Fic: for to make frittours
Feb. 20th, 2023 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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stowawayPairing: Camilla/Palamedes (The Locked Tomb)
Word Count: 2800
Rating: G
Spoilers/Warnings: Fluff, so much fluff, and a smattering of yearning.
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, and I will not be held responsible for Palamedes burning down The Library.
Notes: Dedicated to Jo, with many happy birthday wishes! Frittours are an actual historical recipe from The Forme Of Cury which I am obsessed with.
Mirrors: AO3
for to make frittours
Camilla wakes to the scent of spice filling her nostrils, a metallic clang, and a muttered, “Damn.”
The clockwork on her bedside table shows 06:13 Imperial Standard Hours, each number picked out in soft blue diodes. The circadian lighting strips along the cornices and skirting boards have already moved from their initial deep amber tones to a rosy peach glow, the first time in months they’ve awakened before she has. She rolls onto her back, staring vaguely at the murky depths of the ceiling as she catalogues the morning. Palamedes is demonstrably not on the other side of the bed, which all but guarantees he’s the cause of the cursing, the clang, and the aromas wafting wraith-like down the hall. In the fathomless distance, somewhere beyond the arched entryway of their bedroom, there is the brief hiss of running water followed by another clank and a dull thud.
Sighing, Camilla tosses the covers back and tugs on a shirt. She rubs sleep from the corners of her eyes as she pads down the hall and through a second archway into their living area, where she stops abruptly, suddenly unsure if she’s truly awake or just having some sort of REM-induced hallucination. The piles of flimsy and books, the loose pens, the various silver and copper instruments that typically shroud their small dining table have vanished — have been moved, she realises as her gaze drifts across the room. The table itself is spotless, set with two plates, two sets of cutlery, and the two tiny cups that mean, somewhere, there’s a cezve. The assorted paraphernalia that accompany the Warden’s every waking moment are now stacked, with a marginal attempt at order, on the sofa.
It’s a perk of the office that they even have the table; everyone under the rank of Master is expected to attend a dining hall for meals, assuming they’re not at one of the ubiquitous interdepartmental brunches, lunches, or dinners on offer. It’s a perk specific to the office of Master Warden that, in addition to the table with its matched pair of dining chairs, the sofa, the two armchairs, the archival cabinet, the several bookcases and the ensuite bathroom, they also have a small but functional galley kitchen provisioned with a microwave and hotplate, a shallow but serviceable bench, an electric kettle, a slim refrigeration chamber, and a sink and disposal unit.
Camilla can count on one hand the number of times they’ve actually used the bench for its intended purpose. Palamedes, obstinate heretic that he is, ignores food wherever possible; a good fifty percent of the sustenance he’s taken since assuming his mantle has been whatever portable foodstuff she’s been able to force upon him, begrudgingly consumed whilst navigating the passageways between conference rooms and research labs. Half of the rest has been oddments from the kitchens, plated up long after his peers have scoffed and departed, and only then because she’s threatened to mention the exact details of his diet to Juno — or worse, to Dulcinea. They’ve cooked a grand total of four separate meals in their own kitchen during the time they’ve occupied these rooms. Three of them were soup, which Camilla made herself two months ago, after he caught the revolting pathogen that infected the entire Lactosynthetics department. She still has no idea what dairy-based research could possibly have required the Master Warden’s presence. The Warden himself, Emperor’s Reason and Stubborn Git, has diverted the subject any time she’s asked about it.
She turns toward the tiny kitchen now, stifling a yawn as Palamedes looks up from whatever he’s currently chopping — chopping, her brain stutters, as though he’s ever held a blade larger than a scalpel in his life — and says brightly, “You’re up! I was going to let you sleep in.”
“You did.”
“Cam, I wouldn’t call— what time is it?”
“Six-fifteen?”
“Not a sleep in by any stretch.” He sets down the knife and scoops the handful of large white chunks he’s just cut into a bowl, which he then places gently to one side, next to a dark glass bottle.
“Why are you up so early?”
“A question you hardly need me to answer, Scholar; tell me what day it is.”
“Dominican calendar? Illiou.”
“But also?”
“My birthday.”
“Your birthday! Therefore, given what we know of the date and time, and the hopefully recognisable activity I am currently engaged in, why am I out of bed so early?”
“Because you’re making me breakfast.”
“Because, my beloved cavalier, most wonderful Cam, I am making you breakfast.”
Camilla studies the kitchen. It’s remarkably tidy, far more so than any desk he’s ever occupied. In research mode the Warden is a whirlwind, his path through the Library a snarl of notes and theories and the frenetic flipping of pages, forever trackable by the half-finished cups of tea he leaves in his wake. There’s none of that tumult here: the items laid out on the bench are arranged with Cohort precision. A square tub of flour sits to his left, three vials of spice lined like soldiers in front and a saucer with two eggs at its side. To his right are the glass bottle and the dish he’s just finished dumping chopped fruit or vegetables into — fruit, she guesses, peering at it more closely; apples, if she’s not wrong. Just beyond those is a plex board bearing a neat line of utensils, a plate lined with a square of cotton towelling, and a large bowl. The copper cezve is sitting on the hotplate, trim and shining. Abandoned in the empty sink, and covered in a thick white paste, is a single large spoon which Camilla instantly recognises as the source of the clang she’d heard, but that is the sole testament to chaos.
Or almost the sole testament. Between the hotplate and the kettle there’s another tub, filled with the same white substance that’s smeared all over the spoon, and a squat metallic thing like a robot saucepan, two handspans wide and two tall. In its uncovered middle are a dozen beading globules of white, resting in a shallow pool of yellowish liquid.
“What’s that?”
Palamedes looks up, following her outstretched finger to the device.
“A fryer.”
“You can’t fry in here.”
“That’s not strictly true; the kitchens have portable fryers. One of which, as you’ve just noted, is currently in my possession. Theoretically and, judging by the current state of events, realistically, I can — as in ‘am able’ — to fry in here. Here being our quarters, for the record.”
Camilla blinks. The most Palamedes typically says prior to the seventh hour chime is “mmphh”, or occasionally “arghh” if she’s been too hasty with the bedside lamp. “Which record?”
“The record that will inevitably be written should I burn said quarters to the ground.”
“Not funny, Warden.” She steps closer, watching a handful of glimmering droplets run down the craggy sides of the white stuff. It’s a fat of some kind, pooling in the bottom of the fryer as it melts. “Why do you have a portable fryer?”
“To make frittours!”
He says the word with relish and the kind of emphasis that immediately identifies it as something he’s found squirrelled away in a book he probably didn’t need to be looking at in the first place. Not fritters, those lovely crunchy parcels she remembers so well from the dessert courses of House events. Fritt-ores, to rhyme with wars, which there will be if he sets the Library ablaze with spitting fat, and implores, which she’s considering doing to forestall both fires and battles.
“And what, may I ask, is a frittour?”
“You’ll love it.”
“Doesn’t answer my question.”
“It’s a surprise, Cam,” he replies, reaching for an egg and cracking it against the side of the empty bowl with a finesse she wouldn’t have guessed at in a thousand years. “Now, enough questions. You can watch, or you can go back to bed, but let me concentrate.”
Camilla cocks an eyebrow, but he’s not looking; he’s already breaking the second egg. Crossing her arms over her chest, she props one hip against the edge of the opposite bench, near the sink, and watches her adept work.
He spoons flour into the bowl next, then tips in a good splash of liquid from the glass bottle. It’s the malt ferment that sometimes gets brought out at soirees for visiting scholars, its aroma disconcertingly fruity. She’d first tasted it at the ceremony where Palamedes had been appointed Master Warden; Juno had proffered a small cup to him, then another to her. Neither of them had much enjoyed it. The newly-offical Warden had almost spluttered as he swallowed it, and had twisted one hand into the folds of her ceremonial robes until he’d recovered himself.
Murmuring too softly for Camilla to discern, Palamedes plucks a fork from the assembly line of utensils and quickly whisks the flour-egg-malt combination until it resembles a thin glue. When he lifts the fork up, liquid gloop streams off the tines in rivulets. He nods to himself, and upends the bowl of apple pieces into the mixture.
“The recipe wanted parsnips too,” he says conversationally as he stirs the fruit in, warnings about chatter apparently forgotten. His fingers close around two of the seasoning vials. “But I’d have had to send a request for those about four months ago, and in any case, you like apples far better than you do parsnips.”
This is true, although until this instant, Camilla wouldn’t have bet on the Warden’s ability to reliably distinguish between the two. A little knot of warmth flares in her chest.
He flips open the first of the seasonings: it’s cinnamon, and so much richer at close distance than the thready scent she awoke to. With a steady hand and narrowed eyes, he measures a teaspoonful, tips it into the bowl, and then thumbs open the second vial to add a pinch of salt.
There’s no trace of solid fat left in the fryer now; the pale yellow liquid it’s become is bubbling merrily, filling the kitchen with pops and snaps. Palamedes tucks the bowl of battered apple into the sliver of space beside the fryer, and one by one, begins lowering pieces of fruit into its molten contents. They hiss and crackle and spit at first, and Camilla pushes off the bench instantly, ready for the inevitable blaze. It doesn’t come. The chunks of fruit settle to a rumbling simmer, bobbing around in the fat like wayward maintenance servitors. The mixture that coats them starts to colour and blister, and every so often, Palamedes flips one of the bouncy little parcels over with a long spatula.
Camilla eases back against the bench, studying her adept with a growing fascination. As far as she’s aware, the Warden has never cooked before — certainly never in her presence, which he’s been in almost constantly for two thirds of their lives. He’s not at all bad at it, if she’s honest. He has a knack for knowing how many times to turn each portion of apple, and when to pluck them from the fat before they change from butterscotch to brown. As he removes each crispy morsel, he positions it on the waiting plate, spiralling them delicately around one another as though he’s crafting some kind of monument rather than just making her breakfast. Once the last golden piece is in place, he lifts the plate in one hand, the cezve in the other, and gestures toward the table with an upwards tilt of his chin.
He sets the plate of fried fruit in the centre of the dining table, next to a small bowl of cinnamon sugar that greets her with the same soft sweetness she could smell earlier. Camilla reaches automatically toward the cezve but Palamedes gently swats her hand away, laughing, “Sit! I’ll do this.”
She sits.
He pours a stream of rich coffee into each of the small cups, then scatters cinnamon sugar across the sizzling frittours and carefully piles a heap of them onto her plate, followed by his own. She picks up her fork to poke at one, which elicits a quick “Wait!” from the Warden before he darts back into the kitchen to rummage about in the refrigeration chamber. He returns with a silver flask, frost limning its sides, and a large spoon.
With an ear-to-ear grin, Palamedes unseals the lid of the flask and scoops three enormous spoonfuls of ice cream on top of her frittours.
“Breakfast is served! Happy birthday, Cam.”
Camilla means to say thanks, or you didn’t have to do this, or you’re the biggest idiot in the System but I’m glad you’re mine. None of these things eventuate. She lifts a fork’s worth of ice cream to her mouth and every word she’s ever known dies away the moment it touches her lips.
It’s cardamom. On her fork, in her bowl, is an exact replica of a dessert she’s eaten only once before in her life, on the night of the Warden’s officiation ceremony.
“Did you make this?”
“No.” He bites at his bottom lip for a moment, looking — of all things — slightly abashed. “I asked the kitchens to. Do you still like it?”
“It’s amazing,” she replies, and Palamedes smiles like a solar flare, so bright she has to look down at her plate lest she go blind with the joy of him.
Their breakfasts are always companionably quiet. This one is near-silent, Camilla’s whole attention given over to the ambrosial creation before her. The frittours are, she has to admit, insanely good — possibly the greatest breakfast she’s ever had — but the ice cream is what really dances over her tastebuds. It tugs a stupid smile onto her face and fans the little spark of warmth folded around her heart into an inferno. It plunges her back four years in an instant, to a night of overly-long speeches and shadowing her necromancer in new boots that pinched slightly at her toes; to snickering at one another as they crept through the darkened halls after curfew, winding their way down to the storage freezers in the first circle where the containers of leftover desserts had been stowed. It’s creamy and earthy, exactly the same as it was that night, when it sent cold shivers up her nose and filled her mouth with a magical peppery sweetness. Camilla glances up to find Palamedes watching her, a lopsided grin on his face, and thinks that if she were to die right now, she would go to her grave having experienced life’s truest pleasures.
Once they’ve finished, he stacks the empty dishes and carries them to the sink, once again admonishing her to relax when she moves to help him. She follows him anyway, her steps just loud enough for him to know she’s there, and as he deposits the tableware into the sink, she slips her arms around his skinny ribcage and murmurs into his shoulder blade, “Thank you, Warden.”
He twists to face her, his eyes soft and fond, and for a moment all Camilla can do is stare. At him; at the shadow of herself, reflected back from his pupils; at the sentimental bow of his mouth. She’s suddenly acutely aware that her arms are wrapped around him, that his hands have settled on her waist, that she should move backwards or sideways, or in any direction that isn’t forward into his embrace. Palamedes blinks, long lashes fluttering like insects: once, twice. His lips part as if to — speak?
Camilla has no idea, because at that instant, the soft chime that marks the seventh hour rings out from their bedroom and the moment cracks like ice around them.
“I’ll—”
“Sorry, I—”
He moves as she does, the pair of them starting for the alarm without having entirely let go of the other. Limbs entangled, they almost knock heads while trying to dodge around one another, and Camilla treads on the Warden’s foot.
“Sorry. Sorry, I’ll get it.”
“No, Cam it’s—”
“It’s fine,” she says, taking a step backwards, breath too thin in her lungs.
“Okay.” His voice is unsteady, and his expression says it’s not quite, or perhaps is not at all. But he repeats the word, as though steeling himself. “Okay.”
She’s thwacking the small alarm before she even realises she’s left the kitchen.
Shakily, Camilla sinks down onto his side of the bed, palms running up and down her thighs for a moment before she drops her head into her hands. She takes one deep breath, then a second, and is on the verge of a third when she hears Palamedes call her name.
“Cam?”
Her head snaps up. He’s peering around the archway of the living room, smiling gently down the hall at her. “Warden?”
“Get dressed while you’re in there. I have the rest of your gifts waiting.”
fin.
Word Count: 2800
Rating: G
Spoilers/Warnings: Fluff, so much fluff, and a smattering of yearning.
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, and I will not be held responsible for Palamedes burning down The Library.
Notes: Dedicated to Jo, with many happy birthday wishes! Frittours are an actual historical recipe from The Forme Of Cury which I am obsessed with.
Mirrors: AO3
Camilla wakes to the scent of spice filling her nostrils, a metallic clang, and a muttered, “Damn.”
The clockwork on her bedside table shows 06:13 Imperial Standard Hours, each number picked out in soft blue diodes. The circadian lighting strips along the cornices and skirting boards have already moved from their initial deep amber tones to a rosy peach glow, the first time in months they’ve awakened before she has. She rolls onto her back, staring vaguely at the murky depths of the ceiling as she catalogues the morning. Palamedes is demonstrably not on the other side of the bed, which all but guarantees he’s the cause of the cursing, the clang, and the aromas wafting wraith-like down the hall. In the fathomless distance, somewhere beyond the arched entryway of their bedroom, there is the brief hiss of running water followed by another clank and a dull thud.
Sighing, Camilla tosses the covers back and tugs on a shirt. She rubs sleep from the corners of her eyes as she pads down the hall and through a second archway into their living area, where she stops abruptly, suddenly unsure if she’s truly awake or just having some sort of REM-induced hallucination. The piles of flimsy and books, the loose pens, the various silver and copper instruments that typically shroud their small dining table have vanished — have been moved, she realises as her gaze drifts across the room. The table itself is spotless, set with two plates, two sets of cutlery, and the two tiny cups that mean, somewhere, there’s a cezve. The assorted paraphernalia that accompany the Warden’s every waking moment are now stacked, with a marginal attempt at order, on the sofa.
It’s a perk of the office that they even have the table; everyone under the rank of Master is expected to attend a dining hall for meals, assuming they’re not at one of the ubiquitous interdepartmental brunches, lunches, or dinners on offer. It’s a perk specific to the office of Master Warden that, in addition to the table with its matched pair of dining chairs, the sofa, the two armchairs, the archival cabinet, the several bookcases and the ensuite bathroom, they also have a small but functional galley kitchen provisioned with a microwave and hotplate, a shallow but serviceable bench, an electric kettle, a slim refrigeration chamber, and a sink and disposal unit.
Camilla can count on one hand the number of times they’ve actually used the bench for its intended purpose. Palamedes, obstinate heretic that he is, ignores food wherever possible; a good fifty percent of the sustenance he’s taken since assuming his mantle has been whatever portable foodstuff she’s been able to force upon him, begrudgingly consumed whilst navigating the passageways between conference rooms and research labs. Half of the rest has been oddments from the kitchens, plated up long after his peers have scoffed and departed, and only then because she’s threatened to mention the exact details of his diet to Juno — or worse, to Dulcinea. They’ve cooked a grand total of four separate meals in their own kitchen during the time they’ve occupied these rooms. Three of them were soup, which Camilla made herself two months ago, after he caught the revolting pathogen that infected the entire Lactosynthetics department. She still has no idea what dairy-based research could possibly have required the Master Warden’s presence. The Warden himself, Emperor’s Reason and Stubborn Git, has diverted the subject any time she’s asked about it.
She turns toward the tiny kitchen now, stifling a yawn as Palamedes looks up from whatever he’s currently chopping — chopping, her brain stutters, as though he’s ever held a blade larger than a scalpel in his life — and says brightly, “You’re up! I was going to let you sleep in.”
“You did.”
“Cam, I wouldn’t call— what time is it?”
“Six-fifteen?”
“Not a sleep in by any stretch.” He sets down the knife and scoops the handful of large white chunks he’s just cut into a bowl, which he then places gently to one side, next to a dark glass bottle.
“Why are you up so early?”
“A question you hardly need me to answer, Scholar; tell me what day it is.”
“Dominican calendar? Illiou.”
“But also?”
“My birthday.”
“Your birthday! Therefore, given what we know of the date and time, and the hopefully recognisable activity I am currently engaged in, why am I out of bed so early?”
“Because you’re making me breakfast.”
“Because, my beloved cavalier, most wonderful Cam, I am making you breakfast.”
Camilla studies the kitchen. It’s remarkably tidy, far more so than any desk he’s ever occupied. In research mode the Warden is a whirlwind, his path through the Library a snarl of notes and theories and the frenetic flipping of pages, forever trackable by the half-finished cups of tea he leaves in his wake. There’s none of that tumult here: the items laid out on the bench are arranged with Cohort precision. A square tub of flour sits to his left, three vials of spice lined like soldiers in front and a saucer with two eggs at its side. To his right are the glass bottle and the dish he’s just finished dumping chopped fruit or vegetables into — fruit, she guesses, peering at it more closely; apples, if she’s not wrong. Just beyond those is a plex board bearing a neat line of utensils, a plate lined with a square of cotton towelling, and a large bowl. The copper cezve is sitting on the hotplate, trim and shining. Abandoned in the empty sink, and covered in a thick white paste, is a single large spoon which Camilla instantly recognises as the source of the clang she’d heard, but that is the sole testament to chaos.
Or almost the sole testament. Between the hotplate and the kettle there’s another tub, filled with the same white substance that’s smeared all over the spoon, and a squat metallic thing like a robot saucepan, two handspans wide and two tall. In its uncovered middle are a dozen beading globules of white, resting in a shallow pool of yellowish liquid.
“What’s that?”
Palamedes looks up, following her outstretched finger to the device.
“A fryer.”
“You can’t fry in here.”
“That’s not strictly true; the kitchens have portable fryers. One of which, as you’ve just noted, is currently in my possession. Theoretically and, judging by the current state of events, realistically, I can — as in ‘am able’ — to fry in here. Here being our quarters, for the record.”
Camilla blinks. The most Palamedes typically says prior to the seventh hour chime is “mmphh”, or occasionally “arghh” if she’s been too hasty with the bedside lamp. “Which record?”
“The record that will inevitably be written should I burn said quarters to the ground.”
“Not funny, Warden.” She steps closer, watching a handful of glimmering droplets run down the craggy sides of the white stuff. It’s a fat of some kind, pooling in the bottom of the fryer as it melts. “Why do you have a portable fryer?”
“To make frittours!”
He says the word with relish and the kind of emphasis that immediately identifies it as something he’s found squirrelled away in a book he probably didn’t need to be looking at in the first place. Not fritters, those lovely crunchy parcels she remembers so well from the dessert courses of House events. Fritt-ores, to rhyme with wars, which there will be if he sets the Library ablaze with spitting fat, and implores, which she’s considering doing to forestall both fires and battles.
“And what, may I ask, is a frittour?”
“You’ll love it.”
“Doesn’t answer my question.”
“It’s a surprise, Cam,” he replies, reaching for an egg and cracking it against the side of the empty bowl with a finesse she wouldn’t have guessed at in a thousand years. “Now, enough questions. You can watch, or you can go back to bed, but let me concentrate.”
Camilla cocks an eyebrow, but he’s not looking; he’s already breaking the second egg. Crossing her arms over her chest, she props one hip against the edge of the opposite bench, near the sink, and watches her adept work.
He spoons flour into the bowl next, then tips in a good splash of liquid from the glass bottle. It’s the malt ferment that sometimes gets brought out at soirees for visiting scholars, its aroma disconcertingly fruity. She’d first tasted it at the ceremony where Palamedes had been appointed Master Warden; Juno had proffered a small cup to him, then another to her. Neither of them had much enjoyed it. The newly-offical Warden had almost spluttered as he swallowed it, and had twisted one hand into the folds of her ceremonial robes until he’d recovered himself.
Murmuring too softly for Camilla to discern, Palamedes plucks a fork from the assembly line of utensils and quickly whisks the flour-egg-malt combination until it resembles a thin glue. When he lifts the fork up, liquid gloop streams off the tines in rivulets. He nods to himself, and upends the bowl of apple pieces into the mixture.
“The recipe wanted parsnips too,” he says conversationally as he stirs the fruit in, warnings about chatter apparently forgotten. His fingers close around two of the seasoning vials. “But I’d have had to send a request for those about four months ago, and in any case, you like apples far better than you do parsnips.”
This is true, although until this instant, Camilla wouldn’t have bet on the Warden’s ability to reliably distinguish between the two. A little knot of warmth flares in her chest.
He flips open the first of the seasonings: it’s cinnamon, and so much richer at close distance than the thready scent she awoke to. With a steady hand and narrowed eyes, he measures a teaspoonful, tips it into the bowl, and then thumbs open the second vial to add a pinch of salt.
There’s no trace of solid fat left in the fryer now; the pale yellow liquid it’s become is bubbling merrily, filling the kitchen with pops and snaps. Palamedes tucks the bowl of battered apple into the sliver of space beside the fryer, and one by one, begins lowering pieces of fruit into its molten contents. They hiss and crackle and spit at first, and Camilla pushes off the bench instantly, ready for the inevitable blaze. It doesn’t come. The chunks of fruit settle to a rumbling simmer, bobbing around in the fat like wayward maintenance servitors. The mixture that coats them starts to colour and blister, and every so often, Palamedes flips one of the bouncy little parcels over with a long spatula.
Camilla eases back against the bench, studying her adept with a growing fascination. As far as she’s aware, the Warden has never cooked before — certainly never in her presence, which he’s been in almost constantly for two thirds of their lives. He’s not at all bad at it, if she’s honest. He has a knack for knowing how many times to turn each portion of apple, and when to pluck them from the fat before they change from butterscotch to brown. As he removes each crispy morsel, he positions it on the waiting plate, spiralling them delicately around one another as though he’s crafting some kind of monument rather than just making her breakfast. Once the last golden piece is in place, he lifts the plate in one hand, the cezve in the other, and gestures toward the table with an upwards tilt of his chin.
He sets the plate of fried fruit in the centre of the dining table, next to a small bowl of cinnamon sugar that greets her with the same soft sweetness she could smell earlier. Camilla reaches automatically toward the cezve but Palamedes gently swats her hand away, laughing, “Sit! I’ll do this.”
She sits.
He pours a stream of rich coffee into each of the small cups, then scatters cinnamon sugar across the sizzling frittours and carefully piles a heap of them onto her plate, followed by his own. She picks up her fork to poke at one, which elicits a quick “Wait!” from the Warden before he darts back into the kitchen to rummage about in the refrigeration chamber. He returns with a silver flask, frost limning its sides, and a large spoon.
With an ear-to-ear grin, Palamedes unseals the lid of the flask and scoops three enormous spoonfuls of ice cream on top of her frittours.
“Breakfast is served! Happy birthday, Cam.”
Camilla means to say thanks, or you didn’t have to do this, or you’re the biggest idiot in the System but I’m glad you’re mine. None of these things eventuate. She lifts a fork’s worth of ice cream to her mouth and every word she’s ever known dies away the moment it touches her lips.
It’s cardamom. On her fork, in her bowl, is an exact replica of a dessert she’s eaten only once before in her life, on the night of the Warden’s officiation ceremony.
“Did you make this?”
“No.” He bites at his bottom lip for a moment, looking — of all things — slightly abashed. “I asked the kitchens to. Do you still like it?”
“It’s amazing,” she replies, and Palamedes smiles like a solar flare, so bright she has to look down at her plate lest she go blind with the joy of him.
Their breakfasts are always companionably quiet. This one is near-silent, Camilla’s whole attention given over to the ambrosial creation before her. The frittours are, she has to admit, insanely good — possibly the greatest breakfast she’s ever had — but the ice cream is what really dances over her tastebuds. It tugs a stupid smile onto her face and fans the little spark of warmth folded around her heart into an inferno. It plunges her back four years in an instant, to a night of overly-long speeches and shadowing her necromancer in new boots that pinched slightly at her toes; to snickering at one another as they crept through the darkened halls after curfew, winding their way down to the storage freezers in the first circle where the containers of leftover desserts had been stowed. It’s creamy and earthy, exactly the same as it was that night, when it sent cold shivers up her nose and filled her mouth with a magical peppery sweetness. Camilla glances up to find Palamedes watching her, a lopsided grin on his face, and thinks that if she were to die right now, she would go to her grave having experienced life’s truest pleasures.
Once they’ve finished, he stacks the empty dishes and carries them to the sink, once again admonishing her to relax when she moves to help him. She follows him anyway, her steps just loud enough for him to know she’s there, and as he deposits the tableware into the sink, she slips her arms around his skinny ribcage and murmurs into his shoulder blade, “Thank you, Warden.”
He twists to face her, his eyes soft and fond, and for a moment all Camilla can do is stare. At him; at the shadow of herself, reflected back from his pupils; at the sentimental bow of his mouth. She’s suddenly acutely aware that her arms are wrapped around him, that his hands have settled on her waist, that she should move backwards or sideways, or in any direction that isn’t forward into his embrace. Palamedes blinks, long lashes fluttering like insects: once, twice. His lips part as if to — speak?
Camilla has no idea, because at that instant, the soft chime that marks the seventh hour rings out from their bedroom and the moment cracks like ice around them.
“I’ll—”
“Sorry, I—”
He moves as she does, the pair of them starting for the alarm without having entirely let go of the other. Limbs entangled, they almost knock heads while trying to dodge around one another, and Camilla treads on the Warden’s foot.
“Sorry. Sorry, I’ll get it.”
“No, Cam it’s—”
“It’s fine,” she says, taking a step backwards, breath too thin in her lungs.
“Okay.” His voice is unsteady, and his expression says it’s not quite, or perhaps is not at all. But he repeats the word, as though steeling himself. “Okay.”
She’s thwacking the small alarm before she even realises she’s left the kitchen.
Shakily, Camilla sinks down onto his side of the bed, palms running up and down her thighs for a moment before she drops her head into her hands. She takes one deep breath, then a second, and is on the verge of a third when she hears Palamedes call her name.
“Cam?”
Her head snaps up. He’s peering around the archway of the living room, smiling gently down the hall at her. “Warden?”
“Get dressed while you’re in there. I have the rest of your gifts waiting.”