Chapter 3
The kitchens are as busy as usual, and some of the workers nod to me as I pass. My skin starts to itch as I consider what Veronica said earlier about rumours. Have I already started some by coming down here and kissing Nate yesterday?
What about when I do it today?
I push those thoughts to the side. It's not as if I'm going to turn around and walk away before seeing Nate.
Ember lets out a shrill sound that makes me wince.
"You have got to stop that." I put my hand into my pocket and pull out a piece of dried meat. "No making noise," I say to my dragon before feeding her.
A warm chuckle comes from in front of me. "Does that actually work?"
I look up to find Nate in the doorway of our kitchen. "Artie says that it does, but I'm not convinced. I don't think she likes the dried meat very much, but Mama told me off when I tried carrying around some meat scraps in my pocket."
He raises an eyebrow. "I can't imagine you'd have liked that very much either."
I grimace. "Not really, but I want to make sure I do everything right for Ember, so I did it anyway."
"Well, I've got some scraps waiting for her, so we can see if those will make her less squawky." He gestures to the kitchen.
"I don't think anything will do that. Why did no one tell me how difficult it is to raise a dragon?"
"Because the Shengdanese ambassador didn't expect you to actually be able to hatch the dragon egg that they gave you," he responds.
"Clearly they didn't take into account how welcoming your oven is."
The moment we're inside our kitchen, Ember stretches her wings, knocking against my head as she does.
"Ow."
She ignores me and leaps into the air, soaring over to the wood-fired oven and settling in the dragon bed there. She sticks up her neck, looking around until her gaze locks on Nate and she lets out what I think is a demanding chirp.
"Am I not allowed to say hello to Evie first?" he asks my dragon.
She lets out another chirp.
"I take that as a no." He picks up the bowl of scraps he has waiting and sets it down in front of my dragon. "Enjoy your dinner."
"She seems to like you better," I say as he steps away.
"That's because I've been feeding her for weeks," he responds, stepping towards me. "Good evening."
"Good evening," I echo back, looking at him and trying to work out what I'm supposed to do next. We've not been in this position before. "So can we kiss again?"
I half expect him to laugh in response, but he doesn't.
"I was hoping you'd ask," he responds as he closes the gap between us. He brushes some of my hair out of my face and leans in.
I close my eyes, looking forward to the moment his lips touch mine. I've not been able to think about much else all day, but now that I'm here with him, I have to admit that the feeling is even better than I remembered.
I wrap my arms around his neck while he pulls me closer, and I lose myself in the sensation. This is real. I'm kissing Nate. I've never really cared about kissing anyone before, and yet now that we're doing it, I can't imagine stopping. Or I can. But only because we'll be able to kiss again.
We break apart, and I look into his warm brown eyes, seeing so many emotions there that I don't really know what to do with them.
"Are you sure it's all right for us to be kissing in the kitchen?" My voice cracks as I ask. "Veronica said something about rumours."
He lets out a sigh. "I think that depends on what you want. If you want us to keep this a complete secret..."
"No," I say firmly.
He raises an eyebrow.
"I don't want to start going to court with you, that feels like it's too far. But I can't imagine spending time with you here, or in my room, or anywhere else and not being able to kiss you."
"What have we unlocked?"
I frown. "I don't know. I've never felt like this before," I admit.
"I was teasing you, Evie." He touches my cheek softly. "I don't mind. Like I told you, I've thought about this a lot. I don't want to go back to pretending I don't feel anything for you, even if it's just for other people's benefit."
"But is that going to cause problems?" I ask. "You said that your father isn't even happy that we're friends. He's going to like this even less."
"I can deal with my father," he assures me. "Please don't worry about him."
"But I do. If he's going to make your life more difficult..."
"He's not my boss any more, Evie," Nate reminds me. "There's not much he can do except give me disapproving looks and tell me that I'm being a fool."
A horrible feeling travels through me in response. "He'd tell you that because you love me?"
"He'd tell me that anyway," he responds. "He's been telling me similar things for years."
I stared at him, a little confused about why that would be. "I didn't realise he disliked me so much."
"I don't think it's about you," he assures me. "You shouldn't worry about it."
I'm not sure what to say in response to that.
"Anyway, do you still want to bake?" he asks.
"Of course."
"I just need to finish dealing with the curd first," he says.
"The curd? As in for tart?"
He nods.
"I don't think I've ever made it before."
"I've never suggested it because it needs more than a little patience."
I cross my arms. "I'm not that bad."
"The curd has to drain for at least five hours," he responds. "And that's not counting the time the pastry needs to chill."
I let out a sigh. "Well normally we don't have five hours when we can bake together. You've got everything you need to do, and it's not as if Mama would let me have a whole day to bake either. There are always meetings and lessons she expects me to be at."
"I know," he responds. "But you're in luck, because the Queen has requested a curd tart for tomorrow's menu, so we can make one tonight unless you have anything you'd prefer."
"A curd tart sounds good."
"Then you'll be glad to know that there's already pastry resting in the ice house too. So the only thing we'll have to wait for is it to bake," Nate says as he brushes his hand against my back.
"I can be patient," I mutter.
"I know you can." He pauses for a moment before leaning in and kissing my cheek.
Warmth radiates out from the spot and I lean in to him without meaning to. "What needs doing?" I ask.
"The first thing we need to do is finish draining the curds," he responds. "But that's easy enough." He gestures over to where a cheesecloth is hanging over a bowl of whey.
"What should I do?"
"Just give it a squeeze and then untie the cloth," he says. "I'll go get the pastry."
I smile at him before heading over to the hanging cloth and looking at it. I reach out, surprised by how firm the curds feel through the fabric. I ignore that and give it a squeeze. A tiny bit more whey drops into the bowl beneath, but I'm sure the curds are still done.
I untie the cloth from the hook and carry it over to a bowl, dripping tiny bits of whey on my dress.
I grimace in response. I should have put on an apron first. Hopefully, it won't be bad enough that one of the maids tells Mama.
If she finds out that I've potentially ruined a dress, then she might ban me from the kitchen entirely.
As soon as I've covered myself in a plain white apron, I return to the bowl with the curds and unwrap them from the cheesecloth until they're sitting in the bowl in white clumps.
I poke at one of them, making it fall apart.
I've eaten curd tart plenty of times, but I'm a little confused about how this is going to make the texture that I know.
Nate appears in the doorway with a pastry-lined tin in his hands and raises an eyebrow. "Are you having fun?"
"I was curious," I admit. "Are we going to melt it?"
"No. Though I suppose it will probably melt while it's in the oven, but we're not going to."
"Then how are we going to get it fine enough to be the filling of a tart?"
"We're going to whip it." He covers the pastry with some greaseproof paper and tops it with baking beans before sliding it into the oven. He brings an hourglass over to the table and flips it.
I look down at the curds, a little confused about how this is going to work, but Nate doesn't seem too worried.
He pulls over his book of recipes and flips to a page near the front. "Here, take a look. It's a family recipe."
"I thought you were born in the castle?" As far as I know, curd tart is from the north of the country, so not something someone from the capital is likely to have a family recipe for.
"I was," he responds. "But my great-grandfather wasn't. He was born in North Falhaven. He came to the capital to find work. He brought this recipe with him. And a few others from around his hometown."
"Why didn't I know that?"
Nate shrugs. "I guess it hasn't come up before."
I don't like the idea that there are things I don't know about him, even if I realise that's perfectly reasonable, especially when we've been apart for five and a half years.
But I tear my thoughts away from that and look over the recipe.
It's not a complicated one, just a case of mixing things together and baking.
"You've got mixed dried fruit," I say, looking over the ingredients that Nate has been collecting.
"I have."
"The recipe doesn't say mixed fruit. It says currants."
"It's better with mixed dried fruit," he responds.
"But it says currants." I put my finger on the page.
He laughs and leans over to grab the pencil next to his book and crosses out currants to write dried fruit. "Better?"
I frown. Because in theory, that's fixed it, but I know he's just humouring me. "Maybe."
"All right, how about I go get some more pastry, and I'll make you two small tester ones. One with currants, and one with mixed fruit, then you can decide for yourself. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to try them though. Does that work?"
"I think so." I trust his judgement, but it's hard when what he's saying is contrary to the instructions.
"Good. Let me just deal with the pastry case in the oven, then I'll get started on those. Can you do the butter and sugar for me?"
I nod and weigh both of them out into a bowl so I can start beating them until the butter is light and fluffy from the sugar and the air. Nate pulls the pastry case out of the oven and removes the baking beans before sliding it back in.
Without meaning to, I find myself watching him as he leaves the room. I let out a sigh. "I can't believe it took me so long to realise I love him," I say to Ember.
She doesn't respond, seeming to have settled down for a nap now that she's had her fill of food.
Nate returns a few minutes later with a rectangle of pastry and sets it down on the table. He looks into my bowl and nods. "Now add the rest of the ingredients, and use the rotary whisk."
"The rotary whisk?" I echo. "Won't that break on the curds?"
"It shouldn't do. Look." He prods at the curds a few times, and they start to fall apart. "I've tried it a few other ways, but the rotary whisk is the best for getting the texture right. That's at least one thing I'm glad has been invented recently. It saves my arms."
I look down at them without meaning to. "Your arms are nice," I blurt out.
He raises an eyebrow as he heads over to take the pastry case out of the oven and replace it with the two small ones he just made. "Oh?"
I clear my throat. "I mean, I like watching your arms when you're kneading bread or rolling out pastry."
"I didn't know that."
"It's a recent development," I murmur as I start putting the ingredients into the bowl and try to ignore the heat that's risen to my cheeks.
"I see."
"Do you? Because I don't."
He clears his throat. "I think it was probably just you trying to make sense of the way your feelings were changing," he says.
"I don't think they changed. I just realised what they were," I point out.
"All right, then I think it's you realising that."
"Maybe."
"But I don't think it matters," he promises. "You can look at my arms as much as you want." He looks into the bowl and nods.
"Is it done?" I ask, partly because I don't know how I feel about this conversation.
"Almost. Want me to take a turn?"
"Are you just saying that because you've learned I like to watch you do things like this?"
He laughs. "No. But it doesn't hurt."
I hand over the rotary whisk and the bowl to him, and despite trying to tell myself that I'm not going to, I do watch his arms as he turns the handle, moving it much faster than I did and making his arms flex as he does.
I don't have the courage to ask him if he's doing it on purpose.
"All right, that's done," he says. "I'm going to fill the pastry case, and then we can move on to your smaller tarts."
I let out a small sigh as he moves around the kitchen. I didn't really think through my confession, but I'm glad to discover that nothing else has changed between us, and baking with him is exactly the same.