Frontier Chef: My Cooking Skills Are Broken-Chapter 36: Mint

"The salt disappeared!"

The girl came screaming around the corner of the commons. She was holding her empty hands out in front of her and Patches was sprinting behind her with something else that caught the light of the distant moons in the sky.

"I barely licked it and the whole bag just—"

She froze, white teeth visible and mouth hung wide open.

Her purple eyes went from Ezra to the healer, whose gentle hands were holding Ezra’s fingers, their faces an inch apart.

To the empty kitchen and the two of them on the floor.

"You were kissing!"

"Woah, hold on kid." Ezra raised his palm and pushed the woman’s face away. She moaned something quiet and leaned into his push, even.

The healer caught his hand against her cheek and held it there, savoring every second of contact.

"You were kissing a lady in the kitchen!" The girl’s skinny finger flung between Ezra and the healer, unsure who the real culprit was anymore.

The healer stood up so fast she nearly tripped over her own satchel. Her face above the veil went red enough to see in the hearth light. Even then, she brought her fingers to her face and the bloom in her cheeks darkened even more.

Ezra stood up next, making sure to keep enough space between himself and the angry little girl.

The healer behind him started muttering something under her breath, and her eyes went half-lidded.

He backed up and made sure to have equal distance between the two.

’What the fuck is going on.’

"This was a medical visit," the healer said to no one in particular.

"That’s what people say when they get caught."

The girl put herself between Ezra and the woman, then turned around because she still wasn’t sure who the initiator was.

Ezra picked her up by the collar and held her up above the ground. "Nobody got caught because nothing happened."

"Wait until I tell everyone!" She was kicking her feet now.

"Tell everyone what?" Ezra lifted her to his level, left eyebrow raised. "She was checking my back."

"With her face?"

Ezra looked at the healer who was already packing her satchel and picking up garments he hadn’t seen her take off.

"Please excuse me," she said, head low and biting her lower lip. "I must go."

"You don’t want any vegetable chips?" Ezra asked.

The girl kicked his chin and actually made contact. "Let her leave!"

"That hurt," Ezra said, rubbing his jaw. She was already priming another kick. "Do that again and I’ll feed your leg to Patches."

"I’m sorry again," the healer said, quieter this time, as if she was held at spear point and forced to say it.

She walked past them and the smell of mint lingered for a moment, already gone by the time he set the girl down.

The girl crossed her arms and looked up to the towering man.

"You’re gross."

"She’s a healer, she was doing her job."

"Gross!"

"You done?"

"Gro-ooss."

"You look hungry," Ezra said.

She climbed onto the counter and sat with her legs dangling and her arms still crossed like it was her only job that didn’t involve scrubbing pots and biting people.

Patches trotted past both of them and disappeared under the coal pit. It probably got too cold doing whatever it was out on the commons.

When Ezra leaned over to check, the Ossalaka was curled up with its snout resting on something black and glossy.

The obsidian spear.

It had been carrying it this whole time.

The smith had been forging that for two days. A custom order, he’d said. Obsidian was too brittle for weapons, or at least that’s what Ezra assumed based on random video shorts he briefly recalled.

"My salt disappeared," the girl said. "I barely licked it and the whole bag went poof."

"Yeah, it does that."

"That’s so dumb."

Ezra shrugged.

"You owe me another one, then."

"Nope, not part of the deal. You wanted the salt and you got it."

"The salt was broken!"

"Eat a root slice and stop yelling at me."

Ezra had saved her one, just in case she was hungry and angry at everything, which she was.

She picked one up off the counter and bit into it and her face did something she tried very hard to fight.

"This is good," she said, and she was still angry about it. But she chewed it all down and swallowed.

Ezra cleaned up in the meantime.

He scraped the counter down with the flat of the knife, stacked the leftover roots on the stone slab, and tied the dung sack shut with a knot that wouldn’t contain the smell overnight.

The potion was doing its work. The bruise between his shoulder blades had gone from a hot throbbing to a dull ache that he could ignore if he didn’t twist too far in either direction.

The healer had told him not to sleep on his back. Considering he didn’t have a bed, a pillow, or a surface that wasn’t volcanic rock, that was going to be a problem.

The girl was on her third root slice. Head down, both hands on the food, not looking up. She hadn’t eaten like this since the salt in the cell.

Patches was snoring under the coal pit, sandwiched between the bone spear and the obsidian spear with its ears flat and its tail curled around its nose.

’That thing has more weapons than the guards.’

The hearth glow was steady and the commons outside was empty. The green moon was climbing above the walls, turning the volcanic road the color of emerald.

The girl finished her root slice and licked her fingers.

"Where do I sleep?"

"Where have you been sleeping?"

"The cells. Underground. It’s warm down there."

"It’s warm here too."

She looked at the coal pit, then at Patches. The floor beside them was stone but warm stone, the hearth pushing heat through the ground in a slow pulse.

"Here?"

"Unless you’d rather go back to the cells."

"I didn’t say that."

"So stay."

She slid off the counter and sat down beside Patches at the coal pit. The Ossalaka shifted in its sleep to press against her side.

Her chin went to her knees and she watched the symbols glow for a while. The volcanic grit was still on her arms and cheeks and in her hair.

She picked at a crack in the stone with her fingernail and something caught between the floor and the ledge. A folded piece of paper, damp at the edges.

"What’s this?"

She held it up, her eyebrows doing something stupid, and handed it over.

Ezra took it and unfolded it.

It was the third note. He’d forgotten all about it.

On the paper was Leyla’s handwriting, steady and precise.

She is in danger. Protect her.

He looked at the girl.

She was already back to picking at the crack, uninterested. She looked about as dangerous as a housecat and about as in danger as one too.

’Leyla’s fucking with me. Has to be. Runs in the family.

Besides, looks like the girl can’t even read. Better that than her screaming about being in danger.’

He folded it and tucked it into his waistband since his pants didn’t have pockets.

The girl’s eyes were half-closed now. Her breathing had slowed and Patches was pressed against her and the hearth was warm enough that neither of them needed a blanket.

’Briefing’s tomorrow. Neve and the commander and the whole family tree of Harken.

About a wyvern I’d rather forget exists.’

He sat on the floor and closed his eyes.

His back settled against the warm stone and the potion kept doing its job.

’And I need to ask Neve to help me talk to a tribe of jackals about digging a hole. That should go well.’

He tried for ten minutes, then thirty. Then an hour. But he couldn’t sleep at all.

Something was bothering him.

’Why the fuck doesn’t anyone tell me their name?’

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