Chapter 3 Mind Reading

SERAPHINA

The voice appears again, clear and sourceless: Why isn't she saying anything? Is this one mute? Or did I hold on too tight?

Hold on too tight? Does that mean...

I jerk my glance ahead. Aldric's lips did not move. He is simply watching me with flat golden eyes, waiting for something.

That voice... comes from him.

The realization lands with the weight of a dropped stone. I do not understand it. He just reached out to strangle me, and then I could suddenly hear what he is thinking? What kind of witchcraft is this?

A sound escapes me before I can stop it, a thin whimper pressed out by the grip on my throat.

The voice shifts: Ah. Probably too tight.

Aldric releases me. Air becomes possible again. I pull it in greedily.

Then his expression settles into something cold. "You wouldn't be thinking of forcing that garbage on me as well, would you?"

His inner voice runs beneath the spoken words like a second current: Say no, I'll strangle you. Say yes, you go out the window.

There is no correct answer to this question. He has already decided both outcomes lead to the same place. He is asking because he is bored, or angry, or because he wants to watch me try to find a way out and fail.

So I do not answer the question he asked.

"I came to remove the tray, my king." I try to sound steady. "The food isn't fit to serve. I apologize for bringing it."

A pause. Then: Hm. That's not what I expected.

His attention has shifted. He glances down at his own face, or tries to, and I watch him register the food still splashed across his jaw and cheek. His face shifts into something that might, in a less dangerous creature, be described as irritation.

"Clean that off," he orders.

And underneath: If she actually touches my face, I'll kill her for that.

My hands stay at my sides. I do not move an inch, because I suspect retreat reads as fear and fear reads as prey.

"I don't have a cloth," I say. "If you'll allow me to step back, I can bring one."

Another pause. Clever, his inner voice observes, and there is only a kind of cold assessment. Not as stupid as the others.

He takes a single step back and says aloud, "Get out. I want to rest. And don't bring me that kind of food again."

His inner voice, as I am fleeing: Why does that kitchen keep sending me the same tasteless nothing? I just want some spicy food! Is that so hard?

I file that away as I slip through the door.

The main hall is still populated, though the group has thinned. Mira finds me immediately, registering that I am here and Verna isn't.

I give her a brief account, leaving out the part where I heard Aldric's thoughts.

Mira listens without interrupting. "For a new arrival," she says when I finish, "you managed that better than most veterans would have." She pauses, and I can tell she is already moving past the observation into logistics. "He still needs to eat, no matter what. Go back to the kitchen and make him something else. No meat. Beyond that, use your background."

She turns her gaze to the remaining girls in the hall, scanning them the same way she scanned me when I first walked through the doors. Her eyes stop on the girl who introduced herself to me as Ivy.

"Hey, you!" Mira shouts. "You two were standing together earlier." It is not a question. "You're Verna now. Go with Sera."

Ivy's face cycles through several expressions before settling on a careful blankness. She falls into step beside me without a word.

Ivy—no, now it's Verna—knows the route to the kitchen. She leads me through two sets of service corridors, and once we are far enough from the hall that her voice won't carry back, she starts talking.

"I don't understand how you're still walking," she says. "He kills people. For nothing." She glances at me sideways. "You must have gotten lucky."

"Maybe."

"Don't think luck holds twice." She pushes open the kitchen door and holds it. "He's unpredictable. Being assigned here is basically the same as being handed a death sentence with a delayed execution date."

I step into the kitchen. It is larger and better equipped than I expected. My hands want to start working immediately.

"I hear you," I say, which is true. "Try not to worry too much."

She exhales. "Easy for you to say. You somehow walked out of there."

I start pulling ingredients. Flour, butter, honey, and then I work through the spice shelf until I find what I want: dried chili, cinnamon, black pepper, cloves. My hands move through the familiar motions, and the rhythm of it steadies my beating heart.

Verna watches me reach for the spices and her eyes narrow. "What are you doing? Everyone makes plain food for him. We should do that too."

Yeah, and let him kill us? No thanks.

"Trust me," I say. "These spices have properties that stimulate appetite. It's something my family worked with in the bakery. He'll respond well to them."

This is not a lie, exactly. The truth is that I heard him think about wanting some spicy food, and I intend to give him exactly that, wrapped in enough plausible reasoning that I don't have to explain how I know.

Verna looks unconvinced. "If he hates it, that's not on me."

"Agreed."

She doesn't argue further. She watches me work instead, and the kitchen fills with the smell of honey warming and spice blooming in heat. The castle's equipment is better than anything I have used before, and the dough comes together faster than I expect. Within an hour, the honey spice cakes are out of the oven, golden and fragrant, the chili and cinnamon rising off them in a warm thread of smoke.

We carry the tray back up together. I knock on the chamber door.

From inside, Aldric's voice, flat and already annoyed: "What now? I said I wanted to rest."

"Mira sent new food, my king," I say through the door. "Different from before. It's spiced."

His inner voice reaches me even through the wood, sharpened by something that might be interest: Spiced?

"Come in," he says.

We do. I set the tray on the table. He looks at it. Then at me. I step back to a respectful distance and keep my face neutral.

His inner voice, when he leans toward the tray and the smell reaches him: That's... actually not terrible. That's what I've been wanting.

I allow myself, privately, one small moment of relief. At least for now, I have this trump card that could save me from danger.

He reaches for one of the cakes.

Then his hand stops. He sets it back down hard enough that the tray rattles, and when he looks up, his eyes have gone sharp and cold in a way that is completely different from a moment ago. "Who made this?"

My relief evaporates.