through the crates and found several items, including a dented pot. Ingredients were even easier to find, including some mostly fresh produce like potatoes, celery, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic. Lots and lots of pickled and preserved foods, mostly intact though a few jars were cracked. Some sealed jars and tins of spices and herbs had made it through as well. I carried them all out to the table and then dragged out some of the wood he had gathered.
