Antonius paused in the doorway to the cold-room and glanced over his shoulder. Nobody had seen him arrive, and Albeck had warned him his mother was helping with the weekly stock take. He could turn away now, leave before he made a fool of himself, and—
“Antonius.”
Serina’s greeting snared him as he lifted his foot to step back. He jerked to a stop and risked a stumble as he reversed direction and swept his gaze across the cold-room, stretching his lips into a forced smile when he located her on the other side of a shoulder-high wall of crates. “Mamma, I—” His gaze jumped to the dark-haired woman at Serina’s side—the head cook, if he remembered correctly—and he coughed as he swallowed a gobbet of saliva along with his words. “My apologies, I didn’t realise you had company. I can…” He lifted his heel and slid it over the threshold. “…come back.”
“Nonsense. The stock isn’t going to sprout legs and run away if we don’t count it this instant.” Serina turned her head, said something which prompted a nod from the cook, and made her way along the wall of crates towards him. Her smile shrunk as she rounded the end of the wall, and she squinted, causing a dozen tiny wrinkles to crease her brow. “Are you ill? You look… peaky.”
“I’m fine, Mamma.” Antonius’s hand slipped towards his churning stomach as he spoke. He fisted it in his tunic before the movement betrayed him. “I came to ask for your advice, that’s all.”
“My advice?” Serina stopped two paces from him, pressed one hand to her chest, and swept the other across her forehead as she feigned a swoon. “What miracle is this? One of the great Vortai seeking the advice of a humble merchant’s wife? Next you’ll be telling me there are diamonds raining from the sky.” She laughed and pulled him against her chest in a crushing embrace. “And stop pouting. I raised you to stand on your own two feet. I’d be disappointed if you weren’t so independent.” She pulled back, pressed her hand to the small of his back, and propelled him into the kitchen. “So, how can I help?”
“I wanted to do something special for Vendela, and I, uh… I thought it’d be a nice surprise if I cooked her something.” He made it half-way across the kitchen before he realised his mother hadn’t followed, stopped, turned, and found her staring at him from the doorway with her lips pursed.
“You? Cook?” Serina snorted and crossed her arms. “The last time you helped me cook, you blew a cake up in my oven.”
“Yes. Well.” Antonius rubbed at the back of his neck and averted his gaze. “That was an accident. I was hungry, and the smell was driving me crazy. I didn’t know raising the temperature too fast would make it explode. Besides…” He pulled his gaze away from the flagstone floor and forced himself to meet his mother’s heavy stare. “…that was years ago. I know better than to use the Song to help me now.”
Serina’s answering, “hmm,” conveyed her doubt with more eloquence than any words, but her lips twitched a moment later, and the skin around her eyes crinkled. “How about something simple for your first attempt? Something like…” She lowered her arms and strode to the central counter. “…pancakes. The batter’s easy to make, and even you can chop fruit and mix cacao powder with cream to make a sauce. Do you have a copper pan to cook them on?”
“Ma—”
“No? I should have known. What about a bowl? Please tell me you own a—”
“Mamma, I don’t—”
“No bowl? Antonius, I know cooking isn’t your forte, but to not even own a bowl—” Serina shook her head and dismissed the rest of the lecture with a puff of air that rattled her lips. “Never mind. You can borrow mine. And you’ll need a spoon, a jug, and a whisk. What else?” Hinges creaked as she opened one of the cupboard doors, and the thick walls muffled her voice when she crouched to search inside.
* * *
Mix the flour and eggs together, then slowly add the milk and whisk until smooth and creamy.
Antonius stopped whisking, tipped the bowl forward, and frowned as the thin, pale liquid ran to the front, revealing a dozen sticky, squelchy lumps underneath. He poked one, and it split open to reveal a wad of flour within. “Thick and creamy. I can do thick and creamy.” He resumed his whisking, clenching his teeth against the burning ache which spread along his upper arm and into his shoulder. “Thick and creamy.” He stopped, tipped the bowl, and threw the whisk onto the makeshift worktop as more lumps slid down the bowl, broke free with a slurp, and plopped into the thin, watery liquid below.
“Come on, Antonius, you’ve defeated two Andistalkern, uncovered a Gröna Diamanter plot, and outwitted a narrow-minded fool who’d rather have seen the city crumble than admit the truth. Are you really going to let yourself be defeated by a dozen pancakes?” A flick of his wrist set the bowl spinning on its base, the rumble of ceramic on wood fading with each turn until it settled into place. He marched into his living room, paced a circuit of the dining table, and returned to his bedroom, where he’d set up his workspace next to the flat’s only fireplace. “Right. I can do this. It’s like Mamma said: start from the beginning, take your time, follow the instructions, and…”
He emptied the lumpy mixture into a bucket, rinsed the bowl with a splash of water, and wiped it dry.
“Step one, measure the flour.”
He dipped the measuring cup into the flour, levelled it off with the back of a knife, and emptied it into the bowl. Fine, white powder billowed up from the flour’s impact to tickle his nose. He jerked his head around, sneezed, and sniffed to clear his sinuses.
“Step two, add the eggs.”
He cracked the eggs into a smaller bowl, fished out the broken shell, and poured them over the flour.
“Step three, mix. And no leaving unmixed balls of flour behind this time.”
With the bowl cradled against his chest, he strolled to the window as he mixed and peered up at the sky. The bottom of the sun kissed the distant city walls. The hand holding the whisk spasmed, flicking mixture free of the bowl to spatter a pattern of lines and dots across the glass.
“Relax. She’ll just be leaving work. You have time.”
He paused in his mixing long enough to locate and break apart the few lumps which had escaped his efforts. With the mixture now smooth, he returned the bowl to the worktop and poured milk into the waiting jug.
“Now add it to the bowl and whisk. Slowly this time.”
Working the jug with one hand and the whisk with the other, he added the milk a tablespoon at a time, whisking each portion until it was blended before pouring in the next. “And…” He set down the jug and tilted the bowl. “…yes, we have smooth and creamy. Now then…” He tossed the whisk into the jug and picked up his mother’s instructions, exposing a clean rectangle of wood on the worktop. “Leave the batter to settle and heat the pan. When the oil smokes, pour on a thin, pancake-sized circle of batter. Allow to brown, then flip. Sounds simple enough.”
He returned the recipe to the worktop and moved the waiting pan from the hearth to the brick struts which would hold it over the crackling fire. Another trip to the window confirmed he still had fifteen or twenty minutes; time enough to core and chop the strawberries.
An acrid whiff soured the fruit’s sweet scent. Antonius frowned then whipped his head around, his breath hitching as he registered the source of the bitter stench. Two steps took him around the end of the worktop, where he snatched the handle of the pan, shifted it an inch, and released it with a curse.
“Hot. Too hot.” He waved his hand to cool it as he surveyed the room, grabbed a towel from the top of his laundry, and used it to protect himself as he yanked the pan off the struts and onto the hearth. “Damn.”
The skin of his palm glistened when he held it up to the light, but there didn’t appear to be any serious damage. He dipped the towel in the bowl of wash water he kept by his bed and wrapped it around his hand whilst he waited for the pan to cool. Once it stopped smoking, he scraped away the burnt oil, added a fresh dollop, and returned the pan to the heat. This time, he brought the bowl to the hearth and waited, gaze pinned to the oil, tensing when it bubbled, tipping the bowl, and—
“Shit.”
He jerked the bowl back, but not before a double-portion splattered the pan, with a second lot following when the batter hit the back of the bowl, rebounded, and swept up and out in a wave. With a muttered curse, he placed the bowl on the floor behind him, grabbed the fish slice, and nudged the edge of the batter, trying to keep it from sticking to the sides of the pan. It stuck to the fish slice instead, clinging when he tried to pull it back, then snapping, spraying half-cooked batter everywhere. He dabbed a spot off his cheek and another from his brow, scraped the edge of the fish slice clean, and tried again.
The batter clung to the slice’s edge, stretching and twisting as he fought to shake it free, turning the extra-thick pancake into a gelatinous, gloopy ball. He removed the pan from the heat, carried it to the worktop, and slid the whole, stodgy mess into the bucket which held his first mix.
“Right. Well. Why don’t I try that again?” He glanced from the pan, to the bowl, to the whisk-holding jug, and chuckled at himself. After returning the pan to the fire, he removed the whisk from the jug, poured in the remaining batter, and carried it to the waiting pan. The jug gave him more control, but his next pancake still ended up burnt on one side whilst appearing anaemic on the other. The third and fourth fared little better, with one turning into a crisp and the other tearing to shreds when he attempted to flip it. He watched the fifth effort with the intensity of a hunting cobra, readying his fish slice when the first bubble broke the pancake’s surface, slipping it into place as more bubbles formed, then turning it with a flick of his wrist. A circle as golden as the sun filled the centre of the pan.
Suppressing a childish urge to giggle, he lifted its edge several times over the next couple of minutes, checking its colour, sliding it from the pan to a waiting plate the moment its underside darkened from creamy yellow to honeyed gold. Three more pancakes followed, each one straining his patience as the room darkened, warning him of Vendela’s pending arrival. He retrieved the jug, hoping to squeeze in one more pancake, but found it close-to-empty, holding just enough batter for him to draw the outline of a heart and fill it with a handful of decorative swirls.
He added the heart to Vendela’s pile, set the pan on the hearth to cool, picked up the plates, and carried them through to the living room. The plates touched the table in the same instant as the front door opened. He turned Vendela’s plate so the heart faced her chair and dusted as much flour off his tunic as he could in the seconds she took to step through the door.
“Antonius—”
Antonius raised his hand and swallowed a laugh spawned by the surprise shining in her eyes. “Give me one minute, please.” He ducked back into his bedroom before she answered, swept the diced strawberries off the edge of the worktop and into the bowl of cubed pineapple, grabbed the jug containing the flavoured cream, and raced back, hooking the bedroom door with his foot on the way past, pulling it closed to hide the evidence of his near disaster.
Vendela had removed her coat and now stood in front of her chair, twirling a strand of her hair and smiling to herself as she studied the pancakes. She flinched when he set the bowl and jug down on the table, looked up, and grinned at him. “Did you make this?”
“Yes.” Antonius rounded the table, intending to pull out her chair, but she caught his arm before he could.
“Here.” She wiped the side of his nose with her thumb, laughed, and held it up to him. A sticky mass of batter clung to its tip.
His face heating, he reached for her chair again, but she slapped at his hair as he bent forward, knocking loose a cloud of flour and invoking a sneeze.
“I hope you aren’t always this messy when you cook,” she said. Chair legs scraped the floor as she pulled it out and seated herself.
“No. No, of course not.” Antonius ducked his head to hide his deepening blush, scurried back around the table and took the seat across from hers. “I was rushing because I wanted everything to be ready for your arrival. Normally, I’d take more time, be more organised—”
Vendela’s musical laughter cut through his meandering protest. He watched her as she first dipped a slice of strawberry in the sauce then wrapped it in the strands of the heart-shaped pancake. His gaze followed the morsel as it travelled from the plate to her mouth, soaked up the motion of her lips as she chewed, then jumped from her lips to her eyes when she swallowed. “You like?”
“Perhaps. Let me try another bite.” She made a show of plucking another strawberry from the bowl, twirling it in the sauce, then wrapping it in a square she cut from her pancake. Sauce seeped from the bottom as she lifted it to her mouth. She flicked out her tongue, licked it before it dripped, and popped it in her mouth. A moan of delight sent a shiver along the length of Antonius’s spine. He held his breath, his lungs aching, as he waited for her to swallow.
“That…” She licked her thumb. “Was…” Her index finger. “Delicious.”
Antonius wanted to leap from his chair and clap in delight but restricted himself to a modest smile which morphed into a cheek-aching grin. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Me too. I smelled burning in the hall and envisaged you presenting me with an unidentifiable black crisp accompanied by billows of smoke.” She laughed, snuffing the sting from her words, and selected a chunk of pineapple. Antonius watched her eat another two bites before he thought to take one himself.
* * *
“Mmm.” Vendela wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin, folded it in half, and dropped it onto her empty plate. “That was delicious. I didn’t know you could cook.”
“A little. Mother insisted on teaching us the basics, though it’s not something I have time to do often.”
“A wise precaution. I’ll have to thank her next time I see her.” Vendela pushed her chair back and stood. “I’ll be back in a minute. I need to… use the facilities.”
Antonius nodded, reclined his head, and half-closed his eyes, recalling the way Vendela’s eyes lit up when she took her first bite, the joy of her laughter when she teased him, the moisture on her lips when she licked away a dribble of sauce. Her reaction made every jot of frustration worthwhile, even the mess—
Antonius jolted upright.
The mess.
He leapt to his feet too late, dashed for the door but failed to reach it before Vendela pushed it open. She entered his bedroom, picked up the bucket he’d left by the splattered worktop, pulled out the congealed mess that had once been a pancake, and turned to face him. “What?”
“Um…”