We found the kitchen exactly where the guard had told us, down a flight of stairs on the left-hand side of the keep. I looked up before we entered: one, two, three, four floors. Kossi was kept somewhere in there, three levels above the kitchen. How was I supposed to get up there?

I told the head cook the same tale I’d served to the guards. Teya, Silia and Demy had a bad case of food poisoning and had asked us to come and give a hand.

She had exactly the reaction I expected. A deep frown and hands on her hips.

“You’re friends of Teya? How come I don’t know you?”

“That’s because we’re from…” Remember, Alicia! When Esthar showed me the map of Inabar, did I notice the name of a place besides Malo? “Lushin. We only arrived today.”

“Teya has friends from Lushin?”

The look of disbelief on her face made my heart race. I couldn’t mess this up, not so close to Kossi.

“Why, yes, of course! Her second cousin married my best mate, but the marriage was short-lived, and…” I pointed my chin at Catalin. “This girl, poor soul, was beaten up so hard that she’s kind of an idiot, now. Go through me if you want anything from her. She won’t catch a word you’re saying.”

I had to come up with this lie because, while Chess, who was from the neighbor state of Bamir, understood some Inabarian, Catalin didn’t. Pretending she was an idiot was an insult a brave Magic Arts student like her didn’t deserve, but she’d get over it. At least, it explained why she didn’t react to what other cooks would say.

By the time I finished telling my tale of food poisoning and convoluted family ties, two other people in the kitchen were bent in two, complaining from stomachache. The head cook rolled her eyes. In my native world, she’d facepalm.

“All right. There was something in the food. I have no idea how it happened, but we’ll be short on personnel if I send you back, so you can stay, for now. You’ll help, but I’m keeping an eye on you, is it clear? And we’ll be discussing this with Teya once it’s over.”

Once it’s over, we’ll be gone. Or dead.

Since we were newcomers, we got assigned to peeling vegetables. We were given small knives, a pile of vegetables, and told to stand near the windows at the back of the kitchen.

“Throw the peels out as you work,” said the cook who supervised us.

Behind her, a servant who’d just come down the stairs moaned in pain. She was holding her stomach. Catalin is good at this, but I don’t want her to overdo herself. The only problem is, I can’t tell her. If I speak Brealian now, everyone will figure out we’re foreigners.

Chess nodded and I forced myself to smile to the cook.

“All right, thank you.”

I looked out of the window. This was the cliff Faur had told us about: a steep drop to a forest far below. The fortress had been built as close to the precipice as possible. How many builders had fallen to their deaths, back then? In any case, the place was impregnable from this side. Long unidentifiable stains stretched down the walls below us.

Waste management: throw everything down the cliff. Simple, efficient. Whatever smells bad will be too far down to bother you. Bonus points: it’ll fertilize the soil below.

Over the next hour or so, Catalin used her miniature fire balls to make more people sick. After a while, some began complaining about headaches, too. Or swollen legs. The food poisoning theory seemed to be spreading faster than the actual magic-induced heartburn.

Give me a good mass hysteria anytime.

While I was cleaning pots, I overheard a conversation between the head cook and a man. Apparently, the person who was supposed to bring dinner trays to the upper floors wasn’t feeling good. I had no idea who it was, but it was my time to shine.

I put my pot down and headed straight to them.

“Hello, do you need someone to volunteer for that task?”

They both glanced at me. “Who are you again?”

“Alicia. Teya’s friend. Helping at the kitchen on her behalf.”

The man crossed his arms. “What makes you believe you’re healthy enough to do it? We’re talking about carrying trays up several floors, and this is a fortress. The stairs are uneven, on purpose.”

Call me old and I’ll slap you. In fact, call me middle-aged and I’ll slap you, too. I’m forty years young and more than fit enough for the job.

I tried my best to keep smiling.

“I can do that. I’d love to, actually. Anyway, I’ll be supervised, won’t I?”

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“Hopefully.”

Does this word mean that many guards are incapacitated and he doesn’t know if he can spare one for me? That’d be wonderful!

He looked at the head cook. “I’ll let you know if I need this new assistant of yours.”

And he went up the stairs.

As soon as he was gone, the head cook pointed to the sink. She looked both worried and angry. “Get back to work, Alicia. What were you thinking? Nobody wants this task!”

“Why not?”

She gave me the kind of side look that suggested even five-year-olds knew that.

“It’s exhausting. We prepare individual trays here, and you have to walk up and down the stairs multiple times! On top of that, a strange man’s been staying at the third floor for the past ten days. Everyone says he’s dangerous.”

“How so?”

“They say he’s strong enough to snap a neck with one hand. I don’t want to be anywhere near him, and you shouldn’t, either.”

I wonder how they know that.

I tried to look frightened, when all I could feel was excitement. Kossi was there. He’d been there for a while, even before he first attacked Carastra. And I was one task away from finally being in the same room as him.

“Why is he here?” I asked.

The head cook shrugged. “We don’t know. Lord Saegorg brought him along. He locked him up, but he said we were to treat him as an honorable guest.” She came closer to me and whispered. “Judging by the way he screams sometimes, he’s insane.”

Or fighting against a spell that forces him to do terrible things.

I nodded. “I understand. Thanks for the warning. I’ll do my best to stay away from the man, if I do have to bring him dinner.”

Please, please, let me go up there and check the symbol on his neck! We need to be out of this castle before anyone understands that we’re nobody’s friends here.

I went back to the sink and waited for Catalin to give chance a boost.

By the end of the afternoon, it seemed half the castle personnel was reporting sick. I was finally asked to carry meals to the upper floors. Victory!

I put up my best worried face. It felt like pretending to be angry at a pupil’s stupid mistake, when I actually thought it was hilarious. I hoped I’d be left to myself, but one guard was assigned to my safety. In practice, all he did was keep a tired eye on me as he guided me from the kitchen to a room, then down to the kitchen, rinse and repeat.

The first floor was used by guards. I brought an individual dinner to a few officers who looked at me sideways, then went back to whatever they were doing, ostensibly showing how insignificant I was, compared to their mission. Other cooks took on from there, bringing large pots to a room that served as a mess.

Meanwhile, as my legs began to burn a little, I brought other trays to the second floor. The rooms there looked much nicer and warmer. There were woolen carpets on the floor and tapestries on the walls.

“Is this where Lord Saegorg lives?” I asked.

The guard sighed. “Lord Saegorg has his own apartments, and I’m not telling you where they are. He eats his own food, anyway, cooked by his personal chef. This floor is for the lord’s relatives.”

I served a few women and children, but no adult men. Everyone on the second floor acted exactly like I expected them to, being the local lord’s cousins or nephews. They totally ignored me, not interrupting their conversations, and beginning to eat casually, as if the trays appeared on the tables by themselves, without a human being to bring them.

I fought an urge to wave a hand in front of one woman. Not being noticed was one thing. Being consciously unseen was quite upsetting.

Teeth clenched, fake smile pasted on, I walked up and down until everyone was served.

Next stop, third floor!

“Will you be all right?” asked the head cook when she filled the plates for my next delivery.

I couldn’t help noticing the portion was significantly larger than the previous ones. It also contained a lot of meat.

“Do you mean this tray is for the strange man upstairs?”

“Yes.” She put a hand on my arm. “Alicia, be quick, don’t talk to him, and if you want to get back safely, don’t meet his gaze!”

“His gaze?” I winced theatrically. “Is he a monster?”

“Probably. Lord Saegorg won’t let us talk about it, but…”

“Enough!” snapped the guard. “As you said, Lord Saegorg doesn’t allow this kind of conversation!”

I looked for Catalin and found her stirring a large pan of sauce. We exchanged gazes across the kitchen. Could she make the guard sick as well? She nodded discreetly.

I picked up my tray. It was the heaviest I’d had to carry so far, so I adjusted my grip before walking up the stairs again. My legs were really tired at this point, but it was the end of the effort. Every step I took brought me closer to my goal.

The guard side-eyed me.

“You’re about to feed the monster. Why are you smiling?”

I tilted my head from side to side.

“I like a bit of danger. Don’t you?”

He shrugged. He tried to put up a brave face, but I could see he was feeling unwell. Catalin was doing a great job.

The room was locked from the outside, but nothing else made it look like a prison. When the guard unlocked and let me in, I discovered a comfortable room. There were green tapestries on either side of the bed, a beautifully carved wardrobe against the wall, a table and a chair in a corner, and no bars on the window. It did look more medieval than eighteenth-century, but so did the rest of the keep.

Technically, Kossi could jump out of the window and fly away anytime. The only thing that’s really keeping him inside is the spell.

Speaking of Kossi, he was nowhere to be seen. I frowned at the guard, who pointed to the table, silently asking me to leave the tray there.

“Sir, I’m bringing you dinner!” I said in Inabarian.

Kossi stood up from behind the bed, as gorgeous as I remembered, with his dark brown skin, black coils and golden gaze. He frowned when he recognized me.

“What…”

I smiled, but I still needed to play my part.

“It is okay if I leave the tray here?”

Kossi nodded. He saw the guard and a hint of a smile lit his face. “You look sick, sir.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“But I do! Do you want to sit down?”

The guard winced, but he refused the offer.

Kossi walked to me, took the tray from my hands and put it on the table. “Why are you here? You must be mad!”

“I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

The guard gasped.

“Do you two know each other?”

He could no longer hide his pain. His arms were crossed over his tabard and he kept grimacing.

Kossi took a look at him, then at the open door. There was a blur of black clothes, and the next clear picture I saw was the guard falling to the floor, and the dragon with his fist still hanging in the air.

“He’s alive!” Kossi protested, as if I had a reason to suspect he wasn’t.

I can see that. The moaning is a major clue.

Since there was no need to keep speaking Inabarian, I switched to Brealian. “I can’t take you out of here, can I?”

“I’m afraid not. I must obey Lord Saegorg, and he ordered me to stay in this room until he told me otherwise.”

“Then if we’re stuck here, let me give us minimum intimacy.”

I rushed to grasp the key, close the door and lock it from the inside. It’d buy us time if things went south.

“Thank you,” said Kossi. “Now, let’s talk.”