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Citra was talented at a great many things, but cooking was not one of them.
The duty of bringing Scythe Faraday his bedtime milk was within her skillset, but there was not much above that. In the three months since she had been brought into his apprenticeship she had burnt, fermented, congealed, and ruined dinner twenty-seven times. That was twenty-seven times too many for her liking. Scythe Faraday’s decree that nothing go to waste meant that she had been forced to consume her own cooking on every one of those humiliating occasions, and she was glad that that was all he saw as needed to prove her own failings.
Citra Terranova did not take failure well.
In her spare moments where she was not studying, observing a gleaning, or training, she took to searching the Thunderhead for recipes. She found herself annoyed at her mother for having not taught her basic culinary skills sooner, but then remembered that until three months ago, she had thought there was plenty more time for that. Many more years of highschool and college to learn such things.
She also found it so much more frustrating that the Thunderhead could not provide more of a masterclass. If she had asked it to teach her some cooking skills before taking on the apprenticeship, she would have been given personalised meal plans, preparation instructions, lists of methods and equipment and ingredients that she could then utilise. It would have followed her through the process, advising her on which of her favourite dishes she could achievably cook, and offering support if they still went wrong.
Instead she was alone in Scythe Faraday’s sparse but surprisingly well-stocked kitchen, aware that there would be no sympathy if she once again served not only her teacher but her rival another subpar supper.
There was a recipe clinging to the corners of her mind that had seemed manageable – quiche. The Thunderhead’s databases had provided over eight hundred thousand different recipes for quiche from every cookery book every published, as well as the life-recordings of many notable chefs from the Age of Mortality. She had skimmed ten of them before deciding that it seemed mostly to be common sense, and accompanied Scythe Faraday on their next grocery shop to collect the ingredients.
Except that, now they were in front of her, they seemed insubstantial. Eggs, spinach, cheddar, flour, milk… surely there had to be something more. But that meant that she had forgotten. Citra didn’t know which felt like the worse outcome.
Toxicology, she was a master at. She knew which poisons could be made more efficient with combination. She knew what poisons became antidotes against their own kind. Cooking was a little like that, right?
So why did her brain seem to resist any attempt to comingle the recipes she had read at the library?
It was ridiculous. Nothing panicked Citra when it came to knowledge, recall or application. And yet when faced with a seemingly inadequate ingredient list, everything seemed to crumble.
With a groan, she went to the cupboard to look for a pie dish. There were none to be found. She retrieved a rolling pin for the pastry and a mixing bowl for the filling, but there was no use in preparing either element if there was nothing to put it in, was there? Her head clipped the edge of the kitchen island as she stood, and Citra repressed the deep growl of annoyance that threatened to make itself audible.
Any noise and Scythe Faraday, if he were around, might come in and ask if she was struggling. She couldn’t bear for him to see her struggle over some simple cooking. It was tolerable when she got gleaning-related questions wrong – after all, she had only been an apprentice scythe since the start of the year. But cookery? That was laughable. That made her worse than the majority of people she knew.
It made her worse than Rowan.
Rowan, who, on the first night that he had been requested to cook, served a lasagne with homemade garlic bread and green beans baked in a spiced marinara. Rowan, who reminded her of expiry dates on their condiments and snatched produce out of her hands in the grocery store when he noticed a fault with it. Rowan, who made sure there was always dessert no matter who had made the main meal.
Rowan, who, despite everything about him that might suggest otherwise, was an excellent chef.
It maddened her. How could he understand these food-related matters on a level that alluded her? How was it that he just got, on this fundamental level, how to cook? Why couldn’t she learn it? Why didn’t she retain it?
Citra Terranova did not take failure well, but she took second place even worse. It would embarrass her for Scythe Faraday to see this pitiful struggle, but it would be an insult too far for Rowan to witness it, just as he had the last twenty-seven times that she had served something borderline inedible for their evening or midday meal.
She checked the refrigerator again, but none of the items staring back at her looked as if they had been bought with quiche in mind. Once again she mourned the loss of the Thunderhead, who would have told her exactly what the recipe required and reminded her of the grocery list she had written with it in mind, and likely been able to tell her which of the nearby stores were still open and selling what she needed on the off-chance she hadn’t already bought it.
This was the immortal life of a scythe: stuck not knowing how to make quiche.
Citra braced herself over the counter and scraped a hand through her hair, trying not to make this as big of a deal as it already felt. Already she was struggling in the absence of the Thunderhead, and barely a season without it had passed.
Utterly ridiculous. She needed to get a grip.
What she needed was dinner, and dinner she would make.
Citra grabbed the weighing scales from beside the coffee maker, and reached over for the mixing bowl to begin approximating quantities of flour and milk for the pastry. Presumably there was an ideal ratio, but whatever it was, she couldn’t remember. None of the recipes she had skimmed seemed to agree on how much flour made enough pastry.
But as she reached for the mixing bowl, her elbow caught on the eggs loose on the countertop. They began to roll towards the floor, and although her quick reactions saved three, two more fell to the tiles regardless. A horrible wet smash broke the silence, and Citra flushed with frustration. Placing the other eggs in the mixing bowl so that they wouldn’t similarly betray her, she went to the pantry to fetch a mop.
Unfortunately, when she returned, there was someone else in the kitchen.
Rowan, barefoot and holding an empty glass.
“Dinner’s going well, then?” he prompted, a smile not sufficiently repressed.
“Don’t walk in here or you’ll get eggshells in your feet.”
He turned, and she hoped that he would leave for good, but unfortunately he was back within moments, now in house shoes.
“Pass me that,” he said, gesturing for the mop.
“I can handle it myself,” she snapped back, wrenching it out of his reach. It was just like him to come in and taunt her when she made a mistake. He was insufferably cool and quiet in front of Faraday, but his inclination to joke around came out in full force when the two of them were alone. It made her want to slap him.
Rowan sighed and went to the fridge, pouring himself a fresh glass of juice. “Fine, if you want to spend an extra ten minutes cleaning up rather than cooking dinner, I’ll just stand here and supervise.”
Citra glared at him. “Go punch the Bokator dummy.”
“I did that this morning.”
He leaned back on the counter in a comfortable, confident pose that made her more irrationally angry at him.
“What are you trying to make?” he asked her. “Omelette?”
“A cheese and spinach quiche.”
His eyebrows raised appraisingly. “That’ll be nice if you can pull it off.”
Gritting her teeth, Citra scrubbed the floor harder. Of course he took the opportunity to comment on her inability to cook. She hoped Scythe Faraday gave them the chance to spar each other soon – kicking him where it hurt would bring her plenty of relief.
“I find it easier to focus without smirking idiots watching me,” she said pointedly.
“Good job it’s just me here, then. No idiots around.”
“You don’t deny the smirk, I notice.”
His smile deepened. “What can I say? I’m amused.”
At least if she once again ruined dinner, she would have the satisfaction of watching Rowan stomach it. They were all lucky that their nanites could neutralise any digestive issues – no matter how unpalatable her cooking, none of them had become unwell from it. Just repulsed. “You won’t be when you have to eat it.”
Rowan actually laughed at that. “Maybe I should be glad it’s ended up on the floor.”
“Perhaps it’s part of my process,” she retorted. She could be clever with her words too.
Rowan shrugged, sipping his juice. “You know what they say about having to break a few eggs to make a quiche.”
“Nobody says that.”
“Well, I did.”
He was the most infuriating individual she had ever been forced to live with, her brother included.
There was no more yolk on the floor, so Citra turned again to her now greatly diminished pile of ingredients. She would have to work out how to stretch the filling to feed three without a third of the eggs she’d bought.
“I can help you, you know,” Rowan offered. Citra turned, ready to make another scathing remark, but there was a cautious compassion on his face that shut her up. This wasn’t another taunt, apparently.
“I manage just fine by myself, thank you,” she replied stiffly.
He chuckled, extending a hand towards the tiles. “Well, clearly you don’t. I would know – are you aware most food isn’t meant to be black when you take it out of the oven?”
“If you just came in here to laugh at me, you can go right back to your bedroom and f—”
“Easy, Citra, please. I’m making a genuine offer.” There was a bunching in his shoulders that reminded Citra of when she had visited a wildlife park as a child. The rangers, although they knew any injuries could not be fatal, still raised their arms in defence when a lion lunged or a bear swiped. Rowan treated her like some caged creature always on the verge of attack.
It saddened her a little. While her temper frequently led her to challenge authority and circumstance she disagreed with, she wasn’t typically an aggressive person – in fact, she was more inclined to avoid conflict altogether unless she felt she could bear the impact. But as soon as Scythe Faraday had entered her life, Citra’s hackles had been raised. Always expecting to be made the fool of – always ready to remedy that. She did not like being out of control, or unaware. Becoming Faraday’s apprentice had forced her to become more familiar with that discomfort, and competing with Rowan had given her a target for it.
It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t her fault, either, but she never blamed herself for these things. Always him.
The fact was that many boys like Rowan had asked her on dates during school. They hadn’t seen her as a carnivore about to leap – just another sophomore with a spare weekend and a hand to hold. She had been sarcastic, and dismissive, sometimes, but ultimately there was a reason why those propositions had been made. She wasn’t always so averse to boys with a tendency towards teasing. This wasn’t how she had always been; this was a survival mechanism, built in to save her from humiliation. From coming in second.
And that wasn’t on Rowan.
She didn’t like him. He was cocky, and quick-tongued, and achieved too much with too little ease. But she had no reason to be unkind other than her own defensiveness and now too frequently wounded pride.
With a sigh, Citra inclined her head. She gave a shrug of acceptance.
“I’m pretty bored of burnt food too.”
Rowan exhaled with a quiet grin and drained his glass. He came to stand beside her and appraise the ingredients.
“Quiche, right?” he said. She nodded. “Where’s the butter?”
“What butter?”
“If you’re making pastry by hand, you need butter.”
Citra scoffed. “No you don’t, it’s flour, salt, and milk.”
“Trust me, you aren’t going to get something solid enough to hold a liquid filling with that,” Rowan chuckled. “Unless you have some ready-made pastry hidden somewhere, we need butter too.”
“Well, I haven’t got any, so you’re just going to have to make do…” Citra trailed off as Rowan went to the fridge and pulled out a paper-wrapped block.
“Good job I had Scythe Faraday pick up extra. Okay, do you know how to make pastry?”
She just glared up at him.
“I’m going to assume that’s a no. Shall I take lead here?”
“By all means,” Citra replied grimly.
As painful as it was to acquiesce to his superior knowledge, Citra let Rowan walk her through making what she learned was a shortcrust pastry. The pain was entirely internal, though – Rowan was a patient teacher, and he didn’t attempt to humble her throughout the process. He laughed at her when she spilt flour down the front of her jeans, but he didn’t taunt her any more than that. In fact, he fetched the mop to clean the floor again.
When they had the flour and butter measured out in ratios that Rowan somehow knew, he turned to her and reached for her hands.
“How hot are you?”
His hands were large, and sturdy, and warm. They squeezed her fingers gently, and it was an uncomfortable amount of contact compared to usual. She had punched him, wrestled him, straddled his chest while perfecting a stranglehold, and yet Rowan holding her hands for a brief second felt entirely foreign. And although it was easy to designate the feeling as uncomfortable, what was worse was the reality that it felt nice.
“Oh, you’re so cold,” Rowan gasped. “It’s like you’re made of ice.”
“It’s chilly in here,” she said, offended.
“No, it’s perfect. Cold hands are way better for making pastry, because it keeps the butter solid. You can rub it in, then?”
“Rub… what?” If he was turning this into a euphemism, she might have to return to her stranglehold practice.
“You have to rub the butter into the flour and salt until it looks like breadcrumbs. Okay, fine, I’ll show you.”
With his reportedly too-warm hands, Rowan demonstrated the action of rubbing in, checking constantly that Citra was following. When he was satisfied that she understood he watched her attempt it, floury hands on his hips.
“No, not quite like that,” he assessed after only a few moments. “It’s more of a smooth motion, you’re squishing them.”
“I’m trying,” Citra retorted. Rowan’s shoulders bunched again.
“I know, I know. But if you want to be good at this, then that’s how.” He reached for the bowl and then withdrew. “Can I show you again?”
She was trying. She would let him help. But rather than slide the bowl to him, Citra remained standing. So he leaned over her, breath caressing her ear as he plunged his hands in beside hers and adjusted her fingers.
“It’s a…” he explained, punctuating his words with a squeeze of her grasp that mimicked the movement he had perfected, “…you see?”
“I think so,” she strained, unsure whether the mortification came from the failure to understand simple cooking concepts or the way he had enveloped her so comfortably. That mortification was not eased when Rowan proceeded to demonstrate again, aligning their arms entirely so that she could now feel his biceps against hers. While it might be a more intelligent method of communicating what she needed to do, somehow it was making Citra’s focus slip further.
Fortunately when she tried it again without his hands, Rowan was satisfied by her understanding. He nodded approvingly, and Citra tried not to care that he was an easier mentor to please than Scythe Faraday. At the very least he expressed his satisfaction more.
Citra successfully made a shortcrust pastry, rolled it out, and lined a pie dish that somehow Rowan had managed to find. They reassessed the ingredients to make the quiche filling, and with Rowan’s guidance, they retained the plan of cheese and spinach, but with a few extra splashes of milk to replace the lost eggs. Rowan assured her that it would still taste just as good, but that the consistency might change a little.
He cracked the eggs for her, making a hesitant quip about making sure they stayed within the bowl, and although she wanted to thrash him for it, Citra settled on a moody sigh in response. Unfortunately Rowan only laughed more for that.
She wanted to tell him that she was fine from hereon in, that she knew what she was doing, but the fact of the matter was that usually she hated cooking. Nothing about it was rewarding, or fun, and she never even got decent food out of it at the end. But having Rowan here at least guaranteed the result would be worth it. As teeth-grindingly annoying as it was to concede to his mastery, it was better that continuing to kick herself over this. So she let him teach her how to beat eggs more efficiently with a fork than an egg beater – prompting a more familiarly spiteful argument over why the invention of egg-beaters was then necessary in the first place – and he wilted the spinach while she grated the cheddar cheese.
When the quiche had actually been assembled and placed into the oven, Rowan stepped back and dusted off his hands.
“That looks pretty good,” he said, a modicum of approval in his voice.
“I would hope so, after all that effort.”
“Well, usually, you put about ten times as much energy into your cooking, and it comes out looking twenty times as charred.”
Citra picked up a tea-towel, whirled it into a rope, and beat his shoulder with it. Rowan caught it and dropped the towel into the sink. He didn’t look amused.
“I’m not your enemy. I don’t actually want to see you fail,” he said, and suddenly this was about more than dinner.
Rowan Damisch. Unfortunately decent, kind, patient Rowan Damisch. Who had helped her make a successful quiche despite her shouting at him, swearing at him, and hitting him with a tea-towel. Who somehow made her question the comfort of his touch when they weren’t in the midst of sparring.
Unfortunately, Citra believed Rowan when he said he didn’t want her to fail. As much as she recognised his drive to succeed, it wasn’t a drive to be the best as hers was. He wanted to do well – she wanted to win. Even if the prize was something neither of them wanted.
Throughout their three months of emotionally intense study, training, and observations of strangers’ dying moments, Citra had resisted any overtures of companionship that he had offered. Every good grace, every benefit of the doubt, she had splintered with her own pride. For all his jokes at her expense, none of them came from malice. Rowan didn’t want to see her hurt.
Maybe that was how he treated a friend.
Citra didn’t want to let Rowan know she cared. She didn’t want him to suspect she sometimes found him funny before she stuffed that feeling down under ten tonnes of determination and wilful ignorance. If she let Rowan know that she didn’t hate him either, it would be so much harder to beat him. So much harder to prove herself better than him.
But it was going to be a very lonely year if she couldn’t let him know her at all.
So she said, “Thank you.”
Rowan nodded, that same cautious defence ready in case she bit. “It’s my pleasure to make sure Scythe Faraday and I don’t have to eat charcoal for a change,” he quipped.
Citra wasn’t going to let him off that easily, though. “Thank you for… actually teaching me. You could have made me feel really stupid, and you didn’t. It was… Cooking doesn’t come naturally to me, and I don’t like it.”
He seemed to catch onto her implicit suggestion. Cooking doesn’t come naturally to me, and I don’t like it… but you made it easier and more fun.
“I can help you with other stuff,” Rowan suggested. “You are…” he rolled his eyes good-naturedly, “…much better at me in most other things, but I can show you how to make better dinners anytime you want.”
“Lets us take a break from all the Bokator, at least.”
Citra smiled at him. It wasn’t a big smile, or a gracious one, but she wasn’t hiding it under a grimace or scornful look. Rowan’s eyes caught on her mouth and it felt like something a little unfair. But he unlatched soon enough.
“And means Faraday doesn’t have to worry that you’ve gotten his poisons mixed with his spice rack,” he grinned.
Citra growled, and he laughed at her.
The kitchen was full of voices while they waited for the quiche to cook, and Citra actually learned some things about Rowan. He knew how to cook because he had so many siblings that his mom often asked him to take over mealtimes – his “hash pales” were out of a habit of rushing to take a publicar to the kindergarten. He wanted toffee-brown robes if he became a scythe. He’d never been outside of MidMerica, but he wanted to see EuroScandia before he turned eighteen. He was smart, and witty, and unfortunately charming when he made jokes at her expense without the teasing quality to them.
Citra refused to let her guard down. She was not about to let one kind gesture slide him under her skin and get to her when she still meant to beat him.
But it made it harder to justify why she kept it up.
Scythe Faraday came home, no blood on his robes. When he entered the kitchen and saw his two apprentices talking, not about their studies, his eyebrows raised.
“Rowan, you do not put your feet on my countertops. At the very least it is unhygienic while you are cooking.”
“Yes, Your Honour,” Rowan said quickly, climbing down and standing beside Citra. But Scythe Faraday was in a more companionable mood, and did not immediately leave.
“What is it I can smell?” he asked, looking around the kitchen. Citra had done the washing up, and there were no signs of their project.
“Cheddar and spinach quiche,” she told him.
“Do you need to take it out?” Scythe Faraday prompted. She knew that it was a comment about her tendency to burn things, and yet she didn’t leap into action.
“Citra managed to set a timer,” Rowan said, a note of irony in his voice. She resisted the urge to punch him.
“Ah,” Scythe Faraday nodded. “I’m glad. I shall let you call me through for dinner when it is ready, Citra.”
Having now been spotted in their camaraderie, Citra found it harder to go back to conversing with Rowan. She set about fetching cutlery while Rowan wiped down the table. Within ten minutes Scythe Faraday was seated with them, cutting into the quiche and serving them each a large slice. Citra watched as he turned each wedge on the knife, looking at it from all angles as if to locate her trademark culinary failings somewhere on the food. Apparently he found none, and sat down to eat with a quietly amused expression. Despite her eagerness to prove herself a changed chef, Citra said nothing and simply took a bite.
It was good. Really good. She had cooked something well.
But she couldn’t claim it as all her own work. Without Rowan, she would have made worse than a mess. Citra knew nothing when it came to making dinner, and he knew everything. He had saved her in that regard, and as much as she wanted to receive all of Scythe Faraday’s praise if it was offered, she couldn’t do it.
“I had thought it was Citra’s turn to cook this evening,” Scythe Faraday noted lightly as he cut himself a second slice.
“It was, Your Honour,” she said, a little stiffly. She knew the implication of his statement.
“And yet…” he trailed off. Rowan stifled a chuckle.
Citra sighed. “I had help this evening. Rowan taught me how to make pastry.”
Across the table, he raised an eyebrow. “And the filling.”
“And the filling,” Citra conceded. “The quiche was my idea, and I did more than half of the labour, but in terms of guidance and leadership, it was all Rowan.”
Scythe Faraday nodded, finishing his mouthful before speaking. “That explains its success. The uniting of two worker’s hands often gives a more complete result than the singular.”
“And yet scythes work alone,” Citra said.
Solitary. Spouseless. Spawnless. For eternity.
The look that Scythe Faraday gave her was penetrating. “I don’t believe that I have ever said scythes should work alone.”
“But you do.”
“My choice is informed by personal decision. There is no law forbidding it.”
“Well, there’s the ninth commandment, and that makes it clear that scythehood should be a solitary endeavour, so presumably that’s how it’s seen by the scythedom. And by you, because that’s how you’ve taught us.”
“You seem to imply that I believe the Scythe Commandments to be perfect, inarguable, and absolute.”
He had never suggested otherwise. Citra had always thought that Faraday upheld them all happily. Without question.
“So you think scythes should work together?” she persisted.
“I think scythes should do what is right,” he responded, folding his napkin and standing. “And what is right is not always what is most fulfilling. Thank you for the dinner, both of you.”
He left. Citra was left with Rowan, an empty pie dish in front of them. She looked at him, and found his eyes already on hers. She looked away.
“I’ll wash up,” Rowan said. “You go study if you’d like.”
She had never been more glad to be out of his presence. And yet she had never previously been glad to linger upon the thought of his presence, either. His hands, testing her warmth. His arms, guiding her touch. His careful taunts and quiet support as he admitted that he didn’t really want to fight against her either.
Either.
Citra did not want to be Rowan’s rival. In fact, she would have been just as happy to cook with him every day as she would be to become a junior scythe.
Maybe even happier.