by Lan Chan
Tony shrugged. I shrank back as Bruno grabbed a chunk of his own hair and tugged. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to remind him I had an appointment. Right then, somebody shoved through the kitchen doors. They swung open and hit me in the elbow.
“Ow!”
Bruno whirled on me.
“Is this where the kitchen hand interviews are being held?” a Fae girl asked. She stepped past me without so much as an apology. Her silver wings fluttered for a second and then disappeared as she took in the scene. Someone else followed right behind her. A slender boy with hair of deep mahogany.
“Am I too late to apply?” the boy asked.
Bruno’s moustache wriggled from where he was obviously grinding his teeth. His eyes flashed with temporary madness. It was funny how often the supernaturals mimicked each other when they became overly emotional. Right now, Bruno could give any shifter a run for their money. Scraping his gaze over the damage once more, Bruno stormed over to where the three of us stood.
Having never been to a job interview before, I didn’t know what to expect. The others didn’t seem concerned that we were all asked to be here at the same time. “You three,” Bruno pointed at us. “Clean up this mess!” He went off to bark similar orders to the staff.
I’d been Grammy’s gofer since I was old enough to walk. Reflex kicked in and I immediately searched around for a broom or dustpan. Three seconds later, a sinking feeling spread through my gut.
The Fae girl flicked her hand. A light wind brushed my nose. It grew into a gust that slid through the room and scooped up the broken glass. She deposited the shards into a pile in the corner where the red-headed boy disintegrated it with his high magic. Great. I was a kitchen witch up for a job against a wind elemental Fae and a mage.
As I watched, the mage spoke a few words in the Arcane language of the Mage Dominion. One by one, any objects that weren’t beyond repair hopped up into the double-trough sink. The Fae girl turned the taps on without touching them. It was almost impossible not to be intimidated. I saw the blurry image of myself reflected in the copper cauldron. My eyes were wide with disbelief.
If I didn’t do something about this, I would be edged out of a job. Rolling up my sleeves, I dived into the washing up. I was sure the mage boy could have magicked the soap and sponge to do the work without supervision, but I didn’t give him the chance. I stood there with my back to the room, trying to ignore the two other interviewees laughing and joking with each other. Everyone was pointedly ignoring me.
If Thalia and Peter allowed high magic to clean up the mess in the kitchen garden, the whole thing could have been done in a flash. Less than forty minutes after we started, the kitchen was in workable order again. The dishes I was working on were the only thing still unsorted. While I scrubbed, Bruno assigned the Fae and the mage to prep ingredients for the following day’s meals. I cursed inwardly. That would have been my time to shine. Nobody peeled a potato like yours truly.
Over in the corner, Bruno and Tony were arguing about how best to repair the pantry door that was torn off its hinges. Up to my elbows in soap bubbles, I was concentrating on getting some caked-on cheese residue off a bowl when a wave of fatigue rolled through me. The edge of my vision blurred.
Dropping the bowl into the water, I clutched at the edge of the sink to remain upright. Something thudded to my left. I turned my head in the direction of the sound to find a dense cloud of grey cutting off the rest of the room. Sucking in a breath, I tried to back up as the cloud advanced. My feet stumbled. The cloud brushed over my skin. It passed through my body. For a moment, I felt the sensation of a thousand cold hands grazing against my skin. I could feel whatever it was attempting to take hold of me. Like it was trying to burrow into my soul. Pinpricks dotted along my spine.
In the midst of the darkness, the scent of candied oranges and cinnamon filled my nose. The magic circle appeared around me automatically. It expanded until the circle fought with the cloud for space. Where the rose pink of my magic touched the cloud, my magic dissolved it like salt against ice. Grammy had always said that my magic had salty overtones. She thought she was a comedian. Loving memories of her chased away the last of the oppressive cloud.
When I blinked again, everyone was huddled around the Fae girl. She was lying unconscious on the floor. The mage boy leaned against a rustic brown bag filled with potatoes. He mopped at his brow. His skin had been dusky before but now it was grey. The room was bathed in a warm, orange glow.
My body felt exhausted right to my bones. Sweated dripped down my sideburns. Bruno pressed a damp towel to the Fae’s forehead. Her eyes fluttered open. They blinked for a beat before her gaze landed squarely on me. All of their heads turned in unison. “What?” I asked.
Bruno pointed to the fireplace in the side of the kitchen. The black cavernous space took up almost a quarter of the wall. When I’d come in, there was a huge potbellied cauldron in the hearth but only burned logs and ash sat beneath it. Now the fire was raging to the point where it would be out of control if someone didn’t temper it. The orange and red flames were tinged rose pink at the edges.
A concoction bubbled in the cauldron. Bruno pushed to his feet. He sniffed at the air. There was an overwhelming scent of sweet, stewed fruit, cinnamon and other spices. It smelled like Christmas. I bit the seam of my lips. Grammy used to make a mulled wine that smelled just like this.
“What the hell?” Tony said as he joined his boss. “We were making a Moroccan lamb stew.” It didn’t help that the soap bubbles had also turned a rose colour. I bit the inside of my cheek. Mama would kill me if she knew I’d just performed kitchen alchemy on a grand scale. I wracked my brain for a reason but couldn’t figure out why I’d thought it was a good idea. Was it because I wanted to impress Bruno with my magic? The Fae girl seemed similarly disoriented. Why was she on the ground? She got up and brushed dirt off her jeans.
“It smells good,” one of the other staff, a plump dwarf, noted.
Bruno eyed me sideways. “We’re not feeding it to the masses. Who knows what’s in here. It could make people sick. Toss it down the sink.”
“No!” I said. My voice croaked. The words had come out before I could stop them. “Can I please have a look?” The thought of Grammy’s brew going down the sink had me turning green. I blinked back tears.
Without waiting for permission, I sidled over. Tony and the dwarf had lifted the cauldron off the hob and set it down onto the cleared stone floor around the fire. Grabbing a ladle from the hooks on the wall, I dipped it into the wine-red brew and stirred. My senses filled with the warmth of Christmas at home. I thought of Grammy and Mama rushing around decorating the communal hall with sprigs of green wrapped in red ribbon. Dad would be working with one of the high mages to ensure the air conditioning wasn’t going to give out. It would be hotter than sin outside but we would be comfortable even if it killed him.
All the while, this brew would be bubbling in the cauldron. When it was ready, there would be a line of shifters out the door with their mugs in hand. I continued to stir but all I could see in the water was sticks of cinnamon, cloves and pieces of candied grapefruit and orange. Stewed apples and cherries bubbled up to the surface when I stopped stirring. Brushing my magic against the bubbles, I tried to detect any hint of poison. I might not have shifter senses, but when it came to food, my magic could sense particles even they couldn’t.
“There’s nothing wrong with the brew.” I held up a ladleful to Tony. He flinched like I was offering him a taste of toddler blood. That was exactly what they were all thinking. Biting my quivering bottom lip, I emptied the ladle into a to-go coffee tumbler drying on the dish rack. Bruno crooked his finger at me. I tried not to let my deflating hope show through. Both the Fae and the mage watched me being led out of the kitchen with my notorious brew in hand. I walked into the office next to the kitchen and closed the door to drown out the sound of Grammy’s mulled wine being sloshed down the sink.
Bruno waved me over to the chair in fron
t of his desk. The way he ignored the mess in the room told me this wasn’t ransacked like the kitchen. It was just plain disorganised. “I could help you clean this room up,” I offered, still hoping to get some kind of paid employment.
He didn’t sugar coat anything. “If I wanted it spotless, I could just wave my hands. Nobody trusts an organised chef. Sit.”
I did so, clutching the warm cup in my hands. “You know why this isn’t going to work out,” Bruno said. “Even if I wanted to hire you, when the parents found out, they’d riot. Especially if you kept pulling stunts like that.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s part of the problem. It’s all an accident. But even your accidents are too hard to ignore. You transmutated forty-two gallons of liquid. There was no contamination as far as I could tell. I can’t risk having the board bombarded with complaints.”
“What if I only stay in the kitchen?”
He laced his thick fingers together in front of him on the table. “You know what this place is like. Sooner or later, it would get out that you’re in here. Having you cook for them is a bad idea.”
I looked down at my feet. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I’m sorry, Sophie. I just can’t risk it right now.”
I stood up and nodded. Yeah, I wanted a job, but I wouldn’t stoop to begging. Not when it was about my ancestry. It had chased me my entire life. “Thanks anyway.”
I walked out of the dining hall to find Max leaning against the sycamore that I’d hidden behind to get away from him the other night. The angle of the branches cast half of his face in shadow. He looked every bit the hunter.
“How was the interview?” he drawled. I wasn’t in the mood to play shifter games with him. Or to unpack how he’d found out I’d applied for a job in the kitchen.
Still too raw from the reminder of why I’d never be accepted, I walked right up to him and pressed the to-go cup into his chest. “I dare you to drink this.”
A ring of gold appeared slowly around his eyes. Never dare a shifter to do anything unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences.
“What do I get in return?” I’d expected him to react with hesitation like everybody else. Instead, he curled his fingers around the cup. They brushed mine for the brief second before I let go. I laced my hands behind my back as though singed.
The disappointment of not getting the job made me bold. “What do you want?”
For the briefest second, his whole iris became saturated in gold. They dimmed again so quickly I couldn’t be sure it had happened. “Lunch,” he said. “Every day for a week.”
“No way. I’m not going to turn into your personal chef.”
“Why not? You just applied for a job doing just that.”
I frowned. “There’s a difference between a paid job and being your servant.”
“I could pay you.”
He wasn’t even joking. The Thompsons were loaded. His father owned a security company that catered to both human and supernatural clients. Money would be no obstacle. “You know what? I don’t know what I was thinking. Give it back.”
I’d lost my mind and wanted so badly for somebody to see I wasn’t murderer spawn that I was about to get myself into trouble with a shifter. Max tightened his grip on the cup.
“You’re going to give up just like that?”
“Yes. I’m all about giving up.”
“You’re such a liar.”
Indignation flared up inside my chest. My mouth dropped open. “You don’t know anything about me.” The words were coated in bile. None of them knew anything about me. Max chuckled.
“Let’s see if we can do something about that.”
He brought the cup to his mouth. “No!” I said. I tried to swipe it out of his hands but he laid his palm on my shoulder and kept me at a distance. He wasn’t exerting any effort but I felt like I was fighting to move a mountain. Fed up with this whole day, I stopped struggling and whirled around.
“I added extra shifter blood in there,” I muttered. “I hope you like the taste of it.”
Maybe it was my imagination but I would swear I heard him laughing all the way back to my dorm.
10
The humiliation just wouldn’t end. I woke up the next day to an incoming call from Zambia. My parents’ encouraging expressions had the memory of last night slamming back. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. The last of my hair magic ran out around midnight. The top knot sprang loose just as I was preparing to crawl into bed. Now my tight curls were a tangled halo around my head. My only consolation was that after the day of manual labour, I slept like a log. I wasn’t sure why but I’d been so tired the last few nights.
“They don’t know what they’re missing out on,” Dad said. Mama was more militant.
“Bruno said what to you?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I groaned. “Can we please just drop it?” I wasn’t sure why they were getting all worked up. They were the ones who were adamant about me being here. Did they really think that time would change supernatural prejudices? Some of these kids would live for a long time. Their parents had probably been around when great-grandfather was in his prime. Nobody was going to get over this.
“I should complain to Jacqueline,” Mama said. “This is discrimination.”
“What’s your point?” Unlike in the mortal world, there was no political correctness with the supernaturals. They were a hodgepodge of races that had been at war with one another at some stage. They didn’t give a damn if they offended each other. And they sure as hell didn’t give a damn if they offended the low-magic community.
“Besides,” I said. “He’s right.”
“No he’s not!” Mama snapped.
“Yeah, he is. Even if he did give me a job, none of the kids will want to eat in the dining hall if they know I’m there behind the scenes cooking for them.”
“They just need to get used to the idea.”
I ground my teeth. It was just too early for this kind of bull-headed logic. “How long did it take for the wolves to get used to the idea of you not being dangerous?”
Lines bracketed her mouth but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t speak about it often but I knew her childhood hadn’t been easy. At least now I knew Jacqueline would step in if there was a chance I could come to physical harm. Mama hadn’t had that benefit.
“I know it’s hard to fathom, Soph. But one day they will see the light. Not all of them can be so narrow-minded. Just remember most of them have grown up with these prejudices.”
“Better luck next time,” Dad said. “Maybe something will come up in the library.”
After the call ended, I quickly got ready for classes and then ran to the kitchen garden so I could prep lunch for the day. Before I’d gone and transmutated the stew, it had smelled pretty good. Now I had a hankering for Moroccan lamb stew. There was no way I’d have time to finish the stew off before school started.
“Is there any chance I can leave this on the hob until lunchtime?” I asked Peter.
He tapped his chin. “Does it have to be watched?”
“Nope. I’ll rig it so nothing will need to be done to it.”
“Okay. But I don’t know how much longer you should be doing this, Sophie. You can’t spend all your time away from your classmates.”
That was an unpopular opinion. Especially when I walked in last-minute to my Magical History class to find a familiar figure standing in the doorway. Kate was waving her arms about. Her expression dimmed when she saw me. Always in the past, she had a sharp quip to throw my way. I braced myself for the inevitable. To my utter surprise, she shrank back against the doorway.
“Uh, hi,” I said.
Her friends pulled her away. But not before I caught the way her eyes never lifted above my chin. I knew better than to think she was displaying submissive behaviour. Kate wasn’t an alpha but she was dominant enough to command a level of respect from her shifter peers. The way she surreptit
iously looked at me now had me thinking that she was genuinely scared of me. That couldn’t be right. Both Professor McKenna and Professor Mortimer had declared that the spell around my storage chest hadn’t been deadly. What more did they want?
All through class, Kate and her friends traded veiled looks. In between Magical History and Intermediate Runes, they whispered to each other and to anyone else who approached them. Given Kate had been away for a few days, lots of other kids wanted to catch up with her. The gossip was just too juicy.
By the time lunch rolled around, I’d heard snippets of all their conversations. For beings with heightened senses, they sure as hell did a bad job of keeping a secret. I saw Peter amongst the cabbages when I went to check on the stew. I’d been excited about it this morning, but as I lifted the hood of the tagine crock, tears pricked at my eyes. I brushed them away hastily, not wanting to get caught crying over food again.
I fried some flatbread in shallow oil and gathered up some ingredients for a salad. As usual, I had made way too much food. Habit, I suppose. Whenever I cooked at home, somehow I’d find myself hosting at least one or two shifters. Food was supposed to be shared. It was about community. I didn’t even have Charming today.
Yet when I reached my oak tree and found Max sitting propped up against it, I wanted to turn around and run. He spotted me and grinned. My stomach somersaulted even as beads of sweat gathered at the base of my neck.
“I’m not dead,” he said. He bent one knee and rested his elbow on it. Today he wore a maroon-coloured baseball shirt with tan cargo pants. His bicep curled under the material. Did he purposefully buy a size too small or something? I tried to redirect my attention away from his physique.
“Good for you.”
“I win the bet.”
“There was no bet.”
He sniffed. “What’s for lunch?”
I stepped back. “This is my lunch. This is my tree. Can’t you find someone else to torture?”
It was amazing how the same features could traverse the spectrum of human emotion. He’d been smiling a second earlier, his tanned colouring and light eyes friendly. Now a dark storm raged in his eyes, his chiselled jaw suddenly tight.