Lauriel had prepared them a magnificent feast: in addition to the minha zopa, there was crusty bread hot from the oven, pats of yellow butter and zanaba jam, soft crumbling cheeses, fresh-grilled cod with green chilies and tiger milk, sautéed mustard greens, peppery chicken baked in hot ash, and a sweet liquid made from roasted corn. Lauriel proudly named the dishes as she set them on the table, hot steam snaking up from each plate.
Mia’s taste buds were in ecstasy. A rawboned hunger poured through her, and with every bite she took, she felt her body replenish. Her mother had tried many times to cook her favorite Fojuen recipes for their family, but she could never get them quite right. It was next to impossible to find the right ingredients and spices in Glas Ddir, she said, after King Ronan closed the borders.
Now, sitting in Lauriel’s cozy kitchen, Mia knew she was eating authentic Fojuen cuisine for the first time. The tangs and flavors flooded her mouth. She thought of all the mornings she had spent with the du Zols, comfortably ensconced in their sunny kitchen in Ilwysion, her mother looking as happy as she ever had.
“There’s more of everything, darling,” Lauriel said, tapping a scooped spoon against a giant saucepan. Above the stove, long ropes of garlic swung from the wood beams, next to iron and copper pots forged by Lauriel’s own hand. Beneath them a row of orange baked-earth pots sprouted robust plants and herbs. There were no walls in the kitchen; it opened onto the rest of the modest cottage. Through the back door, Mia spotted plump red tomatoes growing on a vine.
“Do you like the fish, Your Grace?” Sach’a stared hopefully at the prince. “I helped make it.”
Mia waited for Quin to express his usual food euphoria, but he’d been quiet and withdrawn ever since arriving at the cottage.
“He loves it,” she answered for him. “Quin adores fish.”
“Good,” Lauriel said. “We haul a fresh catch from the lake every morning.”
Junay rolled her eyes. “If I have to eat one more fish, I will bury its carcass in a part of this house none of you will ever find.”
Junay, the other twin, had retained every bit of fire Mia remembered from three years ago. Sach’a was charming and poised, with a carefully controlled maturity; Junay was volatile and righteous. The girls shared their father’s dark umber complexion—Dom favored their mother, with his warm ochre skin—but that was where the resemblance stopped. Even the twins’ hair was a testament to their warring personalities: thick, spirited corkscrews bounced off Junay’s shoulders, while her sister sat primly in her wicker chair, smoothing sweet almond oil into her scalp.
“If you buried a fish in your own house,” Sach’a said calmly, “then you would have to smell it, too.”
“Thank you,” Junay snapped. “I’m so glad I have a sister who knows everything.” She turned her attention to Mia. “How come you didn’t know your mother was a Dujia?”
“Duj!” Lauriel scolded. “Junay!”
“What, Mam?e? I want to know.” She turned back to Mia, undeterred. “Weren’t there signs? Things that didn’t add up? Surely you wondered.”
Mia was taken aback. “She never talked about her past, I guess. I knew she had secrets, but I never thought . . .” She trailed off, feeling like a failure of a daughter to miss such an obvious part of her mother’s life. Not to mention a bad scientist: she had ignored every clue.
“I . . . I knew she’d studied medicine in Fojo Kara??o. That she traveled to the river towns in Ilwysion and Killian Village to help people who were sick or dying.”
Junay groaned. “She didn’t come here to study medicine! She came to study magic. Did you never wonder why so many of those sick people recovered?”
Mia opened her mouth but no words came out. Her mother had healed people with magic. Of course she had. A twelve-year-old knew more than she did.
“Junay.” Lauriel placed a firm hand on the table. “You are being relentless. Mia has just arrived after a long journey. Can you leave her in peace?”
“Fine.” She folded her arms, then unfolded them. “You really didn’t know? That just seems hard to believe.”
“My father led the Circle of the Hunt! How could my mother have had magic? The Gwyrach were demons. They were ruthless and inhuman.”
She saw Lauriel glance at both her daughters.
“I’m sorry,” Mia said quickly. “I didn’t mean . . .”
Lauriel waved a hand. “I imagine you’ve had many surprises on your journey, and not all of them pleasant.”
“Including when Nanu grabbed her in the merqad and called her a veraktu,” Sach’a said. They all turned to look at the old woman, who was now knitting passively, no threat to anyone. She wheezed.
Lauriel turned to Junay. “It was your day to watch her, Jun.”
“I watched her yesterday!”
“And I watched her the five days before that,” Sach’a said quietly. “Did you give her her medicine?”
“She didn’t need it,” Junay fumed. “She’s fine.”
“Her medicine is for when she gets confused?” Mia asked.
Lauriel shook her head. She stood and began plucking leaves from the herb pots. “Our bodies and minds fail us as we age, even Dujia. Especially Dujia. It’s as if our magic erodes our shells more quickly.” She stuffed the leaves into a speckled stone mortar and ground them with a pestle. “Nanu’s mind disturbs her, but her lungs give her trouble, too. They are not what they once were. Sometimes the air becomes trapped and she has trouble breathing.”
Lauriel sprinkled the herb powder into a dented copper cup and poured in a stream of steaming purple liquid. When Nanu wheezed again, she fitted the cup into her wrinkled brown hands.
“Drink, Mam?e. This will smooth your breath.”
As the old woman sipped at the broth, Mia said, “Why can’t you use magic to heal her lungs?”
Lauriel smiled. “It’s not as if we lay our hands on someone and heal all their ailments forever. We heal them in small ways every day. But magic is reactive, not preventative. By the time we are forced to use magic to intervene, it is often too late.” She patted her mother’s knee. “So we take what precautions we can. And when it becomes necessary to use our magic, we do so.”
“I used head magic on Nanu today,” Sach’a said proudly, “after she called Mia a veraktu.”
“What is a veraktu?” Mia asked.
“It’s nothing,” Junay sniffed. “Just a Dujia who’s in denial. A Dujia who’s ashamed of being Dujia because she’s been fed lies her whole life and sucked them down like jelly.” She smiled brightly. “Can I do something with your hair?”
Helpless against the girl’s mood swings, Mia nodded. Junay clapped her hands and bounded off to the loft upstairs.
“Forgive her,” Lauriel said. “She hasn’t bloomed yet. Her sister has, and . . . well. As you might imagine, this house is something of a war zone. To have one Dujia daughter and her unbloomed twin is a nightmare no parent should have to endure.”
Mia had so many questions. What did it mean to “bloom”? Was that when the dormant magic in a Gwyrach’s body manifested? And where was Domeniq? She tried to imagine masculine, strapping Dom in a village overflowing with demon women. The thought amused her. She supposed he’d had good training for it, growing up in a house with three women.
Considering the way all the girls in the merqad had gaped at the prince, Dom was probably very popular.
Mia snuck a peek at Quin. He was chasing a piece of cheese around the plate with his fork. He felt her eyes on him, looked up, and tried to force a smile. She knew she should ask Lauriel if the prince was safe. But if the answer was no, did that mean she’d have to leave Refúj? Selfishly, she didn’t want to. Sitting here with Lauriel, learning about magic, she felt closer to her mother than she had in years.
“Does Dujia mean ‘demon’ in Fojuen?” she asked.
“Duj, no! A Dujia is a creature of the divine. The Dujia are a sisterhood.”
“So here in Fojo, Gwyrach are creatures of the divine?”
“My darling, everywhere we are creatures of the divine. Duj katt,” she swore. “Did your mother teach you nothing?”