“Excellent,” said Alfric. He was first in line and used the ladle to fill his bowl, then grabbed a spoon from the pile that Mizuki had set out and started eating without waiting for anyone.
“Did you not have breakfast this morning?” asked Mizuki. “Are you really crazy enough to walk twelve miles on an empty stomach?”
Alfric nodded and continued to wolf down the stew, which was hot enough to make curls of steam in the cool air.
“What is this?” asked Verity as she ladled a bowl.
“Chunks of venison, sage, rosemary, onion, potato, sweet potato, tomato, parsnips, garlic, ginger, um, salt, white pepper, um…” Mizuki tapped her foot, trying to remember. “Rutabaga, turnip. I think that’s it. Maybe some spices I’m forgetting, possibly another root vegetable—carrot! There’s carrot too.”
“It’s great,” said Alfric. He was still eating, but had slowed down halfway into the bowl. Mizuki was gratified to see him going through it quickly. “Do you have training?”
“From my mom, with the more practical stuff, and dad, for mixing flavors and creating new things,” said Mizuki. “But ‘training’ is probably giving Dad too much credit. He had a lot of ideas about what made for good food and tried to get me involved from a young age.” As was tradition in her house, not that she’d told the others, she took her own bowl last and gently blew on it to make sure that it wouldn’t burn her. By the time she’d taken the first bite, Alfric was already finished.
“Is there enough for me to have another bowl?” he asked, looking somewhat guilty.
“Of course,” said Mizuki. “I made enough for all of us, Isra, and one other.”
“Who was the one more meant to be?” asked Alfric as he ladled up more for himself.
“It’s just good manners and good sense, if you have the ingredients,” said Mizuki. “Either it’s something to eat for dinner, or you can host someone unexpected.”
“This is good stuff, ay?” asked Hannah, having finished her bowl. She ate quickly too, Mizuki noticed. Once she was finished, she reached for the bread. “Do you have butter?” she asked.
“Of course,” nodded Mizuki, slipping off her chair and going to get the butter dish.
“Sorry that the strawberry bread doesn’t go better with the stew,” Hannah said. “Next time, we can work together to plan it out.”
“I think it’ll be fine,” said Mizuki. “What would go better with this stew?”
“Oh, just something in the same palate, ay?” asked Hannah. “Rosemary and ginger or sage and garlic, that sort of thing. Something to sop up the sauce.”
“Well when you put it that way, I feel like I’m missing out,” said Mizuki. “And shoot, I’m going to need to make dinner for tonight, but there’s almost nothing in the chiller.” She frowned. “Do you think that when Isra hunts, she just tells the animals to lay down and die?”
“Don’t make fun,” said Alfric.
“I’m curious!” said Mizuki. “And then maybe that’s just what she thinks hunting is like for everyone.”
“I doubt she’d be so handy with a bow if it were that easy for her,” said Verity. “And Alfric is right, you shouldn’t make fun.”
“She’s a weird one though, right?” asked Mizuki. “I mean, we can all agree on that, can’t we? Just blithely wandering through the world, especially at our age, thinking that everyone can control the weather and talk to cats and whatever else?”
“‘Our age’?” asked Alfric. “Aren’t you twenty-two?”
“You know what I mean,” said Mizuki. “And four years doesn’t make that much difference, does it?”
“I think we’re all weird in our own ways,” said Alfric.
“A bunch of misfits, you mean?” asked Mizuki.
“Well, when I said ‘we’ I meant everyone,” he replied. “I don’t think that the five of us are all that different from, um, normal people.”
“Certainly more mages though,” said Hannah. “Not that I’m a mage, or Verity really is either, or Isra, for that matter, but you take my meaning.”
“I’m a sorc, not a mage,” said Mizuki. “You know, ‘mage’ is probably one of the least helpful words anyone has ever invented. It covers everything from alienists to chrononauts.”
“Chrononauts aren’t mages,” said Alfric.
“Well, yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” said Mizuki. “With the sole
exception of wizards, you can make an argument for
“Why are chrononauts not mages?” asked Verity, turning to him.
“It has nothing to do with the aether,” he said, shrugging.
“Everything extranormal is mediated by the aether,” said Hannah, as though she’d read that in a book somewhere or possibly was regurgitating something from a lesson at her seminary.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true for chrononauts,” said Alfric.
“Well, either way,” said Verity. “They have a magical ability to go back in time. Isn’t that where the term ‘mage’ comes from? From magical ability?”
“Not sure if it does,” said Hannah. “Seems circular to me.”
