Ginger root split fast beneath her blade.
The older woman moved quickly too, plating with sharp, decisive movements.
Even the pastry chef had abandoned her careful piping, and was now torching the tops of the crème brûlée with quick, aggressive bursts of flame.
Across the kitchen, the young chef caught my eye and raised the small saucepan he'd been preparing. "It's time. You want to watch?"
“Sure.” I crossed to his station, drawn by curiosity and the pounding rhythm overhead.
He'd already poured a thin stream of neutral oil into the pan. It shimmered under the fluorescent lights, going liquid and loose as the heat climbed.
And the Infernal Dance pounded on—drums driving, horns screaming, Kashchei's demons dancing their savage, hungry dance.
He reached for a small bowl of fresh cayenne peppers—slender, bright red, and curved like crooked fingers.
They looked almost delicate.
Harmless.
He lined three of them on his cutting board and sliced them on the bias, his knife moving in quick, confident strokes.
Seeds spilled across the surface.
"You want the seeds too," He scraped everything toward the edge of the board. "That's where the real heat lives."
“That’s right.”
Then he tilted the board and let the peppers fall.
They hit the oil with a violent crackle.
Percussion drove the room harder now, leaving no space for quiet.
The slices seized immediately.
Losing their shape.
Then curling at the edges.
Blistering and charring as the oil embraced them.
Meanwhile, the seeds popped and danced across the surface.
And the color was captivating. The oil drank in that bright red, deepening. Orange bleeding into crimson. The peppers themselves darkening, their skins going from vivid scarlet to ember.
The smell hit me next.
Sharp.
Aggressive.
It climbed straight into my sinuses.
The air above the pan shimmered.
He stirred gently with a wooden spoon, keeping the peppers moving so they wouldn't burn. The oil had taken on a molten glow, like liquid sunset, like. . .
Fire climbing.
