Chapter 14
Una looked down at the cloth-covered bowl.
"You don't have to do this, Una," Mathias said, his voice gentle, almost pleading, even though he was the one who actually knew what was in the bowl.
Una nodded, her eyes still fixed on the cloth. She had a strong feeling that she knew precisely what was in the bowl.
He had written it in his notebook along with the other three ingredients in her father's loaf of bread.
Reaching forward, she lifted the corner of the cloth, sliding the covering off of the bowl. Inside the bowl was a small, round sphere. It reminded her of the cocoa sphere that Matthias had placed inside his choux crowns. Only this sphere was a creamy white.
She looked up at Matthias.
"It's flour and water," he explained. "Nothing else. I just baked it into a single, small bite. We can stop here, Una," he repeated.
"What are you thinking?" she asked. She knew what he was thinking, and she likely agreed with it, but she wanted to hear his reasoning.
He reached for the bowl to pull it back to himself. "That this is a stupid idea," he said. "I told you three days ago that I would never serve you something that would hurt you, and yet here I am, already going back on my word."
Una grabbed the other side of the bowl, pulling it back toward herself. "No," she said. "What were you thinking with the second question?"
Matthias sighed, but he was breathing so quickly it sounded more like a huff. "If we want to truly know that flour hurts you, we could test it."
"The second question is just 'does flour hurt me?'" Una asked. She stared at the small, round bite. It did not look very appetizing but she found herself wanting to know the answer to that question.
"Yes," Matthias said, his voice almost a whisper.
Una tapped her fingertips together. "I have never thought to ask myself that question," she said. "Which makes me mildly embarrassed."
"Why would you have ever asked that question?" Matthias asked. "You are Lameran."
Una chuckled wryly. She was, indeed, Lameran. The kingdom that prided themselves on their golden wheat and skilled flouriers and perfect codex. "The physicians said rich foods. Wheat isn't rich. I never questioned that."
"It might be wheat," Matthias said. "The other test would be to avoid eating wheat to see if the symptoms cease."
Una looked back at him. "Now that you have asked the question, I really want to know the answer."
She reached forward, picking up the small, baked bite.
"Wait," Matthias said, reaching forward with his hand palm up. "I have a better idea."
Una looked over the small bite she held in her hand to his earnest face just behind it. For a moment, she forgot everything else as she got lost in the deep brown of his eyes. They were flecked with small shards of gold. It was like looking into a pool of dark cocoa with the tiniest hint of wheat.
The apprentice had only been in her life for a handful of weeks, but somehow he already knew her better than the people she interacted with on a daily basis.
She looked down at his open palm. He was asking her to trust him.
He had been right about the cocoa nibs. While part of her wanted to be upset by that, she was delighted to care.
She didn't want to add wheat to the growing list of foods she had to avoid.
But staring back at his pleading gaze, she knew that she did trust him. And letting someone see her, letting someone in, it felt like a burden had been lifted off her shoulders. Like her life was suddenly brighter.
He wanted her to trust him.
So she dropped the bite into his hand.
He immediately clutched his fingers around it, as if afraid it might escape.
She almost laughed at the relief in his face. When truly, she was the one who should have been relieved.
She didn't want to believe that wheat would cause her rash, but somehow, she knew that if she had eaten that bite, it would have set her skin on fire.
She picked up another cocoa nib, dropping it on her tongue and savoring the cool, crisp crunch it offered her.
"This," Matthias said, holding up his closed fist, "should be a gift for that crow of yours. What do you call him?"
"Sable," Una replied.
"Because he's like a varmint and is always scrounging for food?" Matthias asked.
Una shook her head, smiling again. Her cheeks were going to be sore tomorrow from all the smiling she had done tonight. "No," she replied. "Because his shiny black feathers remind me of the sable background of the Lameran flag."
"Ah," Matthias replied. "That makes more sense." He wrapped the baked bite of wheat into the discarded cloth that had covered the bowl and put the whole bundle into his pocket. "Although my reasoning was sound."
“Tilde said that crows will bring you gifts if you feed them often enough,” Una said, wanting to share why she was so fascinated by gaining the bird’s trust.
Matthias appeared genuinely interested in that. “Has Sable brought you any gifts?” he asked.
Una shook her head. “Sadly, no. Not yet, at least. But Tilde said they might try to feed you back, or bring you shiny things to make a nest out of. I intend to keep feeding Sable until he does.”
“So, your selfless campaign for the varmint’s trust is actually quite self-serving?” Matthias smiled. “I can respect that.”
Una shook her head, rolling her eyes. "I still want to know for sure if I cannot eat wheat," she said, not ready to let the topic go.
Matthias looked back up at her. "I am not a physician," he said, his words were slow, as if he doubted himself. "But from the little I know about gout . . . it does not . . . you do not appear to have the usual manifestations of that ailment."
Una narrowed her eyes, unsure what he was trying to say. "The physicians were confused," she said. "They said it could be gout. Avoiding rich foods was their best guess, but that has only partially worked."
"Right," Matthias said, his voice still and slow. "Instead of testing the wheat directly, what if I make you something with the cocoa and one other ingredient?"
"Would that not be the same thing as just testing the wheat?" Una asked.
"But wheat is not considered a rich food," Matthias replied. "What if it never was rich food? What if it really was just wheat this whole time? Like my friend, the mushroom was the only thing that ever made his body react like that."
Una looked over at the oven, considering his words.
"Surely the answer could not be that simple?
" she said. Her mind wandered back to all the times her body had betrayed her.
It always happened after a presentation.
And every codex recipe included Lameran wheat.
It also happened many times outside of that, but .
. . "What would you make with the cocoa? " she asked.
Matthias pulled the notebook toward him, flipping it several pages. "Something with cream, butter, or sugar," he said. "Just one. I have several ideas of what it could be, but we would pick one rich ingredient that you have not tried yet on its own and isolate it."
Una could not tell if the excitement in his eyes was from the idea of solving this problem with her or if it was from the anticipation of creating a new recipe.
Either way, the excitement looked good on him.
His beautiful brown eyes had lit up. She wanted to participate in this experiment with him just to keep that light in his eyes.
It was a far cry from the calculating look he had first leveled at her over the batch of choux crowns.
"Alright," she said. "Let's try one rich food. "
He looked up from the notebook. "Tomorrow night," he said, smiling widely. "I will make you something tomorrow night."