Page 57 of The Forgotten Prince

No wonder they were so careful to adhere to the covenant.

No wonder Deartháir Harri was so reluctant to give her passage.

At last, she dared to stop and ask one of the Fae as she passed. “Have you seen my Shadow?”

He peered down at the ground, blinking. “Shadow?”

Gwendolyn looked as well, and nearly said—no, not that one—but then she found she had no shadow at all. Perhaps because this place existed in the twilight? “No,” she endeavored to explain. “Not my shadow, shadow. My… guard.” She made a sign as though to unsheathe her sword, which she did not have on her person.

“Dark of hair?” the creature asked and, for a moment, Gwendolyn couldn’t help but stare at him. He, too, like Málik and Esme, was uncommonly beautiful—his smile and bright green eyes more like Esme’s, though his hair was the same silvery shade as Málik’s. The Elf smiled again, a smile that beguiled her.

“That way,” he said, pointing, and Gwendolyn said, bemused. “Thank you.”

The Elf frowned at her, and turned abruptly, marching away without another word and Gwendolyn hadn’t the first inkling why, but she had the oddest feeling it was because she’d thanked him. She made a mental note to ask Esme about that, and whether she had offered some slight. So far as she could recall, neither Málik nor Esme had ever behaved so rudely over words of gratitude. Scratching her head, she returned to her search, and soon found she had worried for naught. She found Bryn, at last, in the one place she should have looked first, although how he’d found his way to the cookhouse bedeviled her. Not even Gwendolyn had visited this dwelling before, and regardless, she should have known if anyone could sniff out morning cakes, it would be Bryn.

“There you are!” she exclaimed.

He wasn’t alone.

Here with a Druid escort, he sat on a stool, one leg up with an elbow resting atop his knee, and a something like cake in his mouth. He could barely talk for the mouthful. “Delightful! You must try it!” he said, holding a bit aloft. And then, somehow, managing about another mouthful, he exclaimed, “Hob cake!”

Yegods.

Gwendolyn knew enough about Hob cake to know the amount he was consuming boded ill for him. Without waiting for her to accept his offer, he shoved the last heaping handful into his mouth and cheerfully munched away, already with a loopy smile.

Gwendolyn shared a glance with the Druid cook.

The man shrugged.

As Gwendolyn entered the kitchen, the most unimaginable scents barraged her senses—too many to distinguish, and yet, some so achingly familiar it brought a sting of tears to her eyes. Lamb stew. Nettle pudding. Roasted boar. Carp pie. Dormouse. Fried cheese curds. Shardbread. Fresh oysters. Smoked fish. Hevva Cake. Pottage stew. Mushroom pasties. Crispels basted in honey.

All these scents accosted her at once—and more!

Regardless, when she looked about the cookhouse, she saw nothing to account for the scents. Only a circular hearth, about which everything in the room was arranged, with a heaping, smoking cauldron in its middle. On the farthest counter on the opposite side of Bryn sat several Hob cakes, fresh from the griddle.

“No, thank you. I’ve had the pleasure,” Gwendolyn said, smiling wanly.

“I cannot believe it!” Bryn declared. “One bite tastes like eggs with honey, and another like good Cornish beef!”

Much to Gwendolyn’s dismay, she found herself craving a bite, though she knew how addictive that cake was, and she daren’t indulge—not now. Tomorrow, Bryn would heartily regret eating so much of it. But that could well work in Gwendolyn’s favor. “Take one to go,” she said. “I’ve something I wish to discuss.”

“Gladly,” Bryn allowed. And then, to the cook, he asked, “Do you mind?”

“Certainly not,” answered the Druid. “Take two.”

Gwendolyn noted the answering grin that split Bryn’s face, and he responded, “Three? May I?”

“Please,” said the cook. “We’ve plenty.”

Looking like a wee boy on his Name Day, Bryn enthusiastically hopped down from the stool, and went to retrieve his bestowals. He tried first to carry them in his hands, but they wouldn’t fit, so he stretched out his tunic and set three in the cradle it formed. Then, peering back at the Druid chef, he plucked one more Hob cake for good measure. And once he had his tunic filled, he gave Gwendolyn a wink, and then, together, they filed out of the kitchen. They hadn’t gone two steps before he offered a portion to Gwendolyn.

Gwendolyn couldn’t resist. “Just one bite,” she said, pinching off a bit from one corner, not daring to take more. As they walked, she popped the morsel into her mouth, and her eyes rolled backward into her head at the remembered taste of salted pilchards—those flavorsome little fishlings her uncle used to scoop out of the Bay of Dunes and serve with hevva cake and mead. Simply by the taste of it, she could almost see herself seated across from her cousins and her sweet uncle, with Málik by her side, and Lowenna plucking the last of the pilchards from a pan.

“Gods,” she said, but refrained from begging another bite, knowing through experience how much she would regret it later.

“The cook also made stone soup,” Bryn declared. “A bit like Hob cake, though somehow the taste, elusive anyway, was too fleeting. No sooner did I heap a spoonful into my mouth when the taste of it was forgotten. I remember only loving it but can’t tell you what it tastes like.”

“Made with pookies?” Gwendolyn asked, dreading the answer.

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