The bowtied Frenchman looked to David, who made a choking motion, grasping fingers outward towards the nameless coward.

“Half of my staff are already gone, are you seriou— sorry, please excuse my impropriety, but doesn’t someone of your… great talents have some part to play now?”

“No. Perhaps later, but now I want my food. You will continue to play your part in serving this need.”

The bar handle mustache was starting to droop. Perhaps it needed more wax. Its owner wringed his hands in a clear expression of dissatisfaction, but said nothing further.

David kicked back his chair on two legs and folded his hands behind his head, sandaled feet on the table. He did not revert this posture when Amanda glared at him.

“So,” David began, “You should make yourself comfortable, we have much to discuss.”

Amanda was sitting firmly upright in her wooden chair. Though there was padding on the seat, a velvet cushion, and the unpadded back wasn’t in use, David didn’t imagine the posture was at all pleasant to maintain.

“Well, suit yourself. How have things been in the past… however long?”

“Six months.”

“Things have been fine. Like I said before, time feels like it’s passing faster now.”

“Right. About that, would you say your magic is stronger now?”

“It’s not surprising that I’m better at magic when I’m enrolled as a full-time student with a prestigious teacher.”

“Zi-Lor?”

“Right. They had me take your place in the class.”

“I guess the baby held a grudge. Did you have a chance to abort it?”

“What?”

“Nevermind.”

“Did you have to get yourself killed again? And what’s this about being David now?,” Amanda said, taking control of the next topic of conversation.

“Nothing has fundamentally changed. I assume the same is true for you.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I remember you as being less prone to violence.”

“The last time we were together you helped me butcher a village lol.”

Amanda giggled, “I suppose that’s true.”

The soup arrived.

To his expectation, it tasted like there was a lot of spit and possibly some urine in there, not that it bothered David. Human body fluids contained small traces of magical power, so it was actually better this way given he could neither sicken nor succumb to rot or poison.

It wasn’t like he needed food either, but food did make for an excellent topic of conversation.

“So, how’s the…” she didn’t order soup.

“Sandwich?”

“Good.” She said between mouthfuls of lettuce and tomato. Why someone would order a sandwich without meat was beyond him. It’s like committing genocide without slaughter. Where’s the fun if not in carnage?

Or like ordering broth soup in all the same absence of meat, which was probably the more appropriate comment, though by this point David didn’t care anymore.

Mr barhandle attempted to escape out the doors.

“Where do you think you’re going? I haven’t dismissed you yet, nor have we taken orders for dessert!”

He jumped, clearly startled and regretful of not attempting to take the back door instead.

“Well, you see,” he began, but was swiftly drowned out by the growing cacophony of fire and death from outside.

“Where the hell are the defenders?” David asked himself silently.

“I don’t fucking care. Your place is the kitchen, now get in there and make me an ice-cream sandwich!”

The soup balanced on David’s chest began to spill as he shouted, but he adroitly caught it between his fingers and drank it through the ten flesh straws attached by the wrist without allowing a single drop to meet the floor.

“Very good sir.”

“Just one question?”

David glared, but he asked anyway.

“What’s an “ice-cream?””

David groaned.

“Figure it out.”

When the Frenchman came back with frozen cream placed in between slices of sweetbread David nearly beheaded him, but then the explosions from outside came just a bit too close for comfort.

Which is to say the roof exploded.

Little shards of wood and dust flew all over the room, and Mr. Barhandle dropped the plate, which shattered, as he began to try and make distance between himself and the collapsing building.

David paced over to the dropped plate and began to chew the abomination alongside shards of glass, narrowly being missed by the fifty pound golden chandelier that came crashing down where he was once sitting. Amanda, meanwhile, had stood up and moved approximately three feet to the side where golden guillotines narrowly missed her on all sides as if expecting this outcome.

“It seems I am no longer able to ignore the tide of battle,” David mused.

“You’d better go help before something worse happens,” Amanda said, simultaneously conjuring thin wisps of red mist to support the roof at oddly-spaced intervals.

The glass burned as it shredded David’s gums, often getting stuck like popcorn kernels. He spat out the rest and waited to heal— glass wasn’t worth the taste, but it was too late to kill the Frenchman for his insolence. The lucky bastard was already gone.

Whatever, he would be dead soon anyway.