Cold Fire
I dressed in fresh drawers and a sleeveless bodice tightly laced up like a vest with no blouse over or under it, which the girls assured me was perfectly acceptable attire for a young woman. I tugged the filthy jacket on over it anyway. They brought a green cloth whose print depicted a pattern of fans opening and shutting, which I wrapped for a skirt. Then they had me sit on one of the benches in the courtyard while they combed and braided my hair.
The older girl had just finished tying off the end with a strand of beads when Vai returned with a bundle of wrapped paper. He took the bundle to the kitchen, washed his hands, and, at a word from Aunty Djeneba, grabbed a tray of drink and fruit she had prepared while I was bathing. He set it on the table and sat on the bench opposite me. Aunty called to the girls, and they giggled and left us alone.
He poured liquid into a cup, which he pushed across to me. “You must drink, Catherine.”
With his hands, he began to peel an orange object.
I drank. “This juice is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
He separated off a wedge of fruit and held it out. “Here.”
It looked moist and cool, so I set down the cup and tried it. I had to close my eyes because the texture melted so sweetly inside my mouth.
“Just spit out the seeds,” he said, holding out a piece of the peel.
He fed me half the fruit wedge by wedge before I recollected myself and said, “You have some.”
“You look sunburned and yet you’re pale beneath it, so you’ve got to eat,” he said. “You’d be cooler with that jacket off.”
My healing bite itched like an accusation. “It comforts me to keep it on.”
He shrugged, and fed me the rest.
I licked the sticky juice from my fingers, watching him self-consciously carve the knife through the peelings as he tried not to stare at me. “Am I still in the spirit world?” I asked.
“No. Why would you think so?”
“Are you really wearing a rope as a belt? Working as a carpenter?”
Had he been a horse, I would have said he bridled. “It’s perfectly respectable work. I’m good at it.”
“Of course you’re good at it. You’re good at everything you do.”
“Is that meant as a criticism?”
Here was the haughty Andevai I knew! The other one—the polite, caring one so intent on feeding me—was beginning to unsettle me. “Why would you think it a criticism? Mightn’t it have just been a description?”
His mouth twitched down. “I’m not sure how I’m meant to answer that. Agree, and I’m proud and vain. Disagree…”
“You’d still be proud and vain, and worse, you’d appear falsely humble. You, a cold mage of rare and unexpected potency. The favored son of Four Moons House.”
“Is that what you think? That they favored me?”
“You can’t mean they kicked you out?”
“No. I just meant they resent me.”
“Yes, I can understand that. A village boy raised to be a laborer whose entire clan serves Four Moons House in clientage. It must have been difficult for the young men raised in all the privilege of the house to see you walk in and best them all.”
His mouth twitched up, shading his expression to one of nostalgic triumph. “They hated it.”
“And they hated you, too, evidently. But the mansa cannot want to lose you. Nor would your family, for though you were taken away from them to serve as a cold mage, it was clear they love you. So why are you here?”
“I might ask you the same question.”
“Yes, you might. I’m amazed you haven’t yet done so.”
He crossed his arms over his chest in a way that unfortunately displayed his muscular forearms to advantage. “Good manners and simple common sense dictate that I should wait until you have a chance to eat.”
I laughed.
“Why are you laughing?” he demanded.
“Why do you think I’m laughing?”
“Why would I ask if I already knew?”
“Don’t you remember our first meal together, at the inn in Adurnam? Weren’t you the one who kept rejecting every dish as not good enough for your consequence?”
“Are you comparing that meal to this one?”
“Comparing the food itself, or just your behavior?”
He shoved the platter aside and rested both arms on the tables, gazing at me with a furrowed brow and head cocked to one side. “Why are you answering all my questions with questions?”
“What makes you think I’m answering all your questions with questions?”