“You want last night’s spaghetti? You got it,” Dori said. “You want the meal you had on your sixteenth birthday? The kitchen will whip it up.”
“How is that possible?”
Dori shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
“So what will it be?” Clary asked.
There was one thing I wanted to eat really bad, something I’d thought I’d never get to taste again. If what they said was true, then… “My mother’s belly-warming hot pot.”
Their eyes softened at my request, and I wanted to kick myself. I might as well have rolled over and shown them my belly. It was suddenly a little harder to breathe. “You know what, forget it. I?—”
“Too late.” Dori strode off.
“Wait!” Clary called after her. “I changed my mind. I want to try Ana’s mother’s belly-warming hot pot too.”
“Make that three,” Benedict added.
Dori dropped us a jaunty salute. “Four Onyx hot pots coming up.”
The tightness in my lungs eased, replaced by that strange bubble of emotion again. But I ducked my head, breathing through it. “So…the silvers and sea folklore?”
“Oh yes,” Clary said, eyes lighting up. “There is a ton of it—about the alliance between land and sea after The Overshadowing, and?—”
“She hasn’t taken Selethis’s class yet, so she probably only knows what the outsiders do,” Benedict reminded her. “Look, all you need to know is that sirens can get into a human’s head, and they have a taste for male flesh. The Land-Sea Pact prevents them from attacking pure humans, but”—he jerked a thumb at his chest— “I’m part human on my mother’s side. I was raised by my father after she abandoned me.” He spoke of abandonment as if it didn’t bother him. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he’d never known her. I wasn’t about to pry.
“Which is why they keep trying to lure him into the sea,” Clary said. “He’s the only human male at Nightsbridge they can snack on.”
“Part human,” Benedict corrected.
“Ugh, Evergreen Coven just strolled in,” Clary said.
“I spot a few Silverthorn and Embercrest too,” Benedict said. “I’m so glad my lot eats much later.”
The incantors occupied the area closest to the windows. They all sported the green and brown Nightsbridge uniforms, but some also wore scarves of different colors: metallic gray, orange, or lime green. Their coven colors, no doubt, but being from different covens shouldn’t stop them from mingling—covens often worked together. Sorcerers, however, kept to themselves, as evidenced by their two-booth separation from the incantors. Their scarves were royal blue. The Reign colors.
They ate together, but whereas the incantors chatted amiably with one another, the sorcerers ate in silence.
No Arcanus glanced our way, which was good. Being invisible here, as much as possible, would be a bonus.
If I kept my head down, I could claim my power, find the book, and?—
“Oh great,” Benedict muttered. “She just had to bring him in here, didn’t she?”
“Right by the Therianthrope booths, too,” Clary added.
I followed the direction of their gaze to where Tamina was settling into a booth in the center of the room with three other Haematophages. Beyond them were the booths occupied by large males, who, from all the obvious muscle, had to be Therianthropes.
They either turned their backs on the Haematophage or looked away.
“What’s happening?”
“Tamina is about to put on a show,” Clary said dryly. “She does this every so often. Ignore her. Don’t watch.” She gnawed on her bottom lip, her gaze darting to me. “Actually, maybe we should just go.”
Ruspin hobbled into the room. The wounds on his side had begun to clot, but his eyes were bloodshot from pain, his tail tucked between his legs.
Tamina beckoned him to approach, and he obeyed, each step labored and slow.
She stood and slipped off her jacket before carefully laying it on the bench behind her, a small smile playing on her crimson mouth. She waited patiently for him to get close, cooing words of encouragement softly to him, but as soon as he was within touching range, she stepped back and kicked him in the face with enough force to send him toppling onto his wounded side.
