Morning came on the heals of another sleepless night. He wasn’t sure if it was the knowledge that he would have to impress Mistress Dina or make his friends in the kitchens look bad for their proximity to him, or if it was the usual fare. He had not awoken to the old nightmare. Had not experienced the worst one, either, but sleep had been slow in coming, and when it arrived it had lasted no longer than a scant few hours, enough to leave him worn out and groggy. The interplay of shadows and the occasional disruption of Fat John’s sawtooth snoring might have complicated sleep by themselves, and as he lay awake he found himself staring at a spiderweb which was a precise copy of the one which had been there two nights prior, when the nightmare had come on. The spider was the same in its dimensions. Lit by moonlight from behind and cast in silhouette, it might have been a trick of the eye, but he felt certain it was the very same spider, which had escaped destruction with its web even as he had not seen it the night prior.

  There had been whispers in the dark to accompany him, talk just on the edge of hearing, and he had not been able to make out the words.

  With morning’s arrival, and the first blush of sunlight creeping over the high cliffs behind the palace, he was awoken by the call of the Wraith stationed on this floor.

  “First Bell!” he roared, and Lance hurried to gather up his uniform and a fresh towel.

  He made quick work of washing, avoiding eye contact with the various others in the showers as he scoured his slender body clean, washed excess oil out of his cold, blonde hair and, with the washing concluded, put himself together in a corner removed from most others. Even with the work done quickly, he was nonetheless unable to obtain breakfast before his stage began, was forced to work it on an empty stomach.

  Ariana was in the kitchens when he arrived, and swept him up as soon as he was through the door. He was assigned an apron and a cap, and a small pile of clean towels, and then ushered to a refrigerated cabinet she referred to as Garmo.

  She pulled back its lid, revealing a vacant compartment with a series of bars inside that she helped him assemble into a uniform grid.

  “We’ll fill this with pans and then get our mise, okay.” She said. “You’ll be in charge of cold appetizers and salads for the military brass. Most of them will be leading training exercises about now. They won’t be done for a while. It’ll get busy later, but that gives us some time to run you through the pickups before it does.”

  “Alright.”

  “Great.” She grinned. “Follow me.”

  She led him into the dish pit, where a series of racks were arranged in close proximity to the various sinks, all filled already with cook pots and long serving pans. “We’ll need three third pans, another nine sixth pans, and some nine pans for garnishes.”

  They gathered the needed items, and returned with them to his station. She ran him through the setup, which required several trips to the various pantries, root cellars and a refrigerated closet she referred to as the walk-in, before they were done. Then it was to the real work.

  She took a knife from a magnetic strip mounted on the wall near the fryers, tested its edge and then presented it handle first to him.

  “Keep that down and by your side when you’re walking with it. If you trip, you won’t stab yourself that way. It’ll keep you from fucking someone else up, too.” She explained as they walked the short distance back to the garmo station.

  “So, knife work. You won’t be doing anything with heat today, but you should at least know the basics of how to handle yourself with a knife. So do it like this.”

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  She curled up the fingers on her left hand, tucked her thumb behind them and set the flat of the knife against her knuckles. “As long as you keep your off hand like this, you won’t cut yourself, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Alright. So, see how I’m rocking the knife as I cut. It’ll feel awkward at first, but as you get better it’ll be a lot faster and easier on your wrist to do it this way than to try to use that thing as a fucking hammer. And if Mistress Dina sees you flailing around like that, she’ll make you wish you were dead.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just nice training in someone I like for once. The last guy was such a bitch.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So, tomatoes. A serrated knife works better for those, but I had the guys sharpen all the house knives yesterday. This’ll work just fine. Just slice them into crescents.”

  She went through several exercises with him, saved the more tedious tasks for herself. As she promised, the first orders came in sporadically, leaving little for him to do in the intervals. She kept him busy with simple cleaning tasks, which were familiar in that they resembled the same duties he had been tasked with for much of his life. Couriers flitted in and out of the kitchen, taking plates from him after she had inspected them to make sure they were within her standards.

  “You’re doing good.” She said. “I knew you would.”

  “I’m just glad Mistress Dina isn’t—“

  “Isn’t what?”

  “Mad.” He said. “Didn’t Peter tell you what happened last night.”

  “We, uh…we had other things on our mind.”

  “So, I’ll leave that right there.” He finished the last few touch ups on the plate in front of him. A Courier came to retrieve the plate, and he domed it. He looked up at the newly arrived Courier, smiled.

  His stomach did a back flip.

  Looking at him from barely two feet off was the boy he’d seen in the showers. A boy he had hoped never to see again, even as he wished each morning he might. So that he could talk to him, diffuse the awkwardness, make amends for the way he had left things that morning.

  Now he was faced with him, in view of a startled expression which undoubtedly matched his own, he couldn’t quite find the words.

  “Hi, Ben.” Ariana said. “How’s it going?”

  “Um…I guess I don’t know. No one’s been…complaining…about me. Yet.”

  “That’s good.” She said. “This is Lance. He’s staging today.”

  Oh please, dear lord, get me out of here. Or at least let me get through this without putting my foot in my mouth. At least give me that win.

  “I…we’ve met. Kind of.” Ben said.

  “Y-yes.” Lance said. “We have. Kind of.”

  “Anyway, if that’s all ready.”

  “Of course.”

  “I can’t really stay but I’ll catch up with you later, okay.”

  “I understand. You just get your shit handled. I’ll be here.”

  He picked up the lidded tray, carried it off a short distance. As he stepped away, a dull ache formed in Lance’s head. He massaged his forehead as the sensation quickened from a dull ache to sharp pain. Almost at the edge of hearing, whispers broke across the kitchen, in his ears but distant, as if the other cooks were all talking at once, but when he looked around it was to find a few shouting out calls and the rest silent.

  No one was whispering.

  Ben took another step forward. His shadow darkened from a a deep gray to matte black. It stayed in place, the feet divorced from his, and and he stepped into it, and then through. He slid into the shadow to the hips, and then shoulders, and all at once he was gone. The shadow collapsed behind him, was absorbed by the floor tiles, and the portal he had entered fell into dissolution.

  The headache remained. A vicious pain like white fire thrashing through his skull. For several seconds, he could not see for the sheer volume of tears leaking from his eyes.

  Ariana’s hand found his shoulder, squeezed, drew him around to face her. “Are you okay?”

  “Just a headache.”

  “It looks like a little more than that. Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should just…wait a minute. Let it pass.”

  “I can take you there if you need to—“

  “No. It’s fine.” He gripped the edge of the cabinet, planted his feet and bit down on his cheek.

  The pain began to leak out of him. White fire became clamping jaws, which ebbed to a dull throbbing which was not really pain but the memory of it.

  “I think I’m good.” He said. “I don’t know what happened, but it seems like it’s going away.”

  “O-okay.” She said. “Are you sure you don’t want to—“

  “No, I’m fine. Let’s just get back into it.”