Page 59 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
I went up and flipped the lock, then pulled the door open with the hand that wasn’t supporting a sleepy kitten. Panther? I had no idea. Hells, I didn’t even know what Twist was. Demon? Were-something?
“Morning,” Arthur said, sounding disgustingly chipper. “I saw you arriving home last night, and you looked like maybe you could use a little help, so Amelia and I thought I should drop by with some things.”
“Some things,” as it turned out, was essentially breakfast. He came in and set it all on a desk—mine—and started pulling things out of his magical bag. First, he handed me a paper cup. “This is Amelia’s breakfast blend. It’s got a little spice in it, to wake you up, but it’s not a full chai. It’s got almond milk in it, because we didn’t know if you had issues with lactose.”
“I don’t have issues, but almond milk is good too. I like almond milk.” I took a sip of the drink and it was...incredible. It was nothing close to chai, he was right, but I could taste ginger, cinnamon, and something else. Maybe black pepper? “This is delicious.”
He beamed at me, and damn. The guy was good looking without smiling, but like that? Gold hair and bright smile, he really was the fucking surface of the sun. He pulled what lookedlike a biscuit out of his bag, then a paper plate, and a couple of jars. “Well if you’re not allergic to milk, then let me prepare this for you. We’ll see how you like a good English scone.”
My experience with scones was mostly at a couple of coffee houses, where they’d been like especially dry sweet-flavored biscuits. This didn’t seem to have fruit in it; it just looked like a plain biscuit. He slathered it with first cream, then jam, and handed me the plate. He frowned as he did so, so I lifted a brow. “Oh, we do it the Devon way. Cream first. I just realized I didn’t know how Americans ate them.”
“They don’t,” Davin muttered, sitting up and stretching.
Arthur barely reacted to the movement, clearly having been aware that Davin was there before he’d moved. I was no psychiatrist, but I was pretty sure that meant something. I’d have been startled out of my skin.
“Don’t?” Arthur asked, clearly more surprised by the idea of not putting cream on scones than by a person in his periphery.
“Americans don’t eat scones.” Davin looked at what Arthur had brought, and a second later, he was being handed a cup of tea. For some reason, that made him smile, and suddenly we were all doing it.
Arthur turned back to the bag, pulling out another scone and plate before turning back to Davin. “I thought scones had become popular in America. They serve them at their Starbucks, don’t they?”
Davin scrunched up his nose. “Wouldn’t call those scones. More like deadly weapons, really.” He took a sip of the tea as he stood up, crossing to Arthur. “That tea is delicious, but let me do that. Don’t want you ruining it by putting the cream on first.”
Arthur laughed, unoffended, handing Davin the plate and stepping back. “I didn’t know the Irish had such strong opinions on Devon style versus Cornish.”
“Well this one does,” Davin said, spreading jam across his, and then adding a huge dollop of cream to the top.
The two of them spent a moment debating something about the cream melting versus not being able to spread it, but I ignored it. I was too busy eating my breakfast, because it was maybe the most delicious thing I’d ever had in my life.
“Are you all right?” Arthur asked me after a while, Davin sitting down to eat his breakfast. He looked at the enormous bruise that was my whole side, and winced. “Do you need a doctor?”
“Honestly, it doesn’t even hurt.” I looked down at it, and once again worried. When I looked up, they were both staring at me. “What?”
“You’re telling the truth,” Davin said, sounding stunned.
Arthur was a little more circumspect and a little less vampire. “You look a little like you’ve been hit by a car. I’m surprised it isn’t painful.”
I shrugged, because I wasn’t going to claim to understand, or lie and say I was feeling pain when I wasn’t. Even my heartburn felt a little better after some tea and food. “This tea is incredible,” I added, trying to distract them both. “What’s in it?”
“Oh, some cinnamon, some pepper,” Arthur said, then shrugged. “Amelia makes it, not me. I also brought this.” He crossed back to the bag and pulled out a container of loose tea and a little white box. “Our grandmother used to make this blend when we were hurt. I know real magic doesn’t work that way, but it sometimes seems to help with pain.”
Real magic generally didn’t infuse objects, it was true. Except for artifacts, which were still incredibly rare. Modern mages had yet to figure out how to reliably enchant things. We’d lost so much when anti-magic sentiment had taken over the world during the Dark Ages, and we’d only just started to regain any of it in the last few centuries.
Mother used to go on about the Library of Alexandria, but I had never asked for more information, because I didn’t want to find out she’d been there personally.
Arthur grabbed my wandering attention back by holding out the white box. “And these are some chocolates I made for the two of you. I know we’re not...that is, I’m sure we can’t afford the kind of rent a place like yours would need, but I thought I should?—”
I set down my tea and took the box from him, still unwilling to unsettle the sleepy kitten, and it took me a moment to open it one-handed. Inside was a handful of chocolates, so I set it down and took one, not bothering to bite into it, just shoving the whole thing in my mouth.
And then I almost died.
There was caramel inside, but it wasn’t just the usual sticky-sweet burned sugar I was used to. No, it was cooked right to the edge of plain old burned, deep flavor exploding out of it like nothing I’d ever imagined. There was a little salt too, to cut the remaining sweetness, and something—“is that red pepper?” I asked through the chocolate.
His eyes went wide. “It is. Is it—are you allergic, or?—”
“This is incredible,” I interrupted, not wanting him to freak out worrying, and it was clear he was a little inclined to do that. For another moment, I just closed my eyes and contemplated the chocolate, and deep dark sweet-salty-hot combination that wasn’t like anything else I’d ever eaten in my life.
I only opened my eyes when Davin came up next to me, grabbing the box and eating a caramel of his own. At least, I assumed they were the same. I hoped.
