Dessert #2
Esme weighed her options. On one hand, she had to keep her schemes close to her chest. On the other, she would die before she lost a bet to Urias.
“Fine. You have a deal,” she said, and held out her hand. Daphna shook it with a playful squeeze. Maybe to some newbie on the other side of the kitchen, two Wraiths were passing slimy smiles across a handshake. Up close, Daphna was trying to make Esme laugh by scratching a spot inside her wrist.
Mina sighed, her brow raised. “You two aren’t nearly as intimidating as you believe you are,” she said.
“Come.” She waved them on, and Esme and Daphna followed her to a large bolted door in one of the corners of the kitchen.
She unlocked it with a skeleton key the size of her hand and yanked it open with every ounce of her strength.
Frost curled from inside. The depths of the cliffs in which the castle was built were abominably cold, which is why the cooks stored perishable goods deep in the basement.
Like carrots. And bodies.
Mina nodded Esme and Daphna down a thin stairway lit by flickering, freezing fires. The closer they got to the coldroom, the thinner the flame became, until the light it cast was so dim that Esme could barely make out Daphna in front of her.
When they reached the bottom of the steps, Esme heard the scratch of a striker and flint, and then a flame wavered in Mina’s hand, just bright enough to light her cheek.
She pressed it to a dead torch on the wall and the flame caught, drizzling just enough light for Esme to make out the three or so shelves closest. No one had ever seen the coldroom in full, and the superstitious bunch had it on good authority that the room never actually ended.
It was the first layer of Muhnir’s realm, they said, reserved to ensnare the gluttonous and sticky-fingered.
Thieves would sneak down to nab food, only to find themselves lost in the labyrinth of floor-to-ceiling shelves.
When they tried to eat the food, their teeth would shatter against its icy exterior, and they would starve to death amidst a vast cache of roast pigs and sugared desserts.
The ceiling loomed close to Esme’s head as Mina and her torch guided them through frosted halls. Daphna rubbed their arms, their breath gusting out in clouds. Esme, on the other hand, almost sighed in the balmy freeze. This room was a hair off her own temperature.
Mina led the two of them to the back of the room, eventually finding a rack packed with fresh treats.
“Ladies first,” Daphna drawled with a wink.
“Cupcake. Vanilla with red icing.” Esme didn’t spell it out for Mina. Her wife was a smart woman, and she caught on after a few seconds. “And a royal tart, too.”
Mina scoffed at the code. “Quite the sweet order,” she said, searching the wall of shelves. Finally, she found the tart, a tiny slip labeled “Serving notes” attached to the bottom, and handed it to Esme, who flipped the note over and read it aloud.
“‘The tart is popular. The current trend includes pairing it with wine stomped by foot. Blisteringly expensive.’”
Daphna hummed, their arms crossed. “Foot-stomped wine? Wonder if we know the vineyard?” Daphna asked Esme, brow quirked and voice practically poking at her, it was so obvious what they spoke of.
“I’m sure we do,” Esme said, her own suspicion brewing. The royal tart was Isobel, and foot-stomped wine meant that she was buying wine from the Foot. And expensive? Well, there was only one person in the Foot that could be considered expensive:
Isla Rherst, the South Amaris Spider, underground pharmaceutical dealer, snake enthusiast, and poison connoisseur. If Isobel was in talks with her, it meant nothing good.
Esme took a bite of the tart as she tried to piece together what Isobel would want with Isla. After swallowing down a host of bad reasons and candied raspberries, she offered the rest of the treat to Daphna, who took it happily.
Esme slipped the note into her pocket and continued her order. “The red cupcake?”
Mina returned to the shelves, taking twice as long to look as before. After a few minutes, she cursed her spine and straightened again. “When’d you place the order? Are you sure it’s ready?”
“Figured there’d already be one. It’s the flavor of the season.” No notes on Janos yet? Really?
“Well, it’s pretty tasteless,” Daphna told her, cutting in.
“And you didn’t need to flavor it?” Esme pointed to her throat.
“Not when it went down so smooth. Think it wanted to get eaten, honestly,” Daphna said. “Besides, it’s overrated anyway. And damn ugly.”
Daphna and Esme shared a knowing, sad smile.
“What about a fighting flower?” Daphna asked, throwing their chin at the rack, where they’d spotted one up front. Mina grabbed it and Daphna found the serving notes: “‘Cherry filling. Oozes out. More than you think.’”
Cherry filling meant blood, and the flower was Bal. The general was, indeed, soaked in it.
“I hear it’s lavender flavored, too,” Daphna hummed, eyeing Esme. “You enjoy lavender flavors. Have you been gorging yourself on the desserts?”
Mina’s lips curled into a salacious smile. “Well, she does love flowers. Even the pollinating ones.”
“I enjoy many flavors. I need not gorge when I am plenty full,” Esme said, rolling her eyes at them.
Mina slid her torch into a clamp on the wall and placed her hands on Esme’s shoulders. As if guided by magnets, Esme’s fingers found Mina’s waist.
“It’s not gorging if you’re hungry,” Mina said, and placed a brief kiss on Esme’s lips.
This was her granting Esme permission to do whatever she pleased with Balthazar.
They would often ask each other about outside partners—not out of jealousy, but because they simply enjoyed knowing about each other’s lives.
Besides, there weren’t eyes sparkly enough, or shoulders wide enough, or a voice husky enough to pry their love from one another.
Esme squeezed Mina’s middle. Daphna would know eventually about Esme and Bal making eyes at each other. Letting it slip here was no threat to her plan. Besides, should she end up choosing Janos, it would be a good cover.
“You two and your flavor-enjoying,” Daphna said with a sigh, then pursed their lips and shivered, and not at all because of the cold. “I fear I have a boring palate in comparison.”
“We could always spice up your meals,” Mina said, winking at them playfully, knowing full well that other Wraiths were the only people she and Esme had agreed to never invite into their bed. Too much history, too many fangs.
Speaking of too much history…
“I assume we both want a serving of the blood sausage?” Daphna asked Esme, politely signaling to Mina to keep the job going. They couldn’t be down here too long.
“Frankly, I think it tastes abhorrent,” Esme said, and waved them away. Mina returned to the shelves and found two plates of small, wrinkly, overcooked sausages. Ah, Wraiths truly were vindictive creatures. Esme’s plate had three sausages while Daphna’s had seven.
Esme read her serving notes first. “‘Paired too commonly with Baby Cake.’” Mak’kon was following Hallel closely. Not new information, but if the two were close enough to be commented on, it was a clue.
“‘Popular amongst the common folk. Found on tables across the Foot as a midnight snack,’” Daphna read.
So Mak’kon was spending extra time in the Foot at night and following Hallel in the day? What did Isobel have him doing?
Perhaps he was her go-between with Isla. Daphna and Esme shared a confused look.
“Well, I don’t know if that helped at all,” Daphna said with a sigh, hand on their hip.
“Me neither,” Esme said.
“You reckon we can torture him into talking?” Daphna asked.
“I don’t want to touch him that much,” Esme said, and slid the little paper into her back pocket before tossing a sausage into her mouth. “That’ll be all for me for now. You did pretty good, being a virgin and all.”
“Yet another deflowering at your hands,” Mina crooned, stepping close to Esme again.
Her hands warmed Esme’s neck, and Esme refused to let her confusion twist her face.
Fine, she and Mina were usually pretty touchy, but this was more than usual, especially in front of Daphna.
Still, Mina ran a loving caress down Esme’s neck and collarbone, her eyes molten even in the chill.
“Are you saying I’ve soiled you, sweetest?” Esme said, playing along, her palms sliding down Mina’s hips and bunching her skirts. “Can I do it again?”
Daphna gagged from behind them.
“If you two are planning to stay down here and deflower some more, can you free me first?” they grumbled, half-turning around with their cheeks flaming.
Mina pouted and sighed. “Fine, but if you hear moaning, mind your business.”
Mina walked Esme and Daphna back up to the door, unlocked it, and then pushed Esme up against the wall so fast poor Daph didn’t even have time to escape.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Mina whimpered, hidden behind the door. “You’ve been gone for days.”
“Now I see why you rush your missions,” Daphna said coolly, giving them a once over. “Goodnight, you horny freaks.”
And with that, Daphna escaped the coldrooms and shut the door behind them.
Just as Esme leaned in to kiss her wife, said wife held up a tiny red cupcake between their noses.
Sneaky woman…
Esme opened her mouth, but Mina pressed a finger to her lips and kissed her loudly with it locked between them. Though the door was thick, Esme threw her senses through it. Daphna lingered, likely suspicious of their sudden need to copulate.
Esme grinned and smooched the finger in front of her as loudly as she could, then moved her kisses to Mina’s palm, her wrist.
“You are the most delightful creature on the planet, do you know that?” Esme told her, meaning it, and meaning for Daphna to hear it.
“Am I? Then how about you delight me a little?”
At that line, Daphna skittered off, their steps fading into the din of the surrounding kitchen. Once Esme was sure they were gone, she maneuvered around the hand and kissed Mina on the mouth.
“You.”