"And you?" Mab dipped the bread into the soup. The broth was better than anything Garrad had ever produced, rich with unfamiliar herbs. "What have you been doing?"
Annie's expression changed. She glanced at the door, then back at Mab, and a conspiratorial look crept over her face. The look of a child with a secret too good to keep.
"Close your eyes," Annie said.
"What?"
"Close them. And hold out your hand."
Mab set the bread down and obeyed. Something small and cool and round settled into her palm.
"Now look."
An orange.
Mab stared at it. The skin was bright against her palm, pebbled and waxy, and when she lifted it to her nose the smell hit her like a fist to the chest. Sharp and sweet and impossibly foreign. She had seen oranges exactly twice in her life, both times on trays bound for the lord's table, both times whisked past her so quickly she'd barely had time to register the color.
"Where did you get this?"
"Drogga." Annie was practically vibrating with excitement. "He gave it to me. Just gave it to me, like it was nothing. He said they trade for them at Northwatch, that merchants bring them up from the southern coast before the passes close for winter." She leaned closer, dropping her voice as though the walls might be listening. "He said at Northwatch, the children help with the harvest. Apples and pears and these little red berries that grow on bushes near the hot springs. He said I could help too, if I wanted."
Mab turned the orange over in her hands. The weight of it was absurd. Such a small thing to mean so much.
"Have you ever had one?" Annie asked.
"No." Mab's thumb traced the dimpled skin. "They were for the family. And their guests."
"Me neither." Annie scooted closer on the bed, her shoulder pressing against Mab's arm. "Drogga showed me how to peel it. You dig your thumb in at the top, where the stem was, and then the skin comes off in pieces."
Mab dug her thumbnail into the rind. The spray of oil that released was so fragrant it made her eyes water. She peeled it slowly, letting the rind fall onto the bedsheet in curling strips, and when the fruit was bare in her hand she pulled it apart into segments.
She gave half to Annie.
They ate in silence. The juice ran down Mab's chin and she didn't bother to wipe it. The flesh was sweeter than she'd imagined, bright and strange on her tongue. Each segment burst between her teeth with a taste that belonged to somewhere else entirely. Somewhere warm. Somewhere she had never been.
Annie ate hers with her eyes closed, making small sounds of pleasure that reminded Mab of the orcish dining customs. Honest appreciation. No shame in wanting.
"Drogga says the hot springs keep parts of the mountain warm enough to grow things," Annie said when she'd finished her last segment and licked the juice from her fingers. "He says there are gardens carved into the rock, with channels that bring the warm water through. He says in winter, when the snow is piled higher than the walls, you can still pick herbs from the indoor gardens. Fresh ones. Growing right there in the mountain."
"It sounds like a fairy story," Mab said.
"That's what I thought too." Annie pulled her knees up onto the bed, tucking her feet beneath the borrowed dress. "But he wasn't lying. I could tell. He got this look on his face when he talked about it, like he was seeing it in his head and wanted me to see it too."
Mab set the orange peels aside. Her fingers were sticky and fragrant, and she didn't want to wipe them clean. She wanted to keep the smell.
"Are you scared?" she asked. "Of going there?"
Annie was quiet for a moment. Her fingers picked at a loose thread on her sleeve.
"I was," she said finally. "But then Drogga told me about the orchards. And the hot springs. And the children who help with the harvest." She looked up at Mab, and her eyes were clear in a way Mab had never seen them. No tears gathering at the edges. No flinch waiting to happen. "I think I'm still scared. But I'm also—"
"Excited," Mab said.
Annie nodded. "Is that wrong? To be excited about something that started with people dying?"
"No." Mab reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Annie's ear. The gesture came without thought, and she let it happen. "The dying is done. What comes after is something else."
Annie leaned into her hand for just a moment before pulling back. "Tibbs says we shouldn't trust them. He says orcs are still orcs and we should be ready to run."
