11. Chapter 11
Chapter 11
C emre waited in the wings, alone but for the production pixies scuttling about. She’d gotten up long before the wake-up call and thrown on her clothes, slipping out of the room before anyone else was awake.
She couldn’t face Massimo – Vittorio – the prince.
She hadn’t faced him last night either. She’d darted out of the room while he was busy with his things and stayed in the lavatory until she was certain everyone must be asleep.
Her heart hadn’t stopped thudding at the pace of a kelpie chasing down a particularly desirable victim. Sleep came in fits and starts, mangled dreams of dancing at the ball with Vittorio, then him growing a moustache and a chef’s hat sprouting from his head and the dancefloor turning to a pool of lemon ice that melted and dragged her down until she couldn’t breathe and woke up gasping with the bed sheet twisted around her head.
She curled one hand into the fabric of her trousers and realised she was panting again. The same thoughts had been circling in her head like overactive windmills from the moment she’d worked it all out the previous night.
How could Massimo be the prince?
How could the prince be in a cooking competition? Why would he—
Wait, he’d been in the kitchen the night of the ball too. How had he changed his clothes so quickly? Although, that explained why Chef Santini had chased him off that night – so he could get ready in time for Queen Valeria to present him along with his brother and his mother and—
Godes, his parents were the king and queen of Cantuccini.
She rubbed her chest, wishing her heart would slow down its impression of a golem stampede. She was about to have an apoplexy.
He was royalty .
And he’d kissed her.
And not even when she was dressed in a beautiful ballgown and looking faintly noble – no, he’d kissed her in her sweaty, garlic-scented, sauce-stained chef’s whites. And . . .
She covered her eyes with both hands.
. . . and wearing a moustache.
Of course, he’d also been wearing a false moustache, so she shouldn’t keep all the shame for herself.
He’d been wearing a false persona too. The jolly, easily distracted, quick to laugh, cooking-obsessed Massimo. The man she’d come to like so very much. More than like. She certainly didn’t go around letting men she only liked kiss her.
She tried to reconcile the picture of Massimo with her memory of the prince. The shy, quiet, stoic prince. He’d barely said a word to her, nothing like Massimo with his verbal diarrhoea. He certainly hadn’t winked or belly-laughed or . . .
Her wings shrivelled in mortification.
. . . held her while she cried and dripped snot all over his uniform.
How was she going to look him in the eye now? Could she avoid him for the rest of the competition?
The thought made her sad. They’d had such fun in the practice kitchen together. She didn’t want to give that up. But what else could she do? Should she tell him she knew? He knew her secret, after all.
Why did it need to be a secret in any case? If he was a prince, couldn’t he do whatever he wanted? He’d probably win just because he was a prince.
That was probably why he didn’t want anyone to know. Like her, he wanted to win in his own right, because of his skill, not his title.
Of course, the judges didn’t seem to be most impressed by skill, as she and her friends had discussed at length. And now they were putting on a show instead of relying on their skill . . .
No, that was different. It required skill to create the kind of beautiful, luxurious dishes the judges were after. And an entirely different kind of skill to pull off the performance that made the audience love them.
They were simply helping along their chances, not relying entirely on appearance.
The heavy clomp of Tsytryn accompanied by the less notable footsteps of her other roommates approached behind her.
“You were up early,” commented Rhydian. “Eager to get started today?”
Cemre nodded, gulping back the lump in her throat and keeping her eyes fixed on the stage, though she saw nothing that was happening before her.
There was a gentle nudge on her arm, and a steaming cup appeared in her field of vision.
“You missed your espresso,” said Massimo. Was that suspicion in his voice? Had he guessed that she’d identified him? “I bring for you.”
“I cannot start without it anymore,” said Qhari. “I will take your method home with me.”
Cemre rasped a word of thanks and took the cup, using the excuse of inhaling the pleasant aroma to keep her eyes closed and away from any of her roommates, especially the royal ones.
“Already you have had your makeup done,” observed Qhari. “Better I go there now.”
“All of us ought to,” said Rhydian, walking after Qhari, followed by a ponderous Tsytryn.
Massimo hung back, worrying his lip. “You are all right?” he asked hesitantly.
“Mm-hmm,” Cemre mumbled into her empty cup, sipping air and swallowing the words about lips not being for chewing. “This is delicious, thank you.”
“I didn’t get to say good night last night. Or good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said.
He chuckled, but it held little mirth. “You are sure you are all right? Did you sleep well?” When she hesitated to answer, he added rather seriously, “Did I snore?”
She couldn’t help the tiny giggle that escaped. It wasn’t even that funny, but she couldn’t help but respond to his efforts to make her laugh. The sheer absence of guile in everything he said and did made it impossible to pretend apathy. It would be like kicking a puppy whose entire body was wiggling as it wagged its tail.
She shook her head, unable to form words that wouldn’t give her disquiet away, though it seemed he had already sensed it. Could he hear her thudding heart?
“’Scuse me,” said a pixie, shoving between them with a ladder, and Cemre was extremely grateful for the distraction.
“Should probably get out of their way,” she mumbled and moved toward the back of the wings.
Massimo plodded after her, then halted and said, “I’ll go for the makeup.”
She mumbled acknowledgement and scampered into a dark corner, hoping to hide there until curtain. Perhaps he recognized her need for solitude; he didn’t approach her again until they were lining up to take the stage. And then it was only to smile encouragingly – which he did for everyone. Although, afterwards, she caught him biting the inside of his cheek.
While preparing a dessert that matched the colour they chose blind from a bag, they pulled off yet another rousing song. Massimo was even able to squeeze in a few moments of juggling, and Tsytryn surprised them all by livening up his percussion with a saltshaker and a wooden-spoon-and-cheese-grater combination.
Once again, Sir Beckwith-Parsons’ usually pearlescent white cheeks were purple with effort to calm the crowd afterwards, but his irritation did not prevent him from scoring the quintet highly. Once again, they had the top five dishes.
Qhari’s voice rose an octave once they were backstage again. “Can you believe it?”
“How did that happen?” Rhydian was punching the air. “How could we possibly have gotten away with it again?”
Cemre’s wings quivered in time with her bouncing heart. Top five again. Again. It seemed impossible that their ridiculous efforts to get the audience on their side were working. Tonight, the judges could barely proclaim them top five over the roar of the crowd.
She was riding so high, she forgot her newfound knowledge of Massimo’s true identity. For this brief shining moment, she simply wanted to bask in their victory, how good she felt about the adulation of the audience and the praise of the judges.
She did feel a little guilty about wasting all those egg whites and vanilla pods, but that was the cost of winning in this world. And it was all for a good cause.
“We should celebrate!” said Massimo, clapping his hands.
“How?” asked Cemre. “We can’t leave the theatre.”
“But we know someone who can.” Rhydian clicked his tongue, mimicking hoofbeats. “Perhaps she can help.”
“You mean Hyounhie?” Qhari wheeled around, searching. “I do not see her.”
“There.” Tystryn pointed, then boomed the centauress’s name so loud the entire backstage crew jumped to attention.
Jolly as ever, Hyounhie clip-clopped over to them. “Another successful night, eh, chaps?”
“Better than we could have hoped,” replied Cemre, her chest feeling as if it were full of bubbles.
Rhydian sidled up to Hyounhie and shielded his mouth with his hand. “We were thinking it might be fun to pop down the pub for a little celebration. We just need a little help getting there, uh, surreptitiously.”
The centauress pursed her lips knowingly. “Ah, say no more. Nudge nudge, wink wink, and all that.” She punctuated the statement with a wink that was anything but surreptitious. “Just you follow me.”
“I don’t know,” said Cemre, wringing the edge of her chef’s jacket. “What if we get caught?”
“You’ve been holed up in this dusty theatre all week,” insisted Hyounhie. “Besides, they’re all distracted by the competition. It’s the best time to escape. And you can’t celebrate in here.” She tossed her mane. “C’mon. We just need to get you the right togs.”
They completed their post-round interviews, then followed Hyounhie down a hitherto uncharted passage and into a large room containing racks and racks of clothing.
“Costume department,” explained Hyounhie. “Find yourselves some regular clothes and leave your uniforms here. Bung ‘em in this box.” Her back leg kicked a cardboard carton into the middle of the room.
Once they’d gotten themselves into suitable street outfits, Hyounhie’s usual grin broadened with mischief. “Now for the fun part.” She reached behind a rack and pulled out a bunch of brown material, which she dropped on the floor in front of them. “In you get.”
“In we . . . ?” Rhydian swivelled his head between Hyounhie and the pile.
Hyounhie tapped it with a front hoof, hands on her hips. “Go on. Tinkety-tonk.”
Tsytryn reached into the heap and held up what appeared to be a dehydrated horse’s head.
“Oh no,” said Rhydian, backpedalling from the costume as if it were a ghoul. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
Hyounhie cackled. “What better disguise could there be?”
“She is right,” laughed Massimo. “No one will suspect a horse next to another horse.”
Hyounhie’s eyes flared. “Let’s stay away from the fighting talk, shall we?”
Massimo put up his hands. “Pardon! I mean no offence.”
“None taken,” responded Hyounhie, breaking into a fresh grin. “Just pulling the old routine on you, don’tcherknow.” She snorted. “Though you might want to keep any equine references in lavender when you’re around other centaurs.” She tapped the side of her nose. “Bit taboo, y’see.”
Cemre stepped into a pair of very wide trouser legs – the horse’s hindquarters – and doubtfully examined the remaining fabric in her hands. “You really think this will work?”
“Trust me, old bean, everyone here is far too occupied with their own activities to notice.” Hyounhie snorted. “Very self-absorbed, theatre folk. Just stick at my side and everything will be oojah-cum-spiff.”
With some manoeuvring and shuffling of positions according to their heights, Cemre and Rhydian got inside one horse costume while Massimo and Qhari assumed another. Cemre was grateful not to be sharing with Massimo on this occasion – she was still having a hard time keeping herself from gawking whenever she looked at him and saw the prince again, let alone blurting out something incriminating.
Tsytryn didn’t stand a chance of fitting into either of the horse costumes – or really any costume available – so Hyounhie wrapped a curtain round him and told him to stay between the two horses.
With that, they snuck their way out of the theatre. And Hyounhie had been absolutely right – nobody gave them a second glance.
They left their main disguises in Hyounhie’s stable, which was just around the corner from the theatre, then followed the centauress down the road to the pub, dressed only in their secondary disguises of plain street clothes. Cemre inhaled the fresh outside air – well, the less stale air compared to her environment of the last few days; one could not describe the air of Wenn as fresh. It was revitalizing to be out of doors with the night sky above instead of ceilings and beams and artificial lights.
“A round of beers?” Hyounhie asked once they were inside the warm, well-populated pub.
Cemre had no interest in drinking beer, but it was what she assumed the men around her would prefer, so she nodded and longed to be back on the cool street.
“More of a cider lad myself,” said Rhydian.
“Cider’s good here,” interjected an unfamiliar ogre with a checked cap.
“Oh hello, old crumpet,” Hyounhie greeted cheerily. “Spiffy here plays the bassoon in the orchestra, don’t you, Spiffy?”
“Mostly plays the fool,” piped up some unseen person in the back, and raucous laughter rippled through the crowd.
“Ooh, there’s a table open over there.” Hyounhie easily shoved her way through the crush and claimed the spot for them. “Just as well I don’t need a chair,” she said, indicating the five stools, then whinnied with laughter. “Barman!” She ordered cider for everyone as they settled into the wonky furniture.
Massimo sat next to Cemre, and she did her best to hide her face behind her drink and say as little as possible. The latter was not too difficult because Rhydian became even more talkative than usual after just a few sips of cider.
It was only when Cemre reached the bottom of her own cloudy glass that she remembered one vital point: she had no coin on her. Not even a brass.
Her body froze as if she’d just caught the eye of a gorgon.
How could she have been so thoughtless? Of course she didn’t have money for a drink – she didn’t have money for anything! She’d gotten caught up in this false life she was leading, where she didn’t look or act like herself, where food was free and plentiful, where nobody depended on her for anything.
She gazed around the table at her new friends, loudly talking and laughing. Were they really her friends? She’d been lying to them from the start. They didn’t know her at all – well, except for Massimo.
And now she couldn’t help casting a glance at the man beside her. He had lied too. He wasn’t who she’d thought he was, who any of them had thought he was.
Although, she couldn’t imagine that the happy-go-lucky, easily distractible cinnamon roll of a boy could possibly be fake. And let’s be honest, she didn’t know the prince at all. Perhaps he was the disguise and Massimo was the real one.
She stared into the bottom of her empty glass. This whole situation was a farce, not something that could last. She’d have to give up her disguise and her friends at the same time, for they couldn’t possibly want to stick around once they knew she’d lied.
Massimo knew and didn’t care, but . . . he was a prince. The things he’d said about running his own kitchen and having her assist him . . .
Her stomach churned and her legs ached, and not just because she had no idea how she would pay for her drink.
Massimo nudged her gently with his elbow. “You are all right?” he whispered.
She forced a smile, but she could feel it warping as mortification overtook her.
His forehead wrinkled and he opened his mouth to say something, but she quickly blurted, “I didn’t bring any coin with me.”
His eyes widened but then narrowed again with confusion. “I can pay for you,” he assured her, seeming puzzled that she hadn’t assumed this. “It is of no consequence.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” she insisted, though her voice wobbled unconvincingly.
“You have not to ask.” He spread his hands. “This is how friends do for each other, yes?”
She shook her head, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get any words out sans sobbing.
“What ho, Algernon,” said Hyounhie. “What’s gotten you all down in the mouth?”
Massimo waved to show there was nothing, but Cemre needed the distraction from his close attention. “I’m in the soup,” she said, borrowing from the slang she’d heard the centauress use. “I can’t pay for my drink.”
Hyounhie snorted. “Only one way to fix that. Got to wash the dishes for them.”
Qhari barked a laugh, but Hyounhie gave him a serious look and he abruptly quietened. Cemre gulped as the cheer around the table died.
“Hyounhie, stop frightening the new patrons,” yelled a portly woman at the bar, and Hyounhie burst out laughing.
“Your faces,” she choked out between guffaws. “If you weren’t all thoroughly blue around the edges!”
“Ah Hyounhie,” said Rhydian, shaking his head but grinning admiringly. “You’re a chopsy one, make no mistake.”
They finished up their drinks, and Massimo insisted on paying for Cemre’s, brushing it off as a thank you for her help keeping him on time during the competition. After a chorus of Half a Glass’ll do me and a trip to Hyounhie’s stable to put their horse disguises back on, they returned to the theatre.
As if assuming her uniform once more jogged her memory, Cemre was once again flooded with all the fears and doubts and worries about Massimo’s true identity. She lagged behind as they made their way back to their room, then mumbled that she wanted to try something in the practice kitchen before bed.
“At this time of night?” asked Qhari, astonished.
“At this level of drunk?” mumbled Rhydian, swaying slightly.
Cemre had only had the one cider, having discreetly tossed the beer Hyounhie bought them later into Tsytryn’s glass. The troll seemed completely unaffected by the brew. Or any brew.
“Good night.” She turned back down the passage toward the practice kitchen, but the truth was she couldn’t bear to go there without Massimo. She felt a terrible sense of loss and veered away, ending up in the peaceful courtyard.
“Why do you want to be alone, cuoricina?”
Bells, balls, and dangles, he’d followed her. Why hadn’t she heard him in the passage? Perhaps the cider had dulled her senses after all.
She kept her back to him, pretending to be occupied with brushing leaves off the stone bench.
A hand on her upper arm gently turned her around so that she was facing the very person she wanted to avoid most of all.
And not to avoid ever.
A sob ricocheted off the walls of her throat, like one of those games with the ball trapped inside the glass box.
“Why you don’t look at me?” he persisted. “I did something wrong?”
His drooping mouth and sad eyes made her legs ache. “No, it’s not that. It’s just.” She rubbed her face. Aargh. “I know.”
“What do you know?”
“About” – she waved in front of him – “you.”
He showed no indication of understanding her. “What do you know about me?”
“That . . .” She leaned in and whispered, “You’re the prince .”
Massimo’s normal easy-going demeanour frosted over until he was the same stoic man she’d danced with at the ball. His throat bobbed. “How did you . . . ?”
“I recognized you. When you came from the bathroom last night, your hair was scraped back and you looked so serious and . . . it was like when I danced with you.”
He pulled off his cap and scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stick out in all directions. “What are you going to do?”
“Do? I can’t do anything about it. I’m hardly one to point fingers at your pretending to be someone you’re not.” She sighed. “I just wish . . . but that’s silly.”
“What do you wish?”
“That you’d trusted me enough to tell me. I mean, I know I didn’t tell you in the beginning either, but once you let slip you knew who I was . . . You couldn’t have thought I’d betray you?”
He stared down at the cap he twisted between his hands. “I trusted you enough to show you this part of me. This is the real me. I’m just Massimo, a boy from Cantuccini who loves to cook.”
She licked her lips. “But your name isn’t Massimo.”
He shoved the cap in his back pocket and folded his arms. “It is one of my names. It is what Chef Santini always called me because I remind her – him – of her – his – niece. No, nephew. Ah, my Anglish.”
Despite the pressing melancholy, she couldn’t help but smile. “And your family? What do they call you?”
He grinned self-deprecatingly. “Momo. Is short for mostriciattolo.” He scratched his ear, and his cheeks deepened in colour. “It means ‘little monster’.”
She laughed.
“But I prefer Massimo. You call me Massimo.”
She smiled shyly, examining her shoes. A cold draught whipped around the courtyard, and she shivered.
Massimo came closer and rubbed her arms. “Are you . . . angry with me?”
“Angry? No, of course not. I am . . .” She stared at his neckerchief. “. . . embarrassed.”
His eyebrows flew up. “Embarrassed? How? Why?”
“You’re a prince. And you kissed me.”
He smiled. “I did. But what does being a prince have to do with it?”
“You should be kissing a princess, not some penniless nobody.”
“I did kiss a princess.”
Cemre’s heart shrunk. Of course she wasn’t the only girl he’d ever touched. He was a prince, after all – he could have any woman he wanted.
“I struggle to recall her name, though.” He tapped his lips. “It was something like a fire . . . no, ashes. Ashley?”
Cemre furrowed her brow at him.
“No, not ashes, more like cinders. Cindy?”
Cemre put her hands on her hips and pinned him with a matronly glare.
“Or maybe it was coals. Soot? Sooty. Yes, this is her name.”
She pinched his arm, and he burst out laughing and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her cheek.
“My poor Sooty,” he chuckled into her ear, and she wanted to be cross and push him away, but she liked the feeling of his arms around her and his breath on her neck far too much.
She settled for twisting her hands into his chef’s jacket. “But what do we do?”
“For now, all we have to do is cook our best.” He kissed her forehead.
She looked up into his eyes. “And after the competition is over? And you go back to Cantuccini?”
He frowned but shook his head. “We do not need to think of that now. It is for the future.”
She smacked his chest. “But we do! If we carry on as we are, spending all this time together and . . . um . . . fraternizing, then . . . well, we’re setting ourselves up for misery. It already hurts my heart to think of you leaving.” She pushed away from him. “Perhaps it is best that we end this now.”
Now he was the one to put his hands on his hips. “Principessa, are you telling me that, because you fear you will be sad in the future, you wish to be sad now as well?”
Her mouth opened to disagree before her mind registered that what he had said was, in fact, exactly right.
She closed her mouth again and stared at his chest.
He stepped toward her and took her face in his hands, planting the lightest of kisses on her nose and then her cheeks and then her lips. This last lingered for some time, and his arms slipped down to pull her close again.
When they parted, he said, “All my life, I have to be the prince. You have to be the girl they will not allow to be a chef. For these few days, I can be who I really want, and so can you. And we can be together. Please, let’s pretend we can have all our dreams at once.”
She nodded and rose on her tiptoes for another kiss.