“Don’t be,” Leila said. And, when the silence got too awkward, “So what are we supposed to do?”
“Damned if I know.” Thuan got up, and picked up one of the figurines from the mantlepiece. It was a shepherdess with a rather improbable waistline, carrying a small and perfectly fashioned lamb in her arms. One of her eyes was slightly larger than the other, an odd effect that most mortals wouldn’t have picked up on.
There is one day of the year when House Hawthorn takes in the Houseless, and trains them as servants or potential dependents. One of you needs to get in.
Hawthorn was the kingdom’s closest and most uncomfortable neighbor, and they were getting more and more pressing. Till recently, they had shown no interest in the Seine or its underwater cities. But now they were encroaching on dragon territory, and no one at the imperial court had any idea of why or what the stakes were.
We need an agent in the House.
Kim Cuc was fascinated by Fallen magic and by the Houses. Thuan—a dragon, but a minor son of a minor branch of the imperial family—just happened to be the definition of convenient and expendable.
He’d have cursed, if he hadn’t been absolutely sure that Kim Cuc would elbow him again. Or worse, continue the small talk with Leila, picking up on all of Thuan’s imperfections as if he weren’t there. Trust her to share secrets with someone who wasn’t even a dragon, or a relative.
The door opened. Thuan, startled, put the shepherdess back on the mantlepiece, and straightened up, feeling for all the world as though he’d been caught stealing dumplings from the kitchens by one of his aunts.
The newcomer was a Fallen, with a round, plump face, and the same slight radiance to her skin as all former angels, a reminder of the magic swirling through them. She turned to look at all of them in turn, her brown eyes lingering longer on Thuan, as if she knew exactly what he’d been doing when he entered the room. “My name is Sare,” she said. “I’m the alchemist of the House, and in charge of these tests.”
The one in charge of making all their magical artifacts, and turning Fallen corpses into magic for dependents. She definitely reminded Thuan of Third or Fourth Aunt, except that his aunts wouldn’t kill him for stealing or snooping where he wasn’t meant to—no, they’d come up with something far worse.
Sare waited for them to introduce themselves, which they did, awkwardly and in a growing silence. Leila’s eyes were wide. Kim Cuc, by the looks of her, was unimpressed and trying not to show it.
“So you want to enter Hawthorn,” Sare said. She didn’t wait, this time. “Let me tell you a little about how it works. I’ll pick a few people from everyone who showed up today: the ones who show the most resourcefulness. The House will take you in, feed you, clothe you and teach you. If not…” She shrugged. “The streets are full of the Houseless. Any questions?”
“Dividing us into teams…” Thuan said, slowly.
“Because a House stands together,” Sare said. The look she gave him could have frozen lava. “Intrigues are allowed, but nothing that threatens our unity. Am I clear?”
She wasn’t, but Thuan nodded all the same.
“What are we supposed to do?” Kim Cuc asked.
“To start with?” Sare gestured, gracefully, towards the large table in the center of the room. “You’ll find supplies in the cupboard on the right, and other materials in the room on the left. You have an hour to come up with something that impresses me.”
“Something—?” Thuan asked.
Sare shook her head. “Resourcefulness. I look forward to seeing what you make.”
He shouldn’t have, but he raised his gaze to meet hers. Brown eyes, with light roiling throughout the irises, flecks of luminescence that looked like scattered stars. “I’m sure you won’t be disappointed,” he said.
Something creaked in the corridor outside the room, and Sare looked away for a moment, startled. When she came back to Thuan, something had changed in her gaze, a barely perceptible thing, but Thuan was observant.
“Cocky,” Sare said. “I’m not too sure I like that, Thuan. But we’ll see, won’t we?”
And then she was gone, and it was just the three of them, staring at each other.
Kim Cuc was the first to move, towards the cupboard Sare had shown them. She opened it, and stared at its contents. Thuan heard her suck in a deep breath. “Well, that should be interesting.”
Thuan wasn’t sure what he’d expected—some kind of dark and twisted secrets, weapons or knives or something, but of course that was nothing more than fancies born of nightmares. Inside the cupboard were metal bowls and plates, and a series of little packets of powder.
“Is that—” Leila asked.
“Yes,” Kim Cuc said. “Flour, sugar and salt.” Her face was carefully composed again, mostly so she didn’t laugh. She looked, again, at the table in the center of the room, a fragile contraption with the curved legs characteristic of the Louis XV style, except that they’d been broken once already, and that the white marble surface was soot-encrusted. “I’m assuming we should make our best effort not to break that.”
Servants. Kitchen hands. Of course.
Leila pushed open the door of the other room, came back. “There’s a sink and a small stove in there.” Her face was closed again, pinched and colorless. “I can’t cook. We never saw all of this, outside—” On the streets of Paris, flour was grit-filled and grey, butter thin and watered-down, and sugar never seen. As tests went, it was actually quite a good one: how would you handle cooking with so much more wealth than you’d ever seen in your life?
Clever, Thuan thought, and then he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to admire the House that was his enemy.
Kim Cuc was gazing at him, levelly. “You’re in luck,” she said to Leila. “Because I can’t cook either. But Thuan was paying way too much attention to old recipes, back when he was trying to seduce the family cook.”
“It did work,” Thuan said, stung. Not for long, true. It had soured when Thuan was called to the innermost chambers of the court, and last he’d heard, the cook had found himself another lover. He’d have been bitter if he could have afforded to, but that wasn’t the way to survive in the intrigues of the imperial court.
“It always works,” Kim Cuc said. “Until it doesn’t.” She stopped, then, as if aware she was on the cusp of going too far.
“You said you weren’t keeping score,” Thuan said.
Kim Cuc shrugged. “Do you want me to?”
“No.” They’d parted on good terms and she wasn’t jealous or regretful, but she did have way too much fun teasing him.
“Fine,” Kim Cuc said. “What can we do in one hour?”
Thuan knelt, to stare at the contents of the cupboard. “An hour is short. Most recipes will want more than that. And…” The supplies were haphazard, bits and scraps scavenged from the kitchens, he assumed. He had to come up with something that wasn’t missing an ingredient, and that could be significantly sped up by three people working on it at the same time. And that was a little more impressive than buttered toast.
“Chocolate éclairs,” he said, finally. “Leila and I on the dough, Kim Cuc on the cream. We’ll sort out the chocolate icing while the dough cools down.” Time was going to be tight and the recipe wasn’t exactly the easiest one he had, but the cake—pâte à choux filled with melted pastry cream and iced with chocolate—was an impressive sight, and probably a better thing than the other teams would come up with. Assuming, of course, that everyone had been assigned a cooking challenge, which might not be the case.