Chapter 14
We had breakfast in the kitchen, at the same big table where I learned and practiced Lugarran writing. It pulled out until it was large enough to seat everyone, and since we’d come here, it hadn’t been folded in.
Inkiri had headed downstairs ahead of me, saying he was going to help set the table.
When I made it into the kitchen with no shoes on but a fresh pair of cat socks with my shorts, Inkiri and Nokim were already chatting at the table while Charles was at the counter milking the almonds, a half-asleep Kinnek hug-cuddling him from behind. Kinnek was not made for mornings.
Inkiri looked up when I walked in the kitchen and grinned.
Nokim’s chair wobbled precariously when he jumped to his feet. “There he is! Oh, this is going to be interesting!”
I scratched my head. “Huh?”
Kinnek groaned. “So noisy. Noisy morning people, bad noisy morning people. Charlieeee…”
“We have a strict ‘no loud noises before noon’ rule in this house,” Charles said, never once taking his eyes from where he was squeezing the milk from the pulped nuts.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone right behind me said, “Then why are so many people being so loud already?”
I squeaked a little, and when I turned around, I nearly fell on my ass. Vergis at least had the decency to grab my arm before that happened. It was really the least he could do, given that he’d been the one to scare me like that.
Of all the things I might’ve said to him, I picked: “Why do you keep doing that?”
Vergis looked at where he’d grabbed my arm. “Saving you from falling on your face or getting eaten by a bear or other random creature? I have no fucking clue, Princess.”
I pursed my lips, doing my best to think of a comeback.
Kinnek was rubbing his cheek against Charles’s back. “Muffin? Is Muffin here?”
“Yup. He’s on restriction. You grounded him.”
I finally managed to find my balance again, and Vergis let me go. Then he looked at his parents with the kind of expression I’d always imagined kids would have on their faces when their parents were very affectionate in front of them. It was nothing I had any direct experience of.
“I’m not grounded, I’m an indentured servant.”
Nokim clicked. “It’s not so bad! I’ll help with your chores again today. Inkiri has learned some interesting prophecy magic from his mate! We can try it together!”
Vergis looked at me as if I were a hair in his breakfast porridge. “Has he?”
“Yes.” Inkiri’s voice was low, and the soft purr he ended on made me turn and look at him. As soon as he knew he had my attention, he held up a basket he’d been hiding in his lap. “Charles said we could use these winter apples to do your apple magic, Sadir.”
Vergis snorted in a very human way and walked past me to get himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove. There was a big jar of cold brew coffee in the fridge, but Vergis liked his morning coffee hot, and Nokim always made sure to warm the cold brew before Vergis came down for breakfast.
“What, are you Snow White now, Princess?”
Kinnek sighed. “No, but they’re going to do folk magic. Who knows? Might work with a Loathly Lady dispenser.”
I walked up to Inkiri, who was holding the apples up much like he’d held up my apocalypse backpack. They were the nice big kind, the ones Gran would’ve used for baking. I picked one up and turned it over in my hand.
“That’s going to be a long peel.”
My perfect mate grinned. “An R has two strokes. It needs much peel.”
The chair next to me scratched over the floor tiles, and Kinnek hissed with discomfort.
“Do I even want to know what kinkiness this is?” Vergis asked.
Charles sighed. “Vergis, lift that chair. You’re upsetting your father. You know how sensitive he is about loud noises and too much conversation before noon.”
Vergis rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored his parents.
I sat down next to Inkiri. “It’s really just a silly superstition my gran told me about. She said that if you peel an apple and can keep the peel in one piece, then you toss it over your shoulder without looking, and it’ll come down in the shape of your true love’s initial.”
Vergis took a sip of his coffee. “Sounds like nonsense. I’ll go feed the bunnies while you do that.”
Which made my bottom lip tremble. Yes, I knew the bunnies were there and why they were there, but that didn’t make it any better. I’d thought about finding their cages and setting them free more than once.
Inkiri clicked at me. I’d told him about the first bunny incident. I’d also told him about how I was feeling sad for the ligua. He’d not laughed at me, and honestly, it said a lot that he hadn’t. More than a small part of me had been afraid he might.
Nokim leaned forward in his chair. “Don’t think about them. Think about how it will soon be Santasmas.”
Vergis groaned. “Not this crap again.”
Kinnek made a sound that started out as a purr but then turned into a more human-ish sigh. “Grumpy morning Muffin. He didn’t get it from either of us, did he, Charlie?”
Charles was done with milking the almonds.
I should’ve been more excited about that since Nokim had learned that the pulp was great for baking, meaning there’d be fresh cookies later today—he was currently experimenting with tomato cookies since someone had told him they were really a fruit—but then I wondered whether bunnies liked almonds, and it took all I had not to spiral.
“Evidence suggests you’re not a morning person.” Charles didn’t caress Kinnek, although his voice was soft enough to make me think he wanted to. Both his hands were occupied bottling the milk and leaving some out for breakfast.
“Hmm. Slanderous slander.”
Vergis looked at the two of them, which was a relief since it meant he wasn’t looking in my general direction for a bit. “And you two actually wonder why I don’t spend more time here?”
“You’re grounded, Muffin. You’re not going to leave here until I say otherwise.”
“You two are the worst.”
Charles wiped his hands on a towel before turning away from the counter and hugging Kinnek, who sighed happily and relaxed into the touch. “There’s some weeding in the herb garden I need you to do later, and I’m thinking the shed might need a fresh coat of paint.”
It was difficult to tell with Charles—he never gave away much of what he was thinking—but I had the feeling he was enjoying this.
Vergis clearly wasn’t, but he wisely went back to his coffee. I felt a tiny bit sorry for him since weeding sounded like it was no fun at all.
Fellisse and Lissir walked in then, and for the next few minutes, it was just everyone finding their seats and Nokim getting up no less than three times to get something that was still missing from the fridge or a shelf.
Inkiri put his basket of apples on the table next to his plate, and I noticed he hadn’t just gotten the apples, but also a pretty sharp-looking knife.
“We have apples for breakfast?” Lissir asked.
Inkiri picked one up. “Yes. Peeling an apple without breaking the peel and then tossing it over your shoulder is supposed to reveal your true mate’s initial. And my mate has promised he’ll feed this to me.”
Lissir nodded while I blushed.
Nokim was back to tea experimentation—he’d discovered Charles’s stash of homemade herbal teas, a whole new world for him—and Lissir frowned after taking one sip of his nettle tea with almond milk.
“It’s a special mate who’ll take the time to feed you.
Nokim, should you ever want to be the one feeding your mate, don’t try with this. What plant is this again?”
I cleared my throat. “Nettles. They make your skin itchy when you touch them, and it lasts for days.”
“Only princess-soft human skin,” Vergis grumbled.
Kinnek looked at Vergis over the rim of his coffee cup. “They’ve stung your daddy too, or have you forgotten how you brought him a little bouquet of nettles when you were little, and he took it without so much as flinching?”
Vergis slumped in his chair. “You know that wasn’t intentional.”
Charles, who was sitting next to Vergis, patted him on the back. “I know. You did nothing wrong. You were so cute with your nettle crown.”
I nearly spluttered my own coffee all over the table. “You wore a nettle crown?”
Kinnek hummed. “Good thing there aren’t any pictures, isn’t it, Muffin? Why, if there were pictures, think what could happen.”
Charles bobbed his head. “Yeah. Think about all the things that could happen if you factor in a high-resolution laser color printer that handles wide format like the one I have in the office. You’d never be sure when someone might take a digitized photograph and turn it into a big poster, frame it, and hang it on the living room wall. ”
I did not envy Vergis, who was now glaring at both his parents, to no visible effect. I picked an apple from the basket and handed it to him.
“Do you want to try? It doesn’t matter if you believe in the superstition, but the peeling can be a contest, right?” I shrugged. “I’d participate, but—”
Inkiri clicked. “No, Sadir, please. Let me peel the apple. Charles likes his knives sharp.”
Charles didn’t even look up from buttering his slice of homemade sourdough. “Makes no sense to have a dull knife.”
“Then why did you teach me how to stab a person with a butter knife?” Vergis took the apple I’d offered him and bit into it.
Charles shrugged and held up the utensil in question. “Case of emergency kind of thing. If all you have’s a butter knife, you’d best know how to use it for the stabbing.”
Which, apparently, was a thing some people taught their children out here in the wilderness. I didn’t have time to follow up on that though, and it was probably better if I didn’t. Fellisse started asking anatomical questions about butter knives and stabbing at that end of the table.
Inkiri had angled his apple so I had to look, and when I did, he started peeling it. Round and round, the peel came off in a perfect ribbon. He made it look easy. When the whole thing was one big, long apple spaghetti on his plate, he looked at me proudly.
“Like this?”
I leaned closer to examine the thin peel while Inkiri moved on to slice the apple just as neatly and deftly as he’d peeled it. “Yeah. Are you going to toss it now?”
Inkiri narrowed his eyes. “Maybe not. I already know your initial. I don’t need it.”
I smiled, my cheeks turning the warm shade of billet beans. “Well, you really know how to handle a knife, that’s for sure.”
“That’s a pretty basic skill, no?” Lissir had exchanged his tea for coffee.
“Uh, well, I’m not good with knives.” I glanced around the table, hoping someone else would say they weren’t either, but that was wishful thinking among these bagua. And Charlie knew where to put a butter knife and make a corpse, so there was that.
Lissir clicked. “You are lucky. Inkiri is very skilled with knives and swords, and you can be very skilled with magic.” His eyes widened. “Vergis, isn’t there a word? When a senfesmen has very skillful people in it?”
Vergis had been mostly listening to the anatomy discussion, but he looked up. “You mean a power couple?”
Lissir nodded. “Yes.” He fixed me in his fiery gaze. “You and Inkiri are a focus of power.”
Fellisse chuckled. “Just the two of them? Come now. All of us are skilled, and we have two koa. We are a power sentenmen.”
“Please don’t include me in your machinations,” Vergis said, which led to Charles putting an arm around his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Vergis. Me and your dad are okay with you growing up and finding a sentenmen.”
Kinnek clicked in the bagu way. “We are. Especially since you decided to do the right thing and bring them here.”
Vergis sighed. “I need more coffee.”
Which made Nokim shoot to his feet. “I’ll make you a latte with fresh almond milk!”
While he did that, Inkiri leaned closer to me. “Sadir, do you want to toss the peel?”
I cocked my head. “What, the one you peeled? It doesn’t work that way. The person tossing it has to be the one peeling it. I don’t need it anymore, and you already agreed I have your initial on my thumb.”
Lissir made a humming noise. “On his thumb? That’s a story I want to listen to.”
“Maybe not before Christmas,” Vergis said.
Back at the stove, Nokim looked over his shoulder. “We’re calling it Santasmas. Inkiri agreed, and Charles and Kinnek had no complaints, so it’s decided.”
Vergis looked unimpressed. “It’s the middle of summer.”
Lissir reached for an apple of his own. “Then you want to make me wait until winter to hear how Rory has Inkiri’s name on his thumb? I don’t want to wait that long, Vergis.”
I shrugged. “It’s only a scar. I tried the apple peel thing once, and I cut myself.”
Vergis sniggered. “Of course you did.”
That had Inkiri clicking and purring. “That won’t happen again though. What are we going to do with the peel? Do you think Vergis can use it, Sadir?”
Vergis crossed his arms. “Vergis doesn’t think Vergis will use it.”
“You can feed it to the bunnies though, right?”
And while Vergis’s glare was powerful, I was pretty sure it softened a fraction when he looked at me. “Fine. Just another chore on my never-ending list.”
Lissir held out his hand to Inkiri. “The knife, please? I want to try this custom and see if there’s any writing in my apple peel.”
I frowned. I had accidentally made my guys superstitious.