Chapter 5 #2
Too bad. He’s been trying to bear the weight of justice for an entire empire on his shoulders for half a millennium on his own. I’m not going to let him bear even more that isn’t his fault.
“It’s called Respite Café,” Zan finally says. And then adds dryly, “A lot of trendy businesses here have named themselves for The Quiet.”
My lips quirk in amusement.
He gestures to the side, where large windows enable us to see the outside, but not hear it.
With a barrier between me and the market, I can appreciate how... charming it is. It’s fucking cute and quaint as shit. There’s a wide area in the middle where people have set up stalls full of personality, and the shops on the surrounding streets look like they belong in a painting, not real life.
What business does a person like me, who can break anything she touches, have in a place like this?
“This used to be a market, but now vendors set up pop-up stands on the street,” Zan says, that faraway look back as he gazes out the window.
What must it be like to remember centuries?
“Farmers, artists, and so on,” he continues. “There are restaurants like these that surround it. This place in particular touts itself as a break from all the hustle.”
A person arrives at our table, startling me. I freeze halfway through an emergency kata under the table as the person deposits two slates and chalk and then is gone again without a word.
“That was a waiter,” Zan tells me.
“I’m familiar with the concept.” With an effort I tear my eyes away back toward the table.
“You’ve never eaten in a restaurant.”
“Nope.”
He doesn’t tease me about it or show me any pity; just nods.
“This is a menu. You choose whatever you want to eat, and check the boxes accordingly. When the waiter comes back, we’ll hand him back the slate, and he’ll bring the food.
When we’re done, we’ll pay. Normally waiters will talk to you to take orders, but this place’s gimmick is being a break from having to talk to people unless you want to, so you won’t have to say anything to him at all.
” Zan hesitates for the first time. “It’s not exactly a normal restaurant for your first, but—”
“I love it already,” I assure him. “How will we pay, though? Do you have money?”
I tense again as the waiter arrives—I’m not ready!—but he only deposits two steaming mugs on the table and then departs again.
I sniff. “Wait. Is that—is that tea? From abroad?” My eyes widen. “Can you afford that?”
“Very much so,” Zan answers, this time with some amusement. “It’s become much cheaper since your time. It’s one of the most common food imports—up there with vanilla.”
“Vanilla?”
Zan cocks his head with a speculative look. “It’s very common in desserts. Probably anything you order will use it.”
Somehow I hadn’t expected food to be so different.
I stare at the menu, starting to actually read it, then tilt my head. The words all look word-like, but—
I quickly do my focus kata under the table as I work through it, my primed mind synthesizing new patterns quickly.
Pretty soon it becomes apparent that the words mostly still sound similar to what I’d expect—at least, since Zan has spoken to me throughout the years so I have already synthesized the bigger linguistic shifts—it’s the spellings that have all shifted, so I start mouthing them as I read.
Zan swears under his breath. “Dammit, I didn’t think of that either. We were conversing fine, I didn’t consider—can you even read this?”
“Yes,” I say absently. “Somewhat? I don’t know some of these words though. What’s a tomato?”
He blinks. “I have... never tried to describe what a vegetable tastes like. It’s red?”
My lips twitch. “Red vegetable. Noted.”
Zan purses his lips. “Fine. It’s not spicy. It’s... sharp? Maybe a little sweet. It’s very juicy.”
We both consider that for a moment.
“I don’t really know what that means either,” I admit. “I guess I’ll have to try one at some point.”
I could try one today. I could choose that.
Foods that won’t have any associations with my old life. Will that make me feel free, or just unmoored?
Do I want to eat a new vegetable?
Zan clears his throat. “To answer your question about money, don’t worry about it. I have contacts all over Kameya that I fence scales to as needed.”
He what?
I glance up as casually as he tried to pass that off, as if he is not implying something huge, lest he try to diminish its import. “Is that how you got into trouble, then? A new contact?”
Zan nods. “It’s safer for me to take the risk of testing them than for the humans who help me smuggle people out of the Order.
” His lips quirk. “Also a way for me to distribute my magical wealth to people who need it that the Order can’t touch, since the only systemic way involves murdering me. What looks good?”
There are so many things here I don’t know where to start.
I’m beginning to understand just how many choices I’m going to have to make, both immediately and forever.
It’s freeing, but there are also so many things I have no idea how to choose, and some of them will be important, and they’re also endless?
Every time I eat, I’ll have to choose the food. Every time!
This is absolute madness that people apparently live with every day.
A gift.
But also madness.
What do I want?
“Something sweet,” I say, “always. But I did just come out of a five hundred-year stasis and would probably benefit from more nutrition first.” I frown down at the slate.
“...But?” Zan asks with narrowed eyes.
“But,” I say, “how much of that decision is really about taking care of myself, and how much is about following rules that were set out for me by people who didn’t care if I was happy, only useful to them?”
Zan sits back. “Aha. Yes, I... understand the problem.”
Yeah, I bet he does.
“How about this,” he says. “You can have both, and I’ll help you start. I want to take you somewhere that will have a dessert—very sweet, and made with dairy—that I think you’ll like. So choose just one thing with nutrition, and that will be it for now.”
You can have both, and I’ll help you start.
He has given the matter of freeing sages more thought than he’s allowing himself credit for, I think.
“You noticed how I went for the cheese and jam, I see,” I say wryly.
His eyes crinkle with humor. “Hard to miss how high you piled that. The bread would have given out under the weight if you had shoved the whole thing in your mouth any slower.”
I stick my tongue out at him.
His humor visibly increases—
But his gaze also snags on my tongue, and then away.
I glance back down at the slate before a full-on blush develops.
Still didn’t get a laugh from him.
I’m not sure why I want it so badly.
I barely know him—
But no, that’s not true, is it?
It’s that I’ve only just met him.
It’s becoming clear that even though we’ve never had a conversation before yesterday, we do actually understand each other on a deep level—whether that’s a matter of comparable age and perspective, or our similar histories and challenges, or that what we want from life appears to align. Probably it’s the combination.
But right now, I have an easier—well, no, smaller—matter to consider.
I turn my attention to the menu with deep concentration.
After a moment, Zan tells me he is getting an egg dish with tomatoes in it that I can try, so that’s one item eliminated from the list.
And maybe that’s the way to do it—gather more information as quickly as possible so I’ll have more basis to make decisions later.
So I choose a sandwich of several other vegetables I don’t recognize, and once the waiter has whisked our slates away I ask something that’s been bothering me.
“You said Tasa had to rebuild Crystal Hollow,” I say. “I assume that’s because the Quiet suppressed any spells that were worked into the infrastructure that the priests tax people to renew. What I don’t understand is how a null could rebuild those.”
Zan leans forward and beckons me closer over the table.
I follow without question—
Okay fine maybe one question.
“Isn’t the sound magically dampened?” I whisper.
I feel him smile against my ear and shiver. “No, it’s acoustics. No magic needed. Just like with the plumbing at the cottage.”
Wow.
Before I can think about that, though, Zan continues, “Kovan asked to use my scales.”
I’m distracted enough by his presence, not to mention the revelations, that it takes me a moment to remember he’s talking about how a null rebuilt an entire village.
“They had to be subtle so the Order wouldn’t catch on,” he whispers, “but my scales are baked into the foundation of many of the buildings here.”
My eyes widen in shock.
Zan has definitely been underselling how much he’s put into making an option for sages to be free.
“In aggregate,” he explains quietly as I hold very, very still, “my scales form a kind of net that enabled small magics—the kind that are small enough that people used to be able to manage them without the priests—to work stably even in the Quiet, when bigger ones wouldn’t.
The priests merely believe that only minor magics, the kind they themselves don’t value, can work here, and that they’re unreliable.
Which is true, since my scales are no longer in every appliance in every house. ”
But they were.
A waiter deposits plates next to us.
I look at the sandwich in front of me like it’s a worm.
Can’t I just have interesting magical discussions? Do I really have to maintain my body?
I sigh. It’s probably delicious.
“So does that mean Crystal Hollow is free from taxation?” I wonder before gingerly picking up the sandwich, taking a breath, and chomping.
Whoa. That’s... a lot of flavors all at once.
Zan snorts and leans back. “Definitely not. Priests may not enter Crystal Hollow, but they have a contact to handle tax collection for them. Ostensibly it’s for martial protection—keeping Sanctuary Isle safe from foreign conquest. But in practice—”