“Pan! Pancakes.” I kneel beside her to pull a cast iron pan from the drawer.
“Flour, sugar, vanilla, and baking powder are in here.” She knocks a cupboard. “Cashew milk and maple syrup are here.” She knocks the fridge.
“Thanks, Vincenza.”
I start pouring ingredients into a bowl to mix while the pan heats over hot wires and she lounges on the couch.
She probably ate already, but I think she’ll appreciate the gesture of being offered pancakes, even if she declines them. So, I make a bit extra beyond what I was planning on eating.
I drop the two plates onto the coffee table.
“Are you sharing?” Vincenza leans forward, grinning.
“Yes! I—think I forgot butter. Where is it?”
“It’s on the counter.” She nods her head to it, and I run to grab it. “Technically it’s not butter. Debatably. It has more right to the title of ‘butter’ than peanut butter.”
“I know. And the oat milk isn’t real milk either.”
“Milk used to mainly refer to oat milk. Anything produced by milking is a milk. My grandmother would tell me that she had to specify when milk could be substituted with ‘cream of cow.’”
“Are oats milked?” I spread a faintly coconut smelling butter between the layers of my stack.
“By the lax standards of Roversellan, yes, as we have to mechanically squeeze out the milk.”
I… have no clue how oat milk is made.
“And, you used cashew milk.” She starts preparing her stack.
She’s going to eat it!
I feel my cheeks warm. “Why is it you only have vegan foods? Are you allergic?”
“By the Ring, no. Not when I started, anyway.” She slows down her cutting. “Do you want to hear the story? It might be long.”
“Yes! I can—I can eat while you tell it. So I won’t mind.”
“And I’m supposed to ignore that I can’t?” She places a performatively offended hand on her chest. “I should’ve known you would never lose your sass. But, the story starts with my wonderful meretrice.
“I took her on a romantic getaway to a field of tulips in Lawrin. They used to bury people there in coffins, and I purchased permission to dig one up to make a servant from. I planned it out as a cute surprise for her. She would get to see her home and family, and with her own animation to display her progress.
“You’re aware of how you felt after your first spells, right? Before that, even. Your conscience whispering plots you would never think to do into your head and the orchestra bursting inyour ears?”
I nod.
“She was able to perfectly animate a corpse. The most beautiful smile lay on her face, and we danced together in tulips.” Vincenza interrupts herself with laughter that draws her to tears. “We were right next to a chicken pasture. She feltallof them—their dying, their mourning, their trimmed beaks and bent necks. The confusion from little chicks as they fell into a macerator. As I drove us to her home, she kept on swearing to me that she would never hurt them again.”
I listen to her laughter, soft and breaking. “Was it funny?”
“Not at the time—her mother certainly wasn’t amused—but that was before we were even married. Decades passed, and we eventually found humor in it.”
“That’s a nice story… Should I stop? Eating—her friends?”
Vincenza’s laughter is so sweet for such a dark story and question. “I don’t care, Kate. I’m not a moralistic woman; I’m just… It’s not why I’m doing it.”
I blink and turn myself back to eating. It’s probably not a good idea to ask more.
“Catarina, do you have any thoughts?”
