by Heidi Lang
Ropes. Gasping, Lailu sat up, trying to claw her way to a standing position as the net entangled her. Biting her lip to keep silent, she peered through the webbing of ropes beneath her, then groaned when she realized she was dangling only about six feet off the ground. She must have hit that trap perfectly.
“What are the odds,” she said. She reached for a knife, her hand closing on thin air.
“No,” she whispered, instinctively patting down her sides, before she remembered the feeling of the batyrdactyl clinging to her, its claws ripping into her arm. The knife belt must have torn off, which meant she was stuck here, weak and weaponless. Here, in the elves’ territory, in what could only be one of their traps. It wasn’t technically against any written rules to enter the forest; however, not all elves cared for humans, and not all trespassers made it out alive or fully intact.
Her heart sank. Master Slipshod would kill her—that is, if the elves didn’t get her first. She remembered the cold blue eyes of the one from yesterday and shivered. “Oh God,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “God of Cookery, if you’ll just get me out of this, I’ll . . .” She paused, not sure what she’d do in exchange.
As she sat there debating, she heard the soft crunch of boots on leaves. “Looks like you’re in a bit of a pickle.”
Lailu froze. No. Way.
This was a dream, this was all a horrible dream, a nightmare beyond epic proportions.
“Are you hoping if you keep your eyes closed, I’ll just go away?” Lailu could clearly hear the smirk behind those words. “Not going to happen.”
She realized he was probably right. He’d never gone away before. Why should now be any different? Lailu reluctantly opened her eyes and shifted, struggling to look down through the ropes below. It was dark, but with the dim moonlight filtering through the branches overhead, not dark enough as she stared at the last person she’d ever want to find her in this kind of predicament.
Lailu hid her face in her hands. “Hello, Greg,” she mumbled.
4
RIVALS
Hello, Lailu. Long time no see,” Greg said.
Lailu kept her face hidden, embarrassment throbbing through her.
“So, whatcha doin’?” he asked.
“I’m knitting a sweater!” she snapped, finally looking at him. “What do you think I’m doing?”
“Look at you, all fire and brimstone.” Greg smiled so wide she could see his teeth glinting in the moonlight. It reminded her unpleasantly of the bactyrdactyls. “That’s the Lailu I know and love. I’ve missed you since graduation, you know. You never write. You never visit.”
Lailu ground her teeth. She hated how Greg mocked her, always pretending they were old friends. “What are you doing here?”
“Hunting. Obviously.”
“Well then, maybe you should get back to it.”
“You know, you might want to be a little nicer to me.”
“Yeah? And why would that be?”
Greg ran a hand through his unruly brown hair. “Oh, I don’t know. Just seeing as you’re stuck in there, and I have all your knives out here . . .” He fanned them out for her to see, her half-empty knife belt slung over his shoulder.
“My knives!”
“Here I am hunting, minding my own business, when I hear a whole gaggle of batyrdactyls screeching like their world’s gone mad. Naturally, I had to investigate.” Greg shifted so the moonlight gleamed off the edges of the knives in his hands. “Imagine my surprise when a dead batyrdactyl came sailing out of the trees toward me with this little beauty stuck inside it. Followed by a second, and then a whole knife belt.” He reached up, wrapping his fingers around the bottom of the net. “Don’t you know it’s not a good idea to hunt batyrdactyls alone?”
“Says who?”
“Says everyone. I mean, even I remember them telling us that in Chef Academy. Makes me wonder just what that mentor of yours is teaching you.” He shook his head.
“You’re alone,” Lailu pointed out.
“I’m not hunting batyrdactyls. Obviously.”
Lailu launched herself forward, but all she managed to do was get more tangled than ever. After a few seconds of fruitless struggling, she collapsed, panting and furious, Greg’s laughter ringing in her ears.
“Look at you, just look at you!” he crowed.
“Eat dirt, Greg,” she muttered, but she felt drained, and even her anger slid away as sparks of light flashed in front of her eyes. All that struggling had reopened the scrapes along her hands, arms, and legs, and her neck was still bleeding. Dimly she remembered that batyrdactyl venom stopped the blood from clotting normally. She wondered what Greg was hunting, if not those bloodsuckers. Not that he’d tell her.
Greg stopped laughing. “Ask me nicely and I’ll get you out of there.”
She shook her head.
“Really? You can’t ask me for help, even now?”
“I’d rather die,” Lailu said, not looking at him.
Greg was silent for a moment, then said, “Suit yourself.” She heard his footsteps crunching away and felt a pang of despair. For a second she debated calling out to him, but she couldn’t, so instead she closed her eyes and willed herself not to cry. The forest seemed to close in around her, and she was alone. Alone with her scraped-up body, this horrible net, and . . . Lailu’s eyes flew open as the net swayed. Then came the sound of snapping, and a few of the ropes gave way.
“You’re so stubborn,” Greg muttered, sawing the ropes with one of his trademark knives, a big straight blade with a serrated edge, like a glorified bread knife.
“I thought you’d left.” She hated how weak her voice sounded.
Greg looked up, his eyes wide in the moonlight. “Did you really think I’d just leave you here?” All humor was gone from his face.
Lailu shrugged.
“You don’t know me at all, do you?” he sighed, going back to his sawing. A few seconds later, the ropes entangling Lailu snapped, and she fell for the second time.
Greg caught her, setting her feet gently on the ground. She shoved away from him, then swayed, brushing off the hand he put out to steady her and taking a step back so she could see his face without craning her neck. She took a breath. Might as well get it over with. “Th-thanks,” she managed.
“I guess you owe me one.” Greg’s eyes crinkled into slits.
“No,” Lailu said quickly. “No, I never asked you for help.” She had to keep blinking to stop the world from spinning, but she couldn’t let this slide. She’d never owed Greg for anything before and she wasn’t about to start now.
“Well, you didn’t ask, but . . .” Greg frowned. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Can I have my knives back?” It was taking all her strength not to lean against a tree trunk.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Knives?” Lailu repeated.
He passed them back to her, and she took the time to wipe each blade on her torn and bloody shirt before taking the knife belt back and sheathing them inside it. A chef’s knives were her livelihood; no amount of blood loss was going to stop her from taking care of them. Head Chef Master Sanford had lost his eye in a deadly battle with a delicious manticore, and he still insisted on cleaning his knives before getting any medical help. Lailu could hardly do any different.
“So, how’s the restaurant coming along?” Greg asked.
Lailu studied his face. It was a mask of innocence, but Greg had always been good at acting. What did he know about her business? Was he rubbing in the fact that his was booked solid on his first day, while hers was a dining graveyard? Or maybe he was just trying to have a friendly conversation? She narrowed her eyes. Unlikely.
“Master Slipshod dropped by my place yesterday. He told me your restaurant opened on the same day as mine,” he continued. “What a coincidence.”
“Coincidence my butt,” Lailu muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” She tried turning her grimace into a
smile, but then gave it up as a lost cause. “Well?” she demanded. “What about it?”
Greg shrugged. “I was just surprised, since I didn’t see anything on it in the papers.”
“Well, maybe I was too busy cooking instead of posing for some ridiculous paper,” she snarled, the sudden flash of anger giving her energy.
“What’s that supposed—”
“And the youngest chef in three hundred years?” She cut him off. “What a joke.”
“I never said that! I was misquoted.”
“Whatever.” She began limping away from him.
“Lailu, wait!”
She ignored him.
“Aren’t you at least going to collect your batyrdactyls? You did almost die for them.”
She turned reluctantly.
Greg gestured to a dark form lying on the ground several paces away from him and a second one sprawled nearby. Lailu hobbled over, grabbed each of the batyrdactyls by a foot, and started dragging them back toward her restaurant. She kept up a stony silence as she passed Greg again, concentrating on walking and trying to ignore all the aches and pains in her body.
She remembered the first time she’d hunted with Greg back at school, remembered how he’d tricked her.
“Let’s be friends,” he had said, and he’d looked earnest, his brown eyes wide and soft and warm like a puppy’s. And Lailu, silly, young, and naive, took him at his word. “Want to hunt together?” he’d asked. And she’d been only too eager. Her first real hunt with another would-be chef. Her first real friend outside of her village.
Lailu shook her head, trying to rid herself of the memories, of the way he had left her there as bait, the sound of those chicken feet scraping, scraping as they surrounded her, and then, after it was all over, how he took all the credit for the hunt. The batyrdactlys might have taken a few chunks out of her today, but it was nothing compared to the pain of that long-ago hunt with Greg.
With her anger wrapped around her like a cloak, she managed to stomp through the forest until she was sure Greg couldn’t see her anymore. Until it was safe to limp, slowly and painfully, the rest of the way home.
5
UNEXPECTED VISITORS
By the time Lailu got back to her restaurant and dragged the batyrdactyls into the kitchen, the sun was just peeking over the horizon. There was a quiet buzz to the air that let her know the city was waking up and would soon be hungry. The world swam in front of her eyes, but Lailu forced herself to stumble out back to the pump to wash up and get some water to clean the batyrdactyl carcasses.
Mystic Cooking’s well and water pump sat about thirty feet behind the restaurant, just at the edge of the Velvet Forest. It was one of the reasons she and Master Slipshod chose this location; all the other buildings either had to share a water pump or were large brick apartment buildings well outside their budget.
As she pumped water into a wooden bucket, Lailu took a deep breath, enjoying the early-morning calm in spite of the way her whole body throbbed. When the bucket was mostly full, she hoisted it up and dumped it over her head, gasping as the freezing water streamed down her back.
Shaking the water out of her hair like a dog, Lailu tightened her pigtails before filling the bucket again and lifting it to bring inside. She had barely taken one step when she stopped. Someone was watching her.
A man leaned against a nearby tree, his arms crossed over his chest. “You,” she whispered, taking in the shoulder-length black hair and laughing gray eyes.
“Me.” He pushed away from the tree and gave her a little half bow.
He was really more of a boy than a man, Lailu decided as she studied his young face. Maybe fifteen or sixteen? His black slacks were tucked into well-worn black boots, and his matching shirt blended well with the early-morning shadows. He wore his outfit casually, his sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows and his gray vest unbuttoned to flap slightly in the breeze.
“You’re one of Mr. Boss’s lackeys.” Lailu tightened her grip on her bucket.
The boy grimaced. “I suppose you could call me that,” he admitted. “Although I prefer the term ‘henchman.’ ”
Lailu narrowed her eyes. “You’re the one who told Mr. Boss to break my shrine.”
“Ah, but I also told him not to break your fingers. That has to count for something.” He grinned. “Ryon, by the way. At your service.”
Lailu scowled. True, she was glad to still have the full use of her hands, but that shrine had been hand-carved by her father out of lucky bamboo and blessed by her village’s temple. The God of Cookery, not to mention her father, would be most displeased she’d let it get smashed to bits.
“What happened to you?”
Lailu looked down at her torn clothing dripping with blood and water, and covered in dirt and bits of twigs. “Nothing,” she said irritably. “This is how I always look in the morning.”
Ryon’s lips quirked. “Fair enough.”
Lailu shifted her grip on the bucket. “Why are you here?”
His smile widened. “Mr. Boss asked me to check up on you.”
“Why?”
“He’s concerned about your lack of business.”
“We’ve only been open one day!”
“And did you have any customers?” He raised his eyebrows.
Lailu flushed and said nothing.
“Mr. Boss is just worried you and Slipshod won’t be able to pay him back in a timely fashion.”
“The first payment’s not due till next year. Why should he be worried now?”
Ryon shrugged. “I am but a poor servant. I just do as I’m told.”
“Yeah, right. Well then, you can tell Mr. Boss—”
“Tell him yourself. He’ll be stopping by this evening.”
“He’ll be . . . what? Why?” She thought of the Butcher grabbing her again, and her stomach turned to overcooked pasta.
“He’s having an important meeting, and he wants food for at least twelve people. Oh, and you’ll have to close your restaurant for him.” Ryon smiled as if this whole thing were a joke.
Lailu gaped. “Close our restaurant? Food for twelve?”
“You could always refuse. I wouldn’t recommend it, though . . . no more shrines to break.”
Lailu didn’t have a good response, so she just walked back toward her restaurant, lugging her bucket. Maybe Master Slipshod would know what to do.
“Here, let me.” Ryon reached for the bucket. She jerked away from him, water sloshing over the bucket’s rim. “Or not.”
“I don’t need help.” The memory of Greg having to save her still burned heavy on her mind, and she would be a cold, stiff corpse before accepting any help from a lackey of Mr. Boss.
As Lailu pushed the back door open, she spared one last glance back, then quickly stepped inside and let the door shut firmly behind her. Shivering, she put the bucket down. With Master Slipshod still out on his mysterious errands, Lailu knew she’d have to do all the prep work on her own.
She poured the water into a large steel basin and dumped one of the batyrdactyls in to soak. That would make it easier to de-feather. Grabbing the second batyrdactyl, she pushed the single chair in the kitchen off her throw rug, then kicked that aside and pried open the trapdoor hidden beneath it. After stumbling down the narrow staircase to the stone-lined cellar, she shoved the carcass inside the icebox towering in the corner, shutting the door quickly to keep everything as cold as possible.
Back in the kitchen, Lailu started all her prep work, then headed upstairs to get herself ready. After cleaning her scrapes, she dug her mother’s special ointment out from one of her drawers and smeared it liberally over the wounds. The smell of mint filled her nose, and she could almost feel her mother’s hands over her own. She closed her eyes, remembering those disastrous first hunts after she’d made up her mind to become a chef, and the gentle way her mother would tend to her injuries.
“It’s good for you to be strong,” her mother had told her after a particularly brutal
failed hunt. “I want you to be strong. Women should be independent. But Lailu, my little one,” her mother sighed, rubbing the ointment into a long scrape down Lailu’s left arm, “women also need to be careful.”
“I was careful,” Lailu insisted. “But the blasted little pygem was faster than I thought.”
“Well now. Either you need to be faster too, or you need to stop this hunting. The ideas that boy has put into your head.”
“Vahn said I could be a chef. He thinks I could really be accepted into the academy.” Lailu had never thought of leaving the village until the day an apprentice hero had saved her brother Lonnie from a vicious nest of vibbers. Not only was the stranger the most beautiful boy Lailu had ever seen, he also loved her cooking. She could still recall the way he’d asked for seconds, and then thirds, and as her brothers hassled him for stories of his heroic exploits, his attention had never wavered from his plate.
After dinner he’d told her all about the academy and its four fields of study: hero, artist, scholar, and chef. He was the one who said her cooking was excellent already, that if she could just improve her hunting, she could try applying to the academy’s scholarship program.
“I know you feel Vahn can do no wrong after he saved our Lonnie, but just remember, one good deed does not make a good man.” Her mother capped the ointment, then handed the small jar to Lailu.
“For me?” Lailu’s heart beat faster. Her mother always kept her ointments locked up, secret, scarce.
“For you. I can see it in your eyes—you’re never going to stop this.” Her mother put her arms around her. Lailu could feel the strands of her mother’s dark auburn hair sliding around her face, could smell the perfume she always wore, sweet and spicy. Comforting and exotic. “And I won’t always be around to protect you.”
She’d been gone the next day, gone for months, the weight of her absence pressing this last memory permanently into Lailu’s heart. Even though her mother had vanished several times before, this was the first time Lailu began to wonder if she was ever coming back. Oh, she’d heard all about her mother’s people, the Wanderers; had heard the longing in her mother’s voice when she spoke of traveling the land with them before she fell in love with Lailu’s father. But Lailu had never believed her mother might go back to that old life, might give up her family in exchange for extraordinary sights and distant shores.
