Page 32 of A City of Smoke and Demons
‘It’s probably best if you both go,’ Ezra said, and Analise looked at him in surprise. Jem nodded. Lira’s face was downcast, but she stood, following her brother into the hall. Ezra walked them out. Analise remained at the table, staring blankly at the window. Dust motes were caught in a single shaft of sunlight. It reminded her of the convent, of the chapel, and the way the light would stream into the room in thick bands of gold.
She hadn’t had enough to drink to handle this. A couple of whiskeys had done nothing to take the edge off and now, her brain was buzzing and she wanted to cry. She grabbed the bottle and tore the cork free. By the time Ezra returned, Analise was clutching the whiskey to her chest. She wasn’t sure if she’d drunk any or not. Gently, Ezra took it from her.
She stared at him, tracing the lines of his face slowly, settling on his eyes. A flash of summer light through brilliant green leaves, she thought absently.
‘Analise?’ he prompted.
‘I swear,’ she said, her voice low, rough, ‘if you’re lying to me about anything, I will never speak to you again, Ezra.’
He nodded, but she couldn’t tell if it was in acceptance or defeat.
‘Does this change things, knowing what I am?’ she demanded.
Ezra dragged a hand through his hair, his expression conflicted. ‘No. You didn’t choose it.’
Analise huffed, then got up, pulling the frying pan and a bowl from the cupboard. ‘I’m hungry.’ She needed to think about something else for a moment. Shock was setting in and her head was filled with images and words, voices—things she thought she’d buried. ‘This is where you teach me to cook. But.’ She pointed a fork at Ezra. ‘One smart-arse remark, and I’ll stab you.’
He held up his hands, then joined her at the stove. ‘What are we having?’
‘Eggs,’ Analise said. She snatched up an egg from the basket on the bench, looking to Ezra for instruction.
‘Crack it on the edge of the bowl, but gently because you don’t want—’
She smashed the egg against the rim of the bowl; shards of shell joined the white and the golden yolk. ‘Should I get another?’ Her hands were shaking.
‘And waste an egg? Fish the shell out,’ Ezra said, grinning as she grumbled but did as she was told. ‘I’ll do the other. To show you.’ He cracked an egg into the bowl one-handed and gave her a wink. ‘I can do a lot of things with one hand, in case you were wondering.’
Analise tried her best to follow his instructions, but all she could think about was Lira, herbrother, this Order of the Dawn and the Familiar. She could see his coal-black eyes boring into hers. Mother Superior’s warning words churned around her head. An ex-Gendarme was helping her cook eggs.
And there were demons in the world. Just like the book said there would be.
In the end, the eggs were hard and she mangled them, but they tasted fine. Analise’s magic was pulling and tugging at her skin. She was close to falling apart. There were gravestones behind her eyes and the smell of dirt was in her nostrils.
‘What’s something you miss from the convent?’ Ezra asked, startling her, but the question gave her something to hold onto, to use to reel herself back even as it pulled her into the past.
‘Cake.’
‘I didn’t take you for a cake girl,’ Ezra admitted. ‘I was thinking bloody meat and chopped liver.’
Analise made a face. ‘We used to have cake once a week. Nothing fancy, just a honey cake, but it was delicious.’
‘Weekly cake is rather decadent for nuns,’ Ezra commented.
‘I think they did it for me. It gave me something to look forward to. I wonder if they still have cake,’ she mused. That shaft of sunlight gilded Ezra in pale gold, his white-blond hair a halo of fire. She dropped her eyes.
‘They don’t break out the cake when you drop by for a visit?’
‘I’ve never been back,’ she admitted. ‘I ran away. I wanted a life, so I ran away and I’ve never returned to the women who raised me to thank them for taking me in, for not letting me die, for treating me as one of their own for twenty years and now—’
‘It’s not always easy to go back,’ Ezra said. ‘Going back means looking back, and sometimes that’s hard, so it’s safer not to.’
Analise stole a glance at him, catching him watching her. Like the first night they met, he rested his hand near hers on the table. Her breath caught as, slowly, he reached out and stroked the side of her finger.
She had the sudden urge to shove the plates off the table and pin him to it, tear his clothes off, take control ofsomethingwhile everything else was out of control.
She pulled her hand back. ‘I miss cake.’
Ezra woke alone. That had been one hell of a dream. A man’s face, a voice, smooth as honey. Magic in the air, so thick he could not only see it, but taste it, sharp and sweet on his tongue. They shook hands, Ezra remembered. The man might have been wearing a white coat, but other than that, there was nothing Ezra could recall about him.
