Page 117

Something about the two of them standing at that counter, moving around each other without needing to check where the other one was, reminded me of watching Janus's wives Ussari and Raina. The same unhurried rhythm. The same total lack of interest in whether anyone was watching them do it.

I started dicing.

"Small," Liora said again, without looking over.

"This is small."

"That's a garnish. I want small."

I cut the pieces down further, and my knife slipped half an inch off the last onion, catching the pad of my thumb instead. The sting registered a full second before the healing caught up with it, skin knitting closed before a single drop of blood managed to hit the board.

Elira's eyebrows went up. "That's cheating."

"It's efficient."

"Most people bleed a little first. Builds character."

"I'd rather not bleed all over the food."

"Fair," Liora said, and slid a cup across the counter toward me before I'd finished the second onion.

"Drink."

I looked at it. Dark, faintly cloudy, smelling like something that had spent a long time deciding whether to become vinegar.

"What is it?"

"Taren's."

"That doesn't answer the question."

"It answers the important part."

I took a mouthful before I could think better of it, because refusing a drink from someone's own kitchen felt like a rule I should follow.

It burned going down, then burned again on the way back up as I coughed hard enough that my eyes watered and half of it ended up somewhere on the counter instead of in my throat. Elira burst out laughing before I'd even finished spluttering, one hand slapping the countertop, and Liora didn't bother hiding her grin.

"Warn a person."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"That's not a drink. That's a solvent."

"That's Taren's specialty," Liora said. "He grows the root himself. Insists it's an acquired taste."

"It tastes like something acquired a mistake."

Elira wheezed. I wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist and set the cup down, and Liora slid it back toward me with two fingers before I could push it further away.

"You're not leaving this house tonight until you're walking wobbly."

"That sounds like a threat."

"It's tradition."

I looked at the cup again. The burn had already faded into something warmer, sitting low in my stomach in a way I could feel, blood vessels loosening under my own skin the same way I'd read about in a Menagerie text years ago, before it had ever meant anything more than words on a page. Knowing exactly what was happening to my body didn't make it happen any slower.

I drank again anyway.