But none of it seemed real. She had just been talking to Toel. She had kissed him!
“What do we do?” Wert sputtered. “You killed a chef! That’s almost as bad as killing a lord!”
No, no, Annaig thought. No one is dead. It’s a mistake. You weren’t supposed to be here…
“The first thing,” Glim said, “is we clean up.”
That sank in a little. Yes, they had to do that, didn’t they? What a mess.
“But he’s going to be missed,” Wert went on. “They’ll send more divers to look for him.”
“Right,” Glim said. “That’s why we’re going to fix it so they don’t find him. Or any of them.”
“How can we do that? Even if we cut them up and put them in a midden, a sniffer could find them.”
“Don’t worry,” Glim said confidently. “I know what to do. They won’t be found.”
“Then they’ll start interrogating us.”
“The four of us are the only ones who know what happened,” Glim said.
“What do you mean by that?” Cilinil asked, swimming away a bit.
“No one’s going to hurt you,” Glim said. “That’s not what I’m getting at.”
Something suddenly fit together inside Annaig’s head.
“Listen to me,” she said. “Just listen. No one knows the skraws are involved, right? Each kitchen will think the other killed Toel. We don’t need to get rid of the bodies-they need to be found. But they need to be found hidden in Phmer’s midden. Everything here-and I mean everything-must be cleaned up. I can make a scrub that will scour this place as if we were never here. Then you can make it look like Toel was killed trying to invade Phmer’s kitchen, you understand?”
Glim’s membranes filmed his eyes and then drew open again.
“Did you-” he began, then stopped.
But he didn’t have to finish. She knew what he was thinking.
“No, Glim,” she said. “I didn’t plan this. It never occurred to me to-you know. But if we play this right, it can work. For all of us.”
“They’ll suspect you,” Glim said. “The only survivor.”
“Everyone who knows I came down here is right here,” she replied. “When Toel can’t be found, I’ll be as surprised as anyone as to where he went in the first place.”
Glim seemed to sort that for a moment before nodding.
“If you think it will work.”
“It’s a gamble,” she admitted. “We could be found out. We could die horribly. But that was probably going to happen anyway, right?”
“I suppose so,” Glim agreed.
“Well, then,” Annaig said. “Let’s go do what’s needed, and try to live until tomorrow.”
And so they began doing that.
BOOK TWO
ONE
It happened around midday, beginning as a murmur ghosting up from the pantry and swelling. Toel’s underchefs-Intovar and Yeum-got into a shrill argument in the hall.
When Lord Irrel came down, everything hushed.
Annaig had never seen a lord before. She had supposed they looked like everyone else, possibly in finer clothes.
She was right about the clothes. Irrel’s robe seemed to be made of black smoke within which winked thousands of tiny sparks. The form-fitting garment beneath might have been made of liquid iron.
Irrel himself was somewhat translucent. When he turned his head, flashes of skull showed through his fine, long features. His large eyes glowed with a soft purple light that shone through his lids when he closed them. He stood a head taller than anyone else in the room.
“Toel is dead,” he said. His voice was soft, but it carried easily to every corner of the kitchen. “Who is his second?”
Intovar and Yeum glanced at each other, and then Intovar stepped forward.
“I am, Lord Irrel.”
Irrel nodded. “The contest tomorrow. Can you win it? Tell me now, and do not dissemble.”
Intovar cleared his voice softly. He looked terrified, and Annaig could see his fingers shaking.
“Lord, without Chef Toel, our chances are much diminished.”
“Much diminished?” Irrel said, raising an eyebrow. He gestured-as if flicking something from his finger-and Intovar shrieked and dropped to his knees before falling on his face. He didn’t move.
“I’ll ask the question again,” Irrel said. “Can we win it?”
“N-No,” Yeum stuttered. “We cannot, lord. Not without Chef Toel.”
Irrel nodded, and Yeum flinched.
“There,” he said. “A simple answer to a simple question. Thank you.” He sighed. “It is an unpleasant inconvenience to withdraw, but better that than to look foolish.” He turned and took a step toward the door. Annaig closed her eyes and pushed back her fear.
“We can win, Lord Irrel,” she said.
A little gasp went up around her, but she kept her gaze focused on the lord.
“And you are?” he asked.
“Annaig, lord,” she replied.
“Ah. Toel’s whimsical inventor.”
“Yes, lord.”
“I have been pleased with many of your creations,” he said. “But that does not make you a chef.”
“We can win, lord. The menu is planned, the preparations are made. We will not make you look foolish-we will make you proud.”
Irrel glanced at Intovar’s body, then back at Annaig. “It would irritate me greatly to learn this is false bravado,” he said.
“It is not, lord,” she replied forcefully.
“Very well, then,” he said. “We’ll just see.”
No one uttered a word until he was out of sight and presumably out of earshot. Then it began.
“Are you insane?” Yeum shouted. “You’ve just killed us all!”
A chorus of agreement went up from the staff.
“What did you think was going to happen anyway?” Annaig asked. “Irrel must have a kitchen, and he must have a good one. Did you think you were going to be made chef, Yeum, for telling him we aren’t-you aren’t-competent? He would have brought in a new chef, with a new staff, and most of you would end up in the sump.”
That struck home-she could see it, so she pressed. “We can do this. We don’t need Toel. If you agree to follow me, cook what I say the way I say to, we can win. I know it.”
“I don’t understand,” Aelo-one of the dicers-said. “You’re probably right about what would have happened to us-all of us except you. Any chef would be pleased to have you. Now, if you fail-”
“I’m tired of being passed around,” she said. “If we win, Irrel will make me chef, I’ll keep all of you, and everything will be fine.”
“But I’m the senior cook,” Yeum protested.
“No, she’s right,” one of the others said. “You can’t be chef now, Yeum. It has to be her.”
“No, she’s crazy,” Yeum retorted. “Irrel wouldn’t…” Her eyes wandered over to Intovar’s body, then she shook her head. “Sumpslurry,” she sighed.
Yeum looked back at Annaig. “Fine,” she said. “What are we cooking?”
“But this is absurd,” Loehsh asserted as Annaig looked over his shoulder at his preparations. “Rhel is a lord-he will not eat the raw flesh of an animal, no matter how prettied up with froths and suspirations.”
“He will,” she replied, “and he’ll like it. Just-stop. Give me the knife.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you’re cutting it wrong,” she snapped, repositioning the fat-veined slab of meat on the table and cutting paper-thin slices from it.
“It won’t matter how thin it is,” Loehsh muttered.
“Loehsh,” Yeum’s voice piped up from behind. “You see how she wants it done?”
“Yes,” he said sullenly.
“Then do it that way,” Yeum replied. “Would you have questioned Toel this way?”
“Of course not. But he-”
“Is dead. Unless you wish to join him before even the rest of us do, I suggest you stop asking questions and do things as Annaig says to.”
“Very well,” Loehsh said sourly. He returned to his task, this time cutting the meat properly.
“Come on,” Yeum said to Annaig. “We need to talk.”
They went into the little room where Toel used to work on his menus.