Chapter 12 Iris #2
I kiss him again, quick and light, then climb off his lap with great reluctance. "Fine. Show me this china that's so critical to our success."
He stands, offering me his arm with exaggerated formality. "This way, Mistress Ashwood."
"I thought we agreed you'd call me Iris."
"We did. But 'Mistress Ashwood' is appropriate for formal occasions."
"And china inventory is a formal occasion?"
"All aspects of feast preparation are formal occasions." He leads me toward the dining room, which I've barely entered since arriving. "I will make exceptions for private moments."
"Private moments."
"When we are alone. When you are in my arms. When you make that sound you made last night when I—"
"Cadeon," I warn, because I’m five seconds from jumping him.
"That sound, yes. Very similar."
My face is burning. His expression is perfectly innocent.
"You're impossible," I tell him.
"I am motivated," he corrects. "There is a difference."
The china, as it turns out, is extensive.
We spend two hours cataloging plates, bowls, serving dishes, and something Cadeon calls a "tureen" that looks like a fancy soup pot.
He handles each piece with reverent care, checking for chips and cracks while explaining the history of the pattern (commissioned by my great-grandmother, fired in a kiln that no longer exists, irreplaceable). His knowledge is encyclopedic. His attention to detail is slightly terrifying.
"You remember all of this," I say, watching him turn a dessert plate in the light. "Every piece, every occasion it was used, every guest who ate off it."
"Memory is reliable when one has nothing else to occupy the centuries." He sets the plate carefully in its stack. "I remember everything, Iris. Every feast, every conversation, every order I was given. The mind does not let go easily when the body cannot age or change."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It can be." He picks up the next plate, examines it. "It can also be useful. I remember which guests insulted each other fifteen years ago. I remember who spilled wine on what tablecloth. I remember every detail your grandmother never asked about but which will help you succeed tomorrow."
"Is that why you're doing this? To help me succeed?"
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "Partly. I want you to succeed. I want the village to see what I see—that you are remarkable in ways your grandmother never was." He sets the plate down and looks at me. "But I am also doing this because I enjoy it."
"You enjoy china inventory?"
"I enjoy having purpose. Having knowledge that matters.
Being useful in a way that does not involve violence.
" His voice softens. "For two centuries, I was only valuable as a weapon.
Everything else I knew, the courtly training, the strategic thinking, the thousand skills a knight learns beyond the sword, all of it was irrelevant.
Elspeth wanted a killer. So that is what I became. "
I move closer to him, drawn by the ache in his words. "And now?"
"Now someone wants to know about napkin arrangements and table settings. Someone values what I learned before I was made into a monster." He catches my hand, presses it to his chest. "You cannot know what that means. To be seen as more than blood and violence."
"You were always more than that. She just refused to see it."
"Perhaps." He brings my hand to his lips again. "Or perhaps I needed someone to ask before I could remember."
We stand there in the dusty dining room, surrounded by priceless china and centuries of formal dinners, and something settles in my chest. This man, this ancient, traumatized, impossibly formal vampire, is letting me see parts of himself that no one has valued in hundreds of years.
"Teach me," I say. "Everything. Not just for the feast. Teach me all of it. The etiquette, the history, everything you remember. I want to know."
His eyes widen slightly. "That would take considerable time."
"Good thing we have it, then."
"You may find it tedious."
"I find you fascinating. I doubt anything you teach me would be tedious."
For a moment, he just looks at me. Then he smiles. Not the small twitch I've grown used to, but an actual smile that transforms his whole face.
"Very well," he says. "We will begin with the proper way to address a duke."
"We don't have any dukes coming to dinner."
"Not to your knowledge. But one never knows when such information may be required.
" He picks up another plate, returning to his inventory with renewed energy.
"Also, the technique for addressing dukes is fundamentally similar to addressing vampires of ancient lineage, which you have already done incorrectly on multiple occasions. "
"When did I address you incorrectly?"
"'Hey, Fangs' is not a traditional form of address."
"That was one time."
"It was three times. I counted."
"I was joking."
"Humor is no excuse for improper etiquette."
I throw a napkin at him, one of the wounded-bird ones, and he catches it without looking, his smile widening though so I’ll take any insult, any slight, anything he wants right nowl.
"Assault on a noble's person," he observes. "Also a breach of etiquette."
"You're not a noble."
"I was a knight, once. The title does not expire simply because one becomes undead." He sets the napkin aside with exaggerated care. "I shall add 'proper treatment of vampire nobility' to our curriculum."
"You're enjoying this entirely too much."
"Yes," he agrees, and there's no irony in it now. Just warmth. Just happiness, freely admitted. "I believe I am."
By evening, we've inventoried not just the china but also the silver, the crystal, and the linens.
My head is spinning with the difference between a fish fork and a dessert fork (apparently significant) and the precise angle at which napkins should be placed relative to plate edges (forty-five degrees, obviously).
But there's something satisfying about it too. Seeing the pieces come together. Understanding, finally, why the Midwinter Feast is such a major undertaking.
"We should eat," I announce, stretching my back after hours of crouching over storage chests. "I'm starving and you've been too busy organizing to remember that humans need regular sustenance."
"I have not forgotten. I simply prioritized efficiency."
"Efficiency over my wellbeing?"
"You are capable of reminding me when you require food. The china is not capable of inventorying itself."
I laugh and head for the kitchen, already planning something simple and comforting after a day of formality. Behind me, Cadeon follows, his footsteps quiet on the stone floors.
"Tomorrow," he says as I begin pulling out ingredients, "we will visit the village to place orders. I will require a list of your food magic specialties so that we may incorporate them into the menu properly."
"My 'food magic specialties'?"
"The dishes in which your magic is strongest. The ones that create particular effects." He leans against the counter, watching me work. "I have observed that your bread induces comfort. Your wassail promotes warmth and fellowship. I assume there are other dishes with other purposes."
I pause, a potato in my hand. "You've been paying attention to the effects of my cooking?"
"I pay attention to everything about you."
The simple statement shouldn't make my heart race, but it does.
"There's a soup," I say, returning to my preparations. "For healing. Physical wounds, but also... emotional ones. Grandmother taught it to my mother, and my mother taught me before she died. I haven't made it in years."
"Perhaps you should make it for the feast."
"Perhaps." I glance at him. "It's very personal. The magic requires genuine care for the people eating it. I'd have to actually want to heal everyone there."
"And do you?"
I consider the question seriously. The mages who looked down on me. The familiars who watched me with suspicion. Magnus, with his cruel words and crueler assumptions.
"I don't know," I admit. "Some of them have been awful to me."
"Healing is not the same as forgiveness," Cadeon says quietly. "One can wish for someone's wounds to mend without approving of how they received them."
"That's... surprisingly philosophical for someone who spent two centuries as a weapon."
"I spent two centuries thinking about very little else but philosophy.
Violence leaves considerable time for contemplation, in between the actual moments of killing.
" He moves closer, taking the potato from my hand and setting it aside.
"You are a healer, Iris. It is your nature.
Fighting against that to spite people who have hurt you would damage you more than them. "
"When did you get so wise?"
"I have always been wise. I simply lacked opportunity to demonstrate it."
I lean into him, resting my head against his chest. His arms come around me automatically. Another new habit, another choice.
"I'll make the soup, but I’ll spin it." I decide. "For the feast. Even for Magnus."
"Even for Magnus."
"He's going to hate that I'm touching him with kitchen magic."
"Yes." I can hear the smile in his voice. "That is part of the appeal, is it not?"
I laugh into his chest. "You're learning my particular brand of pettiness."
"I am an apt student." He presses a kiss to the top of my head. "Now. You mentioned requiring food. Shall I assist with dinner?"
"You're going to supervise my cooking technique?"
"I am going to ensure you do not add random amounts of spice without measuring."
"That's how intuitive magic works."
"That's how chaos works. There is a difference."
"There really isn't."
He sighs—long-suffering and entirely theatrical. "I see we have much work ahead of us."
But his arms don't loosen around me, and when I tilt my head up to look at him, he's smiling.
"I love you," I say, because I can. Because I want to. Because every time I say it, something in his expression softens in a way that makes my chest ache.
"And I love you." He kisses my forehead, my nose, the corner of my mouth. "Even your chaos."
"Especially my chaos."
"That remains under negotiation."
I pull him down for a proper kiss, and dinner is delayed by quite some time.
Neither of us minds.