Belamy’s bottom floor was much as she had left it that morning, though the scant light streaming in had shifted as the day had passed. A purplish light was bouncing off the walls into the room. No orange glow escaped the fireplace, which sat cold and untended. Skate saw the ends of Rattle’s legs as it floated back upstairs, perhaps to read or perhaps to clean. She also saw her host in his usual spot behind his desk at the end of the room, his book open and his head bent over it.
The room had chilled to the outdoor temperature, and Skate’s breath puffed into clouds when she spoke. “Evening, Mr. Belamy,” she said, making a concentrated effort to keep her voice steady and calm.
“Good evening, Skate.” He did not take his eyes from the page in front of him. His voice was cold and cordial, uninviting and lacking any of his usual warmth. As the silent seconds ticked by, Skate’s sense of discomfort grew. Whether he was a monster or not, the awkward cloud hanging in the air was unbearable, and she was ready to get back on speaking terms with the person in front of her.
“Sorry I called your book stupid.” The apology was feeble and a little silly sounding, and she knew it, but she didn’t know a better way to phrase it. “It’s not stupid. I just don’t understand any of it.”
Skate thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch a fraction of a hair upward. Belamy raised his head so that it was no longer hovering over the pages. The cold edge was gone from his voice when he spoke. “That’s all right, Skate. Forget about it. I understand that this sort of information is not interesting to everybody. The fault was mine for trying to lecture you when you are my guest, and a welcome one. Would you like a fire going?”
Soon, the room shimmered with orange-red flames as the fireplace crackled and popped with Belamy’s endless supply of wood in the hearth. The old man had called Rattle down to cook dinner, and the flying thing was now happily banging away in the kitchen, preparing whatever it liked for Skate to consume.
“How’s the reading going?” Skate asked, having to raise her voice to be heard over the cacophony.
“Quite well!” Belamy said, rising from the desk and gesturing at the open book. He appeared to be halfway through the text, a wooden bookmark resting on his current page. “The account is very thorough; Bereziah seems to have been quite a stickler for specifics and details. A catalog of rations, injuries, deaths, and so on for pages and pages. Very interesting—to some people,” he added with a smile.
Skate smiled back, and it took several seconds before she remembered she was almost certainly smiling at a monster, a creature from a children’s tale come to unlife. It reminded her of her plan, and she felt around in her pocket until she found something round and ridged. She closed her fist around it.
“Hey, Mr. Belamy, catch!” she said, tossing the object at the old man, easily enough that he could catch or escape it. He chose the former, shooting a sleeved arm out to catch the item in mid-descent. He brought it close to his face and sniffed.
“Garlic?” he asked, curiously turning it over in his hands. “Why did you give me this?”
“For Rattle to cook with,” Skate said immediately. It was the lie she had concocted on the way over, and she was pretty proud of it. If he had been a vampire, he would have been exposed and she could have run away. If not, she could just claim she’d gotten it to eat. “I figured that since you don’t eat much, you must need stuff like that from time to time while I live here.”
The old man laughed—a throaty, windy sound. “Oh, we’ll do all right, don’t you worry. Come on, I’ll show you.” He walked into the kitchen, still chuckling and causing the noise of Rattle’s preparations to get louder for a moment until the door swung shut again behind him. Skate followed him in and felt heat before taking in the scene.
She had only seen the kitchen once before, and it had been dark. At the time, she had also been focused on Belamy’s guests, and hadn’t had attention to spare.
The room was narrow, with a countertop and a wood-burning stove. Rattle sprawled in front of this latter fixture, all legs fully extended and doing the different tasks required to prepare the meal. With one leg, it stirred a pot, while two more rolled out dough behind it on the counter. The three remaining arms were busy cutting up a series of vegetables and dumping them into the boiling pot. Skate stood agape, struggling to follow each of the different activities. She shook her head and turned her attention to Belamy, who was reaching toward a pair of cabinets.
The wizard swung the doors open to reveal a jumbled assortment of spices and seasonings; small green, yellow, orange, brown, white, and red jars; bottles; canisters; cups; and bowls from top to bottom—all drunkenly leaning on one another, some sideways or upside down. Skate could see small labels with writing on each container. The effect of the contrasting colors and general disarray was overwhelming to both the eyes and any sense of order. Belamy chuckled as he put the bulb into the cabinet and shut it. “Thank you, Skate; it looks like we were running low after all.”
Skate stood, temporarily stunned. That amount of spice would cost a small fortune; spice merchants were among the wealthiest of that class in all of Caribol, and that was in large part because their wares were sold at a dear cost. “How…why do you have all of that?” She pointed an accusatory finger at the old man. “You said you don’t eat! And the eyeball there doesn’t even have a mouth!” She poked a thumb at the bat-winged chef-thing. “Why did you spend the chestful of scepts it must have cost to buy all that stuff if you don’t even eat?”
Belamy nodded. “I don’t get much use of them now, it’s true. I did, however, get quite a number of delicious meals out of my stock before I did my magic. I used to love food, you see,” he said, patting his belly, “though you might not guess it by looking at me. Not as a glutton enjoys it, though; I didn’t gorge myself, and I didn’t spend all of my wealth on it. But I loved good food, and so I made sure I’d never be too far from it.” He looked wistfully at Rattle as it worked. “I never learned to cook myself, but Rattle has the touch and the practice to compete with the finest chefs in the land.”
“How long ago did you make yourself not need to eat?” Skate asked nervously, hoping the distance between now and then was not terribly long.
“About twenty years or so. Why?”
Skate stuck out her tongue in a look of disgust. “You mean it’s been cooking with stuff that’s more than twenty years old?” She gagged and spluttered at the thought. “I ate some of that!”
“Yes, and it was delicious, wasn’t it? Here,” Belamy said, reaching into the cabinet and pulling out a bottle containing fresh-looking, sharp-ridged green leaves. “Smell. Go on, take a deep breath.”
Skate skeptically looked between the bottle and the old man before gingerly sniffing the contents. The smell was inviting. She sucked in deeper, and her nostrils felt pleasantly chilly. “Okay, what is that?”
“Mint leaves,” Belamy said with a satisfied smirk as he recapped the bottle and placed it in a random place in the shelf. “Mint leaves bought fresh and bottled two decades ago.”
Skate looked at the cabinet. “Magic?” she asked as much as stated.