Page 40 of Ogres Don't Play
Lanise made a disgusted sound. “Sleep better when catch killer.” She patted my shoulder. “We find soon.”
I tucked the box of jewelry tighter to my chest, the cardboard pressing into my collarbone while the cold night air sent a chill through me. It would be so easy for something terrifying to come out of those waters and pull me under.
Driver stepped around me so he was on the outside, with Lanise on my opposite. It’s like he could hear what I was thinking, and wanted to reassure me even if the logical attack would come from the dock side.
Soon enough, I was tucked in the back seat with Lanise, Driver at the wheel, the box of pretty jewelry on my lap.
The kitchen was in the basement of the music hall, and it hadn’t been updated for centuries. At least it felt like it. We started first thing in the morning, with the soup, which you had to make before you cooled the water enough and put the eels in. The eels were only two feet long, so the pot was this massive cauldron that I could easily have climbed into. While I cooked, I sang, mixing this, stirring that, and all of them the most subtle setting up imaginable.
I wasn’t only cooking for Magr, I was spelling him. Subtlety wasn’t exactly my natural state of being, so it would take some effort, but to finally drag some answers out of him, it would be worth it.
The brain yam pudding was by far the most disgusting, but I tried not to really process what it was I was chopping up. Driver’s directions were very brief, as you’d expect, but clearly knowledgeable, so everything got on the heat and then off again before it burned. The scent of lamb roasting brought countless musicians in to see what was going on, but Lanise was the guard, so no one got through. Whew. Good thing I had her to protect me from the real dangers. Actually, the greatest challenge was Yaga. She kept poufing into the kitchen and start scratching in the brains, or the salad, and however barbaric ogres were, they didn’t want chicken droppings in their food.
It took all day, moving from one dish to the next, spelling with each stir, but finally, the eel was ready to go in the broth, and then all the dishes were carried up the stairs to be set outside my bedroom, on the roof balcony, which had a shield on it, for privacy as well as safety.
I sat in a chair in front of the blue yam and brain pudding playing my harp with the evening sky edging towards orange and pink when Magr climbed over the side of the hall, landing without the slightest thump on the stone deck, his enormous figure a shock, because I hadn’t seen him for a week. Any time I’d seen him in my periphery, I turned around. Why had I been avoiding him? I hadn’t been avoiding him as much as I had things to do, and he had things to do, because he had to direct the ogres that worked on my hall, more coming every day.
The musicians should have been terrified, but it’s hard to really freak out about ogres when they’re repairing walls and roofs and completely ignoring everyone else.
Magr studied the beautiful dinner before his eyes met mine. My fingers slipped off the harp, because his eyes were so incredibly knowing. It’s like he knew exactly the spells I’d put on dinner, exactly what song I was playing and its origins, as well ashow sick I was of wearing elven light armor. And he knew who I was, andwhatI was.
He slowly settled down in the specially reinforced chair I’d brought for the occasion, then nodded at my harp. “Salida’s dirge? Is that really appropriate?”
And here he was, proving my point. It was an elven tune, not as obscure as the one I’d played for Rook, but still. “As appropriate as you knowing the piece. Do you play?”
He hesitated before he gave a short nod. “I play a little. Do you intend to play while I eat? That’s not very companionable.”
“You think I’d enjoy bone salad? I’d break my pretty little teeth.”
He flashed a smile that showed his enormous tusks. “How convenient that I arranged for your pretty little teeth’s well-being.”
The next moment, three ogres swung over the side of the building, carrying bags that they unloaded on the already full table, all the things I liked, including healthy options like salad, and mashed yams without the brains, but best of all and most impossible to resist, sushi.
I gasped when an ogre pulled the sushi boat out of the bag and set it next to the cauldron of live eel soup. I frowned at Magr. It would be a lot harder to cast spells while I was distracted by sushi, but like I could resist.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I finally said to Magr, frowning at the enormous ogre, who had watched me watch the unloading with an intensity they usually saved for sharpening weapons. Well, I was kind of a weapon in his arsenal of propaganda.
He bared his teeth in a smile. “It is my pleasure.” His voice rumbled, low and melodic. Was that amusement? It felt like seduction, but like I’d ever been seduced by anything other than music. I wasn’t about to start now. Although the sushi was so pretty.
“Please, eat,” I said, gesturing at the table.
“For your thanks, for my saving your life? Or to enspell me?” He sniffed deeply at the bone salad in front of him while my skin went cold and I felt like I was going to snap. “It is a very subtle spell. Excellent work.”
I scowled at him as the fear morphed into irrational anger. “Thank you. What can I say? I was inspired by the fact that you’ve never told me anything, but you have how many of your people working in my hall? What is your plan? Some have asked if you’re intending to take Singsong City by force.”
“My plan? That’s what you want to know?”
I gripped my harp too hard, and I worried for a moment that the wood would crack. I put it down on the ground and leaned my elbows on the table while I glared at him. “Among other things.”
He took the large serving fork, stabbed it into the salad bowl that I usually used for popcorn, and took an enormous bite. Bones crunched, teeth snapped, and then he took another bite, eating steadily until the bowl was empty, and then he reached for the brain yam pudding.
“Are you crazy? You can’t eat food that you know is enspelled.”
He smiled at me and raised the serving spoon that he’d no doubt use as effectively to demolish the brain yam pudding as he had the bone salad. “I wouldn’t want to diminish your efforts.”
“So you think you can resist my spelling.” That was possible.
“Or I am willing to disclose anything you wish to know. Truth can be a burden, but they say it can also set you free.” He took an enormous bite of the purple yams and brain.