Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet (5 page)

“Your name?” he asks. The question burns through every flutter of hope working its way through my body. Even
I
remember my name. If this man truly held the key to my two decades of missing memories, he would surely know my name.

I feel all the light leave me, sucking my energy with it. I could cry if my body had the water to muster the tears. After all this time, I really thought I’d found a clue.

Fire sparks at the back of my neck. Why would he make me think we had a connection? Why would he toy with me? I want to glare at him, to seethe at him, but I must make this situation as pleasant as possible. I’m not sure how long I’ll have to live in it. So I answer him. “Maire.”

The grin fades completely. He unfolds his legs. Looks off to the side, at nothing that I can see, for an uncomfortable moment. “I can say that. Maire. See? It’s fine.”

I don’t think he’s talking to me.

His eyes meet mine. “I am Allemas. What do you think?”

I gawk at him. “Of what?”

“Of the name.” His countenance sharpens.

I don’t understand, but pretend otherwise. “It’s a very fine name.”

He smiles again. I’m not sure if I like it when he smiles. That grin isn’t familiar. I can’t read him at all.

Allemas leans forward and whispers, “You have magic.”

That
strikes me. I straighten, and my shoulders shout in protest, reminding me of their recent cruel treatment. “What?”

“You do. I know you do. Tell me about it.”

I study him again, trying to place him. He isn’t of an identifiable nationality, and I have trouble imagining which city-state or country in Raea he might call home. “Do
you
have magic?”

He slams a fist down on the armrest of his chair. “Tell me about your magic.”

I tell him about the cakes, about my shop, eyeing that fist the whole time. It isn’t a hard thing to explain, merely difficult for most people to understand, but Allemas nods as I speak, acting as though the ability were commonplace. As though he expected it.

I try again once I’m finished. “Do you have magic?”

He leans back. “I. Have. Knowledge.” And taps his head. “And you do not. And you are mine now, and you will do what I say. How delightful! I’ve never had a cake. Make me one.”

I stiffen. “How do you know—”

“Cake!” he commands.

I stare at him, at his small kitchen, then at the darkness outside the window. I flex and unflex my stiff fingers. So many questions bubble up inside me, threatening to choke me, but I know I’ll get no answers, not tonight. “Now?”

“Make me one.”

I stand, a little shaky, and my stomach growls. I ignore it and step into the kitchen, searching for light.

Allemas grabs one of the two lamps and follows after me.

He has a small wood-burning stove and limited counter space. No sink, but there is a tall faucet with a crank for well water by the back door, which I note has several locks running down its length. There are dingy-looking tiles beneath the water, and a gutter off center of the crank runs the excess water outside.

Trying my buyer’s patience, I head for the pump, gritting my teeth as my shoulders creak and wrench. I work the handle up and down until water pours forth. I stick my head under it, gulping the liquid down. When my stomach is full, I rub my hands together under the stream and over my face, rinsing away dirt and salt.

Allemas merely watches me. He doesn’t move, save for the occasional blinking of his eyes.

I notice that they don’t always blink at the same time.

I shiver and dry my hands on my filthy trousers. “Do you have flour? Sugar?”

“I have bread and eggs,” he says. “And chicken.”

“I need flour and sugar to make the cake. And butter. And milk.”

“I don’t have those.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

I expect him to become angry, but he doesn’t. He puts the tip of one index finger into his mouth and thinks for an abnormally long time before replying, “Then I will bring some. And you will make me cake. Yes, this will work.”

He hurries forward, grabs me by the elbow, and drags me to the other end of the kitchen. He lifts a door in the floor, and the scents of earth and mice flood my sinuses. He pushes me toward the cold cellar, using enough force that I nearly fall down the narrow, rotting steps. They have no rail.

“Sleep,” he says, and shuts the door, leaving me in utter darkness.

Where am I?

CHAPTER 4

My eyes don’t adjust to the dark. There has to be some source of light, however faint, for human eyes to see anything, and there is none.

I curl up on cold stone, shivering, and fall asleep.

I wake several times throughout the night to utter silence, never even hearing the pattering of rodent feet, which is probably for the best. Eventually morning light seeps through the cracks of the door above the stairs, rough with the shadows of splinters and nails.

The cellar is a small room, stone all around, and empty. There’s no stored food, no shelves, no barrels or blankets or bedding of any kind. Allemas had not expected to come home with me.

Skidding my feet over the floor as I go, I seek out each wall of the cellar, hoping my feet will find earth instead of stone, though I have no utensils with which to dig. It doesn’t matter, for there isn’t one weak spot to be found. The walls don’t even have loose bricks or other doors. My prison is sound.

I rest my head against the cool rock and shiver. My arms and legs have grown heavy, and my head feels full of spun sugar. The floor above me creaks, but is Allemas coming or going?

Crouching, I listen. Back and forth he moves, back and forth. I didn’t notice anything peculiar about his gait last night, but now I realize it’s never even. There isn’t a pattern to his footsteps. It’s not that he has a limp; it’s just . . . wrong. Everything about that man, about
this
, is wrong.

Any god who will hear me, please guide me
, I pray.
Let me find a way out. Let me escape. Let me eat. Please protect Arrice and Franc
and Tuck.

Tuck. Did he get the keys? Did he escape? Or was he discovered and beaten for my actions?

Had there been any food in my stomach, I would have thrown it up.

The cellar door opens, basking me in blinding, green-tinted sunlight. Wincing, I shield my face with my hands and peek through my fingers. Allemas wobbles down the first few steps and says, “Come come. Now. Come.”

I do.

To my surprise, his counters are littered with boxes and paper sacks: sugar, three kinds of flour, cocoa powder, leaven, butter, nuts, berries, raisins, salt, dyes, eggs, and herbs. There’s not enough space left to place a bowl. I can’t fathom how he got all these ingredients here so quickly. Is there a market nearby? Open at
night
?

“You’ll make a cake now,” he says, leaning over me.

I blink, trying to clear the fuzziness in my mind. I wonder if he’s forgotten I’m human.

I’ll remind him. “I need to eat.”

“You will make the cake.”

“No,” I say, soft but firm. “I haven’t eaten in two days. I can’t make what you want when I’m this hungry. Do you understand?”

It sounds like I’m speaking to Arrice’s grandchild, but the tactic works. After Allemas mulls this over, he ambles to one of the cupboards and pulls out a hard half loaf of bread. The corner is moldy, but the rest of it looks edible.

I take it from his hands and sit right there on the floor to devour it in huge mouthfuls. There are no chairs in the kitchen. Not even a table. The bread hits my stomach like crumbled bricks, but it fills me.

I crawl to the pump halfway through my breakfast and gulp down cool water. It makes me sick at first, but my head begins to clear.

Allemas watches me from the corner. I straighten my clothes, gone ragged from my hard travel with the marauders, and start rooting through his cupboards for a bowl and some utensils. Fortunately, he also purchased those, along with some pans and firewood.

“You’ll make me a cake,” he repeats.

I pause and stare at him, waiting for something within that dark hole in my memory to spark, but it doesn’t. “Have we met before?” I try.

Allemas growls. “
No
,” he answers, petulant. “
Make me a cake.
”

The bread in my stomach turns into lead, weighing down the rest of me. I can’t help but believe him; what remains of my hope fizzles like rain-drenched embers. I sigh and ask, “What do you want?” while rubbing my palm into one eye and looking out the window in the back door with the other. Lush woodland greets me. I could get lost in those trees. I doubt Allemas would find me.

Allemas grins. “Make me smart.”

He doesn’t specify a flavor, but I hardly care. As I cut butter and measure sugar, I realize the power this bizarre creature has given me. I slow my movements and focus on the task before me.

I imagine debtors in chains being absolved of their fines by generous patrons. Criminals released early for their good behavior. The small roach in my shop, and the feel of its antennae as they sought escape through my fingers. I imagine the slave traders approaching my pen and saying,
We’ve changed our mind. Go. Run while you can.

Mercy.
I have never made a mercy cake, but I pour everything I have into it, real and imagined. I think of scripture legends, little children, Arrice and Franc’s hospitality, even the ghost-man who warned me to run.

The cake is buttermilk with raisins, and as it bakes, I whisk a glaze of cream and browned butter. I’m not familiar with Allemas’s stove, so I stop to check on the cake often. It rises, and it smells heavenly. My stomach remembers the taste of sugar and spice and growls in anticipation.

Allemas merely stares as I work. I try to ignore him. Perhaps in his mercy, he’ll let me eat some of my own confection. I’m not sure how house slaves are meant to be treated; Arrice never kept any. No one in Carmine did, so far as I know. Not even the governor. We were all too poor, or perhaps too kind.

I cut Allemas a slice and serve it to him on a chipped plate.

He doesn’t use a fork, which makes me wonder if he even owns one. His eyes widen and sparkle, much like a child’s, and he licks the glaze off the top of the cake.

“Mmm!” he exclaims. A noise that would have made me smile were he truly a child and I not his prisoner. He picks up the triangle of cake in his hand and takes a large bite, chewing happily. He takes another before he’s even swallowed.

“This is very good. This is—”

He pauses, crumbs on his lips. Studies me for a long moment. His bushy, orange eyebrows tighten, and gooseflesh rises on my arms.

I feel like I’m back in Carmine, huddled in my cupboard, holding my breath as the cupboard door behind me opens and slams shut again, the marauders searching for me—

“This is not what you were supposed to make. I do
not
feel this way!”

Cake and plate hit the ground. The latter shatters. Allemas charges for me, and I throw my hands over my head, ready for a blow. Instead he grabs my arm, drags me across the kitchen, and shoves me into the cellar.

I stay down there for a very long time.

“Make me a cake,” he says.

And I do, this time focusing on intelligence. On the light in the governor’s eyes, on the library, on the riddles Franc tells around the fire after supper in the winter, when the light forces him to retire early. I think of Cleric Tuck’s lessons on philosophy, for once wishing I had paid better attention to his words. I make a chocolate cake, but it’s not rich and spicy like my love cake. I don’t have the right spices, and besides, I have no desire to create something delicious for Allemas.

It’s a light cake without topping. Simple, and exactly what Allemas requested.

He eats the entire thing, giggles, and claps his hands.

“How old are you?” I ask. I steady my legs, ready to fight back if he tries to toss me in the cellar again.

The question doesn’t rile him, however. “I don’t know,” he answers, somewhat solemnly. “How old am I?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

I study the narrowness of his face, the odd shape of his hair. I can’t decide if he’s mocking me or if there’s something inside him that’s absent. “You look to be in your midthirties.”

That makes him smile.

“I’m four and twenty,” I say, hoping that giving him a fact about myself might humanize me in his eyes, but he only laughs.

“Oh no, Maire,” he says. “You are much older than that.”

Cold laces my bones. I stiffen and feel, oddly, like I’m very far away. “What?”

He stands and passes me, walking into the front room. “I’ll show you your room.”

“But—” I hesitate. Glimpse the back door and forget the strange comment for a moment. I eye the locks parading up the doorjamb and wonder: How fast can Allemas run, with that uneven gait of his?

He growls, calling back my attention. “Do not run. I know all about you, Maire. I’ll know if you try to leave me.”

I turn back to face him and meet his bright gaze. He claims to know all about me. Is that simply because the traders told him everything they knew, or is there more to it? I cling to that brief sense of familiarity I felt while sitting across from him in the front room of the house. There has to be something more here. Perhaps he
does
have a candle to shine in the darkness of my childhood, my adolescence.

The sharp glimmer in his stare frightens away the questions pressing against my teeth.

He stomps forward, and I retreat until the small of my back hits the countertop. He pauses before me, looming like a great tidal wave.

“Give me your shoes.”

“But—”

“
Shoes!
” he bellows, and I kick them off. Their soles are nearly worn through.

He picks them up and throws them into the still-hot stove.

“What—”

“Your room is ready,” he says, cutting through my protest with calm words, as though he hadn’t just screamed at me. I step forward to show him my compliance, but I only start moving again when he heads up the stairs. I don’t want this man walking behind me.

The second floor consists of two bedrooms and a closet. He takes me down the hall and around the corner, to the door on the left. My room.

Inside are a cot and a beaten chest. Judging from the smell that permeates the walls, I’m guessing it was fetched from the bottom of the ocean and left to dry here. The floor creaks under my feet. There’s a window, but it’s been bricked up so that only a narrow strip of glass shows. It’s nowhere near large enough for me to fit through. Smears of mortar tell me the work was not professional and possibly recent. Perhaps this is what Allemas spent his time doing while I paced in the chill of the cellar.

“I am fair. I am accepting.” Again, he doesn’t seem to be speaking to me. At least, he doesn’t look at me when he says the words. “Yes. You can learn from me, Maire.”

I say nothing. The marauders taught me it was safer to be silent sometimes.

“Hmmmm,” he hums, tapping the pads of his fingers together before his nose. “I will use you. I know what you can do. But I have to speak to them first. Yes. I can lock you in here.”

My eyes glance at the door. It has several locks running down it, much like the other doors in this house. While Allemas might not have expected to bring someone home when he did, he was prepared to keep a slave.

“No, no. Rocks. Rocks. Can’t be lazy.” He grabs my elbow and drags me from my room and down the stairs, guiding me to the back door. His fingers run over the locks in an order that makes little sense. Some of the locks he unlocks and then locks again. Eventually all the bolts retract and he opens the door.

The backyard is rough with sand, pebbles, and large stones. Beyond this rocky expanse stretches endless beds of green weeds, and far beyond those, the forest.

“Move all the rocks,” he says. “To here.”

He points to the east side of the yard, seemingly choosing the spot at random.

“Why?” I dare to ask.

“To move the rocks,” he answers, as though the answer is both sound and obvious, and then he goes back inside, locking and unlocking locks again. Locking me out.

I stare at the door. I have no shackles, no chains. Nothing to keep me from running. Sparks light under my skin, fireflies scrambling to get out. Surely he doesn’t believe his earlier threat is enough to tether me to this strange place!

I wait, expecting him to either come out again or press his face against a window to watch me as he’s wont to do. But I don’t see him.

I edge backward, eyes on the door. Slip around a stone. Slow, cautious. Reach the edge of the yard. Gasp.

I leap forward as fire gnaws at my heel. Spinning around, I eye the border of green weeds. It takes only a moment for me to recognize them.

Blazeweed. It surrounds the entire yard and rolls in green waves in every direction. An entire sea of it. I would have to leap at least a dozen times to clear the narrowest patches of it, and by then its tiny, violent thorns would have eaten my feet alive, making it impossible to run.

This is why Allemas burned my shoes.

I fall to my knees, staring at this prison that’s far stronger than iron. Even if I crawled through it on my hands and knees, leaving my feet unscathed, I’d pass out from the pain. And the trees . . . There were no trees within the blazeweed prison that I could climb, and not enough stones in the yard to build a bridge. The sea of fire is narrower at the sides of the house, but Allemas thought of that, too. Fences almost as tall as the roof stem out from either side of the house, bowing into the impassable weed. Their wood is a mishmash of barbs and broken glass. Somehow Allemas even managed to coax blazeweed up some of its length, making it completely unscalable.