Page 19 of Wizards & Weavers (Cozy Questing #1)

Chapter

Fourteen

Braiden selected a medium-sized pan — ornate and golden, naturally, to go with the elven aesthetic, though he hoped it wasn’t actually made out of solid gold. The elves could be snobbish, sure, but they weren’t delusional.

Augustin picked one of the smallest pans, cracking open a few eggs and mixing them in a bowl with a bit of milk. What was he up to?

“The finest scrambled eggs you’ve ever tasted,” Augustin boasted.

“That’s it?” Braiden said, scoffing.

“It’s the mark of a good cook. If you can make the basics well, then you can cook anything well. It’s all about the fundamentals.”

“He has a point,” Elyssandra said, like a traitor.

Augustin scooped up a pat of butter and tapped it into the pan, giving Braiden a little wink. Braiden turned his nose up and scoffed even harder.

He found a flask of oil that smelled crisp, as green as the bottle it came in. Olives. Perfect. If Elyssandra had indeed purloined this house and all its contents, at least she’d borrowed it from someone with fabulous taste.

When the oil was hot, Braiden scooped the potatoes and onions into the pan, welcoming the music of sizzles and crackles.

“Ooh,” Elyssandra said. “Those mushrooms I gathered, they’d be lovely fried up in a bit of butter. I’ll slice some right now.”

The cadence of Elyssandra’s chopping wasn’t as violent as before, perhaps because she knew better than to bruise the delicate mushrooms. They worked in happy silence, Augustin tipping his bowl of milky eggs into the pan, Braiden slowly softening the onions and potatoes, and Elyssandra’s knife rhythmically clacking as it met the chopping board.

Augustin flicked his hand toward his pan. The egg mixture swirled and curdled, caught in a whirlpool. The wizard had conjured a miniature tornado to cook for him.

“And that’s the secret,” Augustin said. “You have to be quick so you don’t overcook it. Otherwise, the egg gets rubbery.”

Braiden frowned into the wizard’s pan. “Your spell is helping to cool the egg down and keep it from setting, too. That’s cheating. I’m not going to learn decades of wind magic just so I can make these allegedly excellent scrambled eggs.”

“Decades? That’s going too far. I’m barely thirty years old.”

Braiden frowned into his own pan as he poured in his egg mixture. “And I’m barely twenty-five, but you don’t see me cheating with magic to make my eggs.”

“You’re meant to agitate them,” Augustin said, gleefully ignoring Braiden as he directed the tiny tornado, creating perfectly creamy clumps of scrambled egg. “Like this.”

“Something’s getting agitated, all right,” Braiden grumbled.

There it was again, the old, familiar sensation settling in.

This was something Braiden thought he had forgotten — an evening with his family, cooking together in the kitchen of their old house back on Mariner’s Row.

For the first time in so long, Braiden felt quietly content.

Dungeon life didn’t seem so bad, after all.

Cooking for dinner wasn’t supposed to be a contest, but something about the Wizard of Weathervale brought out a competitive side of Braiden that he never knew existed.

He finished preparing his dish: a thick omelette filled with potatoes and onions, an old Gwerenese recipe that Granny Bethilda had picked up in her youth.

Card No. 77, in fact. Probably very early in her youth, especially when Braiden recalled its lurid details. It listed the ingredients and steps for the omelette, but also hinted at a bawdy account of how a young Bethilda Beadle had coerced the recipe out of a strapping young Gwerenese bard.

It was perfect, as far as Braiden was concerned, and he rewarded himself with a smile when he made the first cut, dividing it into even slices. The omelette held together, firm on the outside, but custardy and almost creamy on the inside.

It was only too bad that they didn’t have the large Gwerenese sausage the recipe supposedly called for, something that Braiden suspected was only a naughty embellishment on his grandmother’s part.

Elyssandra was already seated at the dinner table by the time they were both done cooking, a fork in one hand, a knife in the other. Braiden half expected to find her with a napkin tucked down the collar of her shirt.

Augustin, having finished sooner with his scrambled eggs, had taken on the task of frying up the mushrooms she’d sliced up. Braiden was glad to have something to break up the monotony of an overly egg-y dinner.

But Elyssandra had no complaints, her mouth too full to speak, her eyes and flushing cheeks saying everything. She hummed over Braiden’s omelette. She squealed over Augustin’s scrambled eggs.

And the sound she made when she tasted the buttered mushrooms was a little too much for the dinner table, but it was always a pleasure to watch her enjoy herself so much.

Braiden had to agree, the mushrooms were divine. Not unlike button mushrooms, really, perhaps with a chewier bite, the butter and heat helping to bring out their natural sweetness. His omelette tasted just as he’d expected, its center so runny and fluffy, just the right balance of egg and potato.

And though he did his very best to contain his opinion and his expression, Braiden had to admit that Augustin’s scrambled eggs were the finest that he’d ever tasted.

He still found it somewhat unfair that someone needed an excellent grasp of wind magic to replicate the results, but the dish was so creamy and soft.

Braiden wished with all his heart that he had a nice piece of toast to go with it.

“Hopefully we’ll have some more variety in our diet for our next few meals,” Braiden said, patting his belly. “It’d be wonderful if we ran into some fruits or vegetables down here.”

He still had his rations sitting in his rucksack — a sensible mix of dried meat, nuts, and fruit, as well as some hardtack biscuits. He wouldn’t mind sharing with the others, though he was certain that they — or at least Augustin — would have their own supplies to draw from.

Still, it seemed a shame not to take advantage of a fully working kitchen. Back in the Dragon’s Flagon, feverishly scribbling out his plans to assemble and recruit his own party, Braiden had no idea he’d be quite this lucky.

Elyssandra covered her mouth, restraining a burp. “You don’t see me complaining about a double egg dinner. I don’t mind at all. But yes, I’m more than happy to keep a lookout for other things to add to the pot, as it were.”

“Speaking of which,” Augustin said, “I was thinking that we could cap this dinner off with something sweet and refreshing.”

Braiden shook his head. “It’s far too late and I’m far too tired to bake anything.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Augustin pointed out the window at some bushes. “Remember those berries that Elyssandra found? I say we mash them up and mix the juice with the pool’s bubbly water.”

Elyssandra wrinkled her nose, clearly thinking of fermented things and how much she didn’t enjoy them. Braiden, on the other hand, found the wizard’s idea intriguing.

All the effervescence of ale, but with the flavors of fruit juice? He’d try anything once. All this talk of foraging and stepping out into the wilds to gather berries — it felt more like a camping trip with friends than an actual adventurer’s expedition.

Augustin rinsed out the pestle and mortar, gathered three glasses, and led the way back out into the luminous cavern. Braiden was not surprised to find it unchanged, but did wonder how the dungeon’s occupants knew how to tell between night and day.

It was colder, at least. The elementals had no need to tell time, of course, but hadn’t they all established that something more intelligent was lurking in this underground wilderness?

Something — or someone — was still out there, watching and waiting.

All thoughts of camping and a fun, safe night in the wilderness dissipated.

Something rustled in the bushes.

His heart nearly leapt out his throat. Braiden spun on his heel — only to find the Wizard of Weathervale happily plucking berries from a nearby bush. Braiden gritted his teeth, but was glad to breathe a sigh of relief.

“That should be enough,” Augustin said, brushing his hands off now that the mortar was filled with berries. “I’ve never had these before, Elyssandra. What did you say they were again?”

“Gloomberries,” she explained. “I think that’s what you call them out here in Aidun, because you often find them in the shade, or under the cover of larger plants. They don’t seem to like the sun very much. They grow even sweeter in the dark. These are going to taste incredible.”

“Are all elves very good at identifying plants?” Braiden asked. “I don’t mean that to be rude, only I’ve read that your lives are so intertwined with nature. I mean, even the cottage from your hairpin has the touch of the wild all over it.”

He gestured at where the cottage should have been standing, feeling foolish for attempting to describe the architecture and interior design of something that wasn’t actually there.

Elyssandra beamed. “No offense taken. I love talking about home. We’re all at least familiar with common plants.

I might have a bit of an advantage, seeing as I grew up with a garden that was filled with all sorts of herbs, fruits, and flowers.

” She glanced around the cavern, as if measuring its exact dimensions in her head.

“Yes. The garden is about as big as this place, actually.”

“You had a garden this big?” Braiden stretched his arms out as far as they would go, his mind boggling as he studied the farthest reaches of the cavern. “I can’t imagine how big your house must have been.”

Loose, scattered pieces of Elyssandra’s strange puzzle were starting to fit together, bit by bit.

She’d come from a sheltered background, not entirely able to fend for herself, a bit too bright-eyed and earnest for someone who needed to spend time on the road.

Braiden narrowed his eyes even as he watched the redness blossom on her cheeks.

“Now what in the world could that wizard be up to?” she asked, a little too loud, a little too excited. She pointed at Augustin, who’d situated himself by the edge of the bubbling pool. “We should go take a look.”

Braiden took a look, all right — a long, hard, and suspicious one, straight at the back of Elyssandra’s head. But he followed her soon enough, willing to suspend his curiosity.

She’d been a kind and helpful companion throughout the dungeon. Did it really matter that she was hiding one, two, or many more secrets under her elven cowl? Maybe Braiden was just too nosy for his own good.

They found Augustin sitting on the ground with his legs splayed out, face drawn in concentration as he mashed the gloomberries to a smooth, purplish pulp.

He filled each glass with the fizzy water, scooping it up straight from the pool, then mixed in a portion of the gloomberry juice until it was all gone.

The wizard thrust his glass into the air, holding his concoction aloft.

“Behold, my creation!”