Kyen and Adeya stood together in the steamy kitchen. Behind them, the cook and her two maids shouted and clattered around pots bubbling over a long hearth. Before them, a table supported stacks of batter-crusted bowls, greasy kettles, and food-smeared ladles that nearly buried a couple empty tubs. One of the maids added a tottering pile of plates to the collection.
“I’ve never washed a dish in my life,” said Adeya.
“I usually lick my plates clean.”
“You what?”
“What?” He shrank under her look. “Water’s for drinking in the wilds, not washing.”
“Well, they’d better give us water here. I’m not licking all these. Ah!” A smile melted away Adeya’s disgust as the cook approached carrying a steaming kettle. She shuffled them both aside to dump hot water into the tubs.
“You’d better hurry up. We need them dishes!” She pointed at a couple pails beneath the table before hurrying back to the hearth.
The two exchanged glances. Kyen picked up one of the pails; fine gray powder filled it to the brim. “What’s this, do you think?”
“It looks like ash. What’s this one? Sand?” She peered into the second pail. “Where’s the soap? The sponges?”
Kyen looked bemused.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You are a princess, through and through.”
“And I will figure out how to wash dishes. Don’t you dare think I can’t!” She snatched the pail of ashes from him and stuck her nose in the air.
He smiled and winced away, putting his hands up as if in surrender, and edged around her to the tub. They plunged in: he washed, scrubbing with sand and rubbing ash for the grease. She dried and stacked plates, cutlery, and kettles on the counter beside them. The maids visited to leave dirty plates and to carry away what they’d cleaned.
Adeya, wiping perspiration from her forehead, grimaced at the sweat on the back of her hand. “I sure hope we get a bath out of this.”
Kyen dabbled his hands in the water as he waited for the next dirty stack to arrive.
Lightning flashed through the windows followed by a loud bang of thunder that shook the walls.
Adeya jumped, clutching the amulet at her neck. As the rumble faded, she stared wide-eyed out the window. “Goodness! How is it so loud? We don’t have lightning like this in Isea.” She looked at him; he was trying to grab a bubble in the water between two fingers and failing.
“It—it can’t hurt people, can it?” she asked.
“Only if it strikes you, but you’d be more likely run over by a wagon. Well, unless…” His face fell.
“Unless what?”
“He could…” Kyen shrugged a little, glanced at the cook and maids. “You know.”
Adeya dropped her voice to a whisper. “Arcangels can use lightning?”
He nodded.
She watched a flicker through the window with wide eyes. Thunder rumbled in its wake. “Did he…?”
“No.” Kyen smiled a little. A maid dropped off a pile of pots, and he sunk the first into the dishwater with a sigh.
Adeya watched him scrub, looking thoughtful. Her stare grew intense, and she edged up next Kyen. “So, when are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” He leaned away from her, frowning as color rose to his cheeks.
“Nana said you’d tell me. About what she wrote in her letter, remember?” She sidled closer to him, dropping her voice to a whisper as she watched the maids hang up their aprons and leave. “All the arcangels vanished on the Feast of Restoration. Nobody has seen or heard of an arcangel in years. Until him. With you.”
“Your grandmother wrote about me?”
“Look, see.” She dried off her hands, pulled a paper from her pocket, unfolded it and held it out to him. Kyen, up to his elbows in greasy dishwater, leaned in to read. She waited while his eyes scanned through the lines. His eyebrows drew together.
“‘Thin?’ ‘Battered?’ ‘Half-crazed?’” he repeated. “She says I’m half-crazed! Are you sure this is me?”
“Look, there’s your name. Right there.” She prodded the bottom of the page. “Kyen of Avanna. Don’t tell me you don’t remember meeting my nana?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? It was years ago.”
“My nana said you know what happened to the other arcangels. When are you going to tell me? She said you would!” Adeya stuffed the letter away and put her hands on her hips.
“Not so loud!” he whispered. “You’re not even supposed to know about him. After his big display with the Kingmaster, every fiend from here to Nalayni is going to be on my tail—like marauders after a peasant on a midnight road. We need to get somewhere safe, lose ourselves for a while.”
“Where do you plan to do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Eope. Prince Hepilaeus is good at hiding things.”
“Well, you might be intent on hiding, but I’m here to find the other arcangels. They’re hunting you, not me, after all,” she said. “Tell me what happened!”
“Sh!”
They both fell silent as the cook deposited the last dirty pots. Kyen eyed her until she walked away.
“This isn’t the best place to talk about this,” he said, dunking a kettle into the rinse water.
“All you ever do is put me off, Kyen. Every summoner who left to search for the arcangels has disappeared, and I want to know why.” Adeya grabbed the kettle from him and wiped it with such force, her towel squeaked against the metal. “My nana said in her letter that you know—that ‘he has the answers!’”
“It’s really… I don’t know what words to even use…” He sighed as he laid hold of the next encrusted pot. “He thinks it best to show you.”
“He—He wants to show me?” she repeated. “How?”
“‘Words are too slow. I’ve not the patience for them,’ he says.” Kyen smiled but then turned his serious, stormy gray eyes on Adeya. “He will, if it’s alright with you?”
“Really? You mean it this time?” She handed him the towel. “What do I need to do?”
“Nothing.” He wiped his hands and held up his palm. “But, uh, you’re sure?”
Adeya grabbed his hand and stared him in the face. “I’m ready!”
“No, no, not that.” Kyen tugged his hand free. He wiped it on his tunic, looking uncomfortable, then after a moment of seeming to steel himself, he raised his palm to her forehead. “Here.”
Adeya clasped the amulet at her neck, waiting.
He cast one cautious glance at the cook, the last one in the kitchen besides them; she stood at the far end, untying her apron. He pressed his palm against Adeya’s forehead.
Her eyes widened. With a gasp, she clasped both hands over her mouth.