The cook surprised Keth by making breakfast for him after Yali left. First he said she didn’t need to; when she insisted, he apologized for putting her to the extra work. “A good-looking young fellow like you needs all the strength he can get, to chase off the hordes of girls who must be chasing you,” she said with a wink. Keth laughed for what felt like the first time in ages. He stayed in the kitchen while she cooked, talking to her about the news of the city and her children. She shooed him into the dining room when she finished, saying she had the marketing to do, then sat him at the table and ordered him to eat.
Keth was happy to do so: he was hungry. She had given him fresh flatbread, cheese and a dish of eggs cooked with cinnamon, cumin, cardamom and fermented barley brine. On his arrival in Tharios, he’d tried eggs prepared this way and thought that, with so peculiar a combination of flavours, they weren’t fit for hogs to eat. Now it was one of his favourite Tharian foods.
He hadn’t been eating long when Tris came downstairs. She was accompanied by a just-fed Chime — Keth could see the colouring agents for purple and blue glass in the dragon’s belly. The girl looked odd, strangely awake for someone who had gone to bed well after midnight and risen not long after dawn, according to the cook. Tris poured herself a cup of tea and sat across from him.
“Is your friend Yali all right?” Tris asked as Chime curled around the teapot. “She was upset over you being taken up by the arurimi.”
“She knows they don’t pay truthsayers in Fifth District,” Keth replied, carefully producing each word. His tongue seemed to get thicker when she was near. He couldn’t make himself forget what she could produce from those thin braids on either side of her face. “She just wanted to know I was in one piece.” He scooped up some eggs with a wedge of flatbread. “She didn’t really believe they got a truthsayer because you told them to,” he added. After he’d chewed and swallowed, he continued, “I was there. I’m not sure I believe it.”
“But I was so polite,” Tris replied with a razor-thin smile. “Dhaskoi Nomasdina was such a gentleman, giving way to a lady’s wishes.”
Keth blinked, startled. “Did you just make a joke?” he asked. He’d never thought she had a sense of humour. If she did, it was very dry.
“I hardly ever joke,” Tris informed him, straight-faced as she sat at the table. “It steams up my spectacles.”
Keth put down his spoon to give his full attention to her. For the first time it sank in that this odd girl two-thirds his age was to be his teacher. He had no idea who she was, apart from a heroic bad temper, a hand for lightning, a claim to handle forces too big for any human to wield and a dislike of being baulked. She was gentle with tweezers and medicine. She loved Chime and her impossibly sized dog. The eyes behind those spectacles were uncomfortably sharp. She also took their new relationship more seriously than he did, which shamed him.
“So we’re stuck with each other,” he said carefully.
She propped her chin on her hand, her smile crooked. “Yes, we are. Do you think your cousin will let us do magic at Touchstone? Otherwise we’ll have to find a glass mage who will give us a place to work. If you were younger, I wouldn’t even try to have you do craftwork as you learn basic mage discipline, but we can’t untangle the two now.”
“Antonou won’t mind as long as I keep making glass for him. If we use a lot of materials, I’ll have to find a way to pay him, though. He isn’t rich.” Keth sighed. He would have to stay in Tharios long after he’d mastered his power, just to repay his cousin. Well, it can’t be helped, he told himself. “Let’s go,” he said, pushing back his chair. “The sooner we start, the sooner we catch the Ghost.”
Tris stayed where she was, drumming her finger slightly on the table. Chime woke from her nap and looked from Keth to Tris. “It’s not that easy,” Tris said at last. “You won’t be creating any lightning globes today.”
“Yes I will!” he replied. Really, he thought, just because it took her a while to master her power doesn’t mean