Behind the red counter, a thin man with a wispy mustache ran a knife twice along a honing steel, then carved off the outer layers of a revolving skewer of thin-sliced roast lamb. He set the lamb onto a plate, added chopped tomatoes, hummus, slaw, and pillowy pita bread, then dropped the plate onto the counter, called “Forty-eight!” and turned back to meat and knife and honing steel. Elayne lifted the plate and her own—stoneware so thick they outweighed the food they bore—and led Temoc to a booth near the back, away from the windows.
“I’ve never been to a place like this,” Temoc said. A line curled from register to door. They’d snagged the second-to-last table, the others occupied by a mix of DL metropolitans: workers in denim and cotton, couples on their way to the theater, bankers eating with scavenger speed. A young suited man with a bandage on his chin swallowed wrong, choked, coughed into a napkin. “They should eat more slowly.”
“People don’t come here to eat slowly.”
“I have seen coyotes dine with more grace—and coyotes must eat before something larger comes to take their food.”
“Same situation here,” Elayne said. “Or, similar. A scavenger eats fast because she’s afraid of competition. These people eat fast because they’re afraid someone like me will visit their desk while they’re at dinner.”
“So you are the monster they fear.”
“Try the lamb. You make a sandwich with the pita, like this.” She demonstrated. He tore the pita in half with grim focus that made her imagine a much younger Temoc at anatomy lessons as a novice. Strike here to break the breastbone. Carve along this meridian. Puncture here to drain blood fast enough to induce euphoria, but not so fast as to let the sacrifice expire.
Still had a lot to learn about pita bread, though. He ripped one of his halves while filling. “The bread is too fragile.”
“Be careful of the browned bits. They break.” She finished her own sandwich, built her second. He ate slowly, and licked his lips. “You look pleased with yourself.”
“The judge is on board, as is Chakal Square.” He stood, took a handful of napkins from the service counter, and returned, wiping hummus off his hand. “We are doing well.”
“I’m worried about the broadsheets.”
“We have stopped some distributors,” he said, “but the papers that remain are passed more swiftly through the camp. With luck they will not interfere with the deal.”
“What if you went for the source?”
Temoc curled one fist inside his opposite hand, and watched her over his knuckles. “What have you learned?”
“I don’t have time to investigate tonight,” she said. “I need to draft this agreement. But I have a name for you, and an address. I’ll give you both, if you listen to my advice.”
“Go ahead.”
A group of office workers stumbled out into the heat. As they left, a gaggle of schoolchildren entered. Hot wind whirled through the open door. “You have a good family. They love you. If this goes south, take care of them.”
“Why this sudden concern?”
“You’re part of a movement now. You don’t know what that’s like.”
“I fought in the Wars.”
“To defend your city, not to change the world. Causes have a gravity that’s hard to resist. I never told you what I did in the Semioticist’s Rebellion—why they took me off the field and sent me to the King in Red, before I met you.”
He shook his head.
“I burned down a forest to kill one man. It didn’t work. So I followed him across a mountain and a desert into another jungle’s heart. I killed five gods hunting him. Small gods, but still. I should have died myself. I almost did. He hurt my friends. Someone I loved tried to turn me from the hunt, and I didn’t listen.” A shawarma joint was the wrong place for this conversation. There was no right place for this conversation. “I want you to take care of your family, not end up bleeding out in a back alley.”
“Okay.”
She took a notebook and pen from her briefcase, and wrote the name she’d been given, and the address. Tore off the paper, and set it folded between their plates. “Take care, Temoc.”
She stood, brought her empty plate to the dish bin, and walked past the children, out the door, into the wind.