Agnes gave one of the stove’s dials a twist. Sylvie waited for a flame to erupt. Instead, a door Sylvie hadn’t noticed swung open.
“Whoa! A secret room.”
Agnes glanced back. “Quickly. Before someone sees us.”
Sylvie maneuvered past the old cook station.
Inside, a bed with a billowing red duvet was tucked into the corner, muscled out of the way by an overflow of ingredients and baking equipment. Fluted cake pans and vials full of sparkling elixirs were all stacked on a series of long shelves. Bundles of dried flowers and shriveled herbs hung from the ceiling, tied with colorful ribbons.
The scent of fresh vanilla hung in the air.
Agnes brushed crumbs off the lopsided breakfast table. A small bit of newspaper was wedged beneath one of the legs, trying to set it straight.
“My apologies for the mess. I don’t normally have guests in my home.”
“You actually live here?”
Agnes nodded. “Most of Brindille’s staff live up in the main building. But they keep me down here, close to the kitchen… . I don’t mind. It’s rather nice having the privacy,” she added.
“It’s incredible!” Any sort of hidden room was beyond cool. But one that looked and smelled like this was amazing.
Agnes rifled through a stack of papers. Buried at the bottom was a worn leather-bound book.
The cover was black and marked with creases. The pages looked coffee-stained and yellow.
Sylvie peered over Agnes’s shoulder as she flicked it open.
At the top, written in dark calligraphy, were the words:
Forbidden Recipes & Peculiar Spells
Agnes slid the book across the table. “I’m sure you’re perplexed, seeing me with this.”
Sylvie was surprised. Forbidden recipe books were secretly sold all the time. But Agnes didn’t seem like the type to go lurking around back-alley auctions.
“First of all, not all the recipes in here are forbidden,” said Agnes. “As the name suggests, some are just …odd.”
Sylvie carefully fingered the brittle pages. Agnes was right. Some did sound silly, like the recipe for No-Bake Dragon Treats.
Agnes flicked toward the back of the book and pointed to a recipe: Devils on Horseback.
This one did sound ominous.
Sylvie’s mom had taken her once to The Museum of Culinary History and Magic. One of the rooms was full of relics donated by the Department of Outlawed Artifacts. That had been Sylvie’s favorite room. It had an old cast-iron cauldron. Glass vials of wormwood. A string of yam daisies. Ancient terracotta vessel for holding “scorpion wine,” and a first edition copy of Hugh Rex’s book,Wicked Cooking: Recipes to Curse and Kill.
But this was the first time Sylvie was seeing a forbidden recipe up close.
“A dear friend of mine passed away a few years back,” said Agnes. “She didn’t have any children. So, she left her cookbook collection to me.”
Agnes stared at the open book with a blend of fear and admiration. “Funny. You think you know people … I have no idea how she ended up with this piece. But I’ve never had the heart to destroy it. I thought once about handing it over to the Department of Outlawed Artifacts. But now that they answer directly to Bass, I’ve been too fearful.”
Sylvie understood.
“It would be ironic, if the book I was afraid to turn in became the catalyst for Bass’s undoing,” said Agnes.
Sylvie slid her hand across the page. Breaking rules was one thing.But forbidden recipes?This wasn’t a spoonful of sugar or a cup of bone broth. This was dark magic. Sylvie wasn’t sure she had the stomach, or the skills, for it.
Agnes tapped a finger against the book. “I’m not sure why Devils on Horseback was forbidden. But the good news is, it doesn’t require much from a Blade.”
