Andreas had grown quiet within the next few days. Much to my relief, there were no more girls coming over; at least not to the room across from mine. He was giving me space, I realized. If what he told me was the truth it still didn’t mean I would forgive him so easily, or even at all. For weeks he had made me feel like trash, and for what? His own confused feelings? I was not in a forgiving mood.

I had taken to joining him for dinner again, but I still sat far away from him. He needed to understand that winning back my trust was not going to be easy. He would have to work for it. He was used to getting everything so easily – he even got me easily, but he wasn’t going to again.

The winter chill had gotten worse; we were approaching mid-winter and I suspected there would be another blizzard any day now. Seeing Andreas still made my blood roil, but the emotions were too conflicted to say whether I was leaning to forgiveness or not. I pulled my coat closer around me as I excited my room and headed to the kitchen to make some tea and cake for breakfast. I almost fell over when Andreas suddenly appeared before me. My heart about jumped out of my chest from the shock and I took a few moments to compose myself.

“You should warn a girl when you just suddenly appear out of nowhere,” I told him breathlessly.

Andreas smirked and I narrowed my eyes. “I apologize for startling you, but it would be really difficult for me to warn when I want to ‘suddenly appear’ as you put it.”

“Very well, I’ll just die young of heart failure then,” I commented dryly and pushed past him.

“I came for a reason, little witch. Aren’t you the least bit curious?” he called after me as I continued to walk.

I shrugged. “Not really, but I have a feeling you will inform me anyway.”

He caught up with me quickly. “You are right. I will indeed, as this information is actually quite important. We will be having a house guest for a couple of weeks, or months, depending.”

“This guest didn’t give you a specific time period?” I asked, eyebrows raised as we began to descend the stairs.

“I don’t recall you telling me how long you plan to stay, yet I let you live here,” Andreas replied with a hint of amusement.

I opened my mouth to reply, but had nothing. I closed it promptly and continued walking to the kitchen in silence. The tea pot was sitting ready on the kitchen counter and I filled it with water.

“You want some too?” I inquired.

Andreas nodded. “You aren’t the least bit curious as to who our house guest will be?”

I shrugged. “I bet she’s a really nice girl,” I commented nonchalantly as I put the kettle on the fire.

Andreas chuckled. “You think our guest will be a woman?”

I headed over to the storage area and gathered some flour. “Can you make some eggs appear?” Andreas nodded and handed me four eggs – the exact requirement for my recipe. I narrowed my eyes. He must’ve been spying on me when I was baking cake before. “It’s not a girl then?” I asked as I started the mix.

“No. It’s an old friend of mine. He has business around this area and needs a place to stay for a time. And if he stays here, I can keep an eye on him,” he replied, his tone growing slightly more serious.

“If he’s your friend, why would you need to keep an eye on him?” I had started beating the eggs and as a result I wasn’t really focused on his words. A hint in the back of my mind said that there was something I was supposed to take note of.

“Friend is a generous term. We are more like two men who cannot stand each other but occasionally require the assistance of the other to achieve a mutual goal. We’re as close as two dark sorcerers can get. Plus, we haven’t tried to kill each other. In our world, that makes us friends,” Andreas replied, his eyes slightly narrowed in thought.

Something about his words sounded familiar to me, like I had heard that exact explanation before but I couldn’t remember where. In light of recent events, I couldn’t exactly blame my mind’s inability to recall. I poured the batter into a pan and placed it in the over, indicating to Andreas that he should light the fire. He looked at it and a fire sprung to life. Sometimes his tricks still amazed me.

“I recall you mentioning that sorcerers rarely quarrel with each other?”

Andreas shrugged and absently rubbed his jaw. “I did say something like that, didn’t I? For the most part, that is true. Typically, we avoid those we don’t get along with… to prevent quarrels. But other times it cannot be prevented and we end up wanting to kill each other. The times when we harbor no thoughts of murder to another dark sorcerer, well, those times we are considered friends.”

I couldn’t really make sense of his explanation. They wanted to kill each other, but rarely quarreled? I didn’t inquire further, however, realizing it was the best explanation he was going to give me.

“Sounds like you both could use some real friends. You know, the kind you actually like and enjoy spending time with for no other reason than liking their company?” I said slightly sarcastically. It must’ve been a very sad life living without any real friends. I mean, mine had turned on me when they found out I was an “outlaw”, but they were scared of the king’s rage so I didn’t blame them.

“Making friends isn’t a priority for either of us. Other, more pressing issues require our attention,” Andreas stated simply and took the kettle from the fire when it whistled.

I placed two cups on the table and added tea leaves, covered in a thin sieve that I had painstakingly wrapped them in a couple of nights before, to each cup. “Making friends doesn’t have to require a lot of effort. All you need to do is be nice to people. It really shouldn’t be that difficult,” I said as I poured the hot water into each cup.

“It’s not difficult for you, because you are light. But we aren’t. Being nice isn’t within our nature.”

“That’s not true.” I handed him his cup. “I have seen you be nice – those first few days I knew you. It was only after that you turned out to be a cad.”

Andreas sighed. “It’s a pointless topic to argue about. Just expect him today. I’m not sure when he’ll be showing up, but he will be joining us for dinner.”

“I’ll cook then. It’s not every day I get to meet new people, after all.”

He took a sip of his tea. “You know I can just make a meal appear, right?”

“Yes, I’m aware. But I need something to do.” He shrugged.

“Very well, go ahead. Just let me know what you need,” he said as he started to leave the kitchen.

“Will do.”

I stayed in the kitchen a while longer while I waited for my cake to rise. I drank my tea and just let my thoughts run wild. My anxiety had subsided after Elijah was expelled from my life, leading me to believe that Andreas had been right about at least one thing. I felt more normal that I had in months. I loved cooking before and the thought of doing it again excited me. My thoughts suddenly drifted to Mary, my friend that worked in the kitchen. It had been a while since I thought of her and I wondered what her position on me being a witch would be. Thinking about her opened a gaping wound in my heart and I staggered backward as if someone had physically landed a blow to my chest. I hoped she was well, and that if I ever get to see her again that she would still be my friend. That she would still care about me unlike Eiet.

I expelled any thoughts of my previous life. Dwelling on the past wasn’t healthy in my present situation and it served no greater purpose other than leave me feeling sad and hollow.

 As soon as the cake was done, I gobbled it down and went to the library to select a recipe book. Once I found one I liked, I scribbled down a list of ingredients I needed Andreas to get for me. The only problem was, I had no idea where he spent more of his time, or even what he did when I couldn’t see.

I leaned against the kitchen table as I wondered how I could summon him. It turned out I didn’t need to do much as he decided to appear of his own accord. “Do you have a list for me yet?”

“Yeah, teach me how you do that and how to manifest things,” I joked.

“All in due time, little witch.” I handed him the list and he raised his eyebrows. “This sounds fancy. Do you even know how to make it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t insult me. I love cooking. A lot of times when I was still living on the Eleanor Estate, I would give the servants a break and be the one to cook dinner. It’s relaxing.”

Andreas seemed surprised, like he hadn’t expected me to be anything but only some spoiled noble girl. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that I could still surprise him and that he didn’t know me all that well.  

He glanced over the list again and everything I needed appeared on the table. “You and I have very different opinions about what is relaxing. All of this just seems like unnecessary work to me,” he said as he eyed the food on the table. “But I do hope you enjoy yourself with the tedious task.”

“I will,” I said stubbornly, crossing my arms over my chest.

He disappeared again to attend to whatever business he usually attended to.

My mind focused on the task before me as I began. The smell of cheese and beef filled my nostrils as I began cutting the ingredients into smaller pieces and throwing it in the pot. I was making beef gratin served with fried potatoes and steam vegetables covered with a creamy cheese sauce. It was an old recipe that the servants in the Eleanor estate kitchen liked to call Taurinum Cum Cremor Caseus Gratin, which was simply a fancy Latin name given to the dish. I missed those girls in the kitchen, after spending so much time in their company, learning from them, they had also become my friends. Would they have discarded me as well had they found out what I was?

I once again caught myself thinking of Mary, one of the younger servants. She always laughed when I burned a bread, or left a casserole on the stove for too long. Teasing me endlessly was one of the things she enjoyed doing most. I didn’t mind. She was a couple of years older than me and I knew it was hard for her to comprehend why a member of the noble family would willingly choose to spend time with the servants. But over the years I spent down there whenever I needed time to think, she had become my friend. I wondered what happened to her. Was she still in the kitchen right now, serving my brother and my parents? Did she know what became of me, or was my family trying to hide the fact that their daughter ended up being a witch?

 Hours must’ve passed without my realization. I was so absorbed with the task at hand I didn’t even notice. The food was cooking finally and I leaned against the wall, satisfied my task was nearly complete. It would need to cook for about an hour, but it was worth the wait.

“You look exhausted,” Andreas said as he flashed into the room.

I rolled my eyes again. “It’s the good kind of exhaustion.”

“How am I supposed to introduce you to our guest in this state?” he teased. I glared at him.

“Our guest will just have to get used to me not looking presentable all the time if he’s going to stay here,” I replied stubbornly, pouting slightly.

“Suit yourself; he’s at the door. I came to see if you’d like to go out and meet him.”

“Right now?” I thought he was only joking. I was expecting at least some time to freshen up before this mystery guest would arrive.

“You just said you’d be fine with it.” He gave me no chance to protest before he started pushing me from the room.

I straightened out and ducked away from his hand. “I can walk by myself.”

“Then please do.”

I narrowed my eyes at him again. I should’ve just kept them like that permanently as I seemed to being doing it all the time anyway.

I froze in my tracks as Andreas’ friend came into view. Ash brown hair, inhumanly green eyes, cocky smirk. He was literally the man of my dreams. My mouth hung open and I could feel Andreas’ confused eyes on me.

“You’ll have to excuse her, Kalen, her behavior, I have come to realize, is unpredictable,” Andreas said in a flat tone. I shot him a look and he smiled.

Kalen closed the distance between us, the way he had in my dreams and took my hand from my side. I was struck too dumb to do much of anything except stare at him. “Lady Lana, it is a pleasure to finally meet you,” he said as he kissed my hand and gave me a small wink I didn’t think Andreas caught.

I shook my head out of the daze it was in, a thousand thoughts running through it. He couldn’t be real. I had dreamt him. I had to be delusional. “It is a pleasure to meet you to…”

“You can just call me Kalen, I have no title,” he said with a brilliant smile.

“Nice to meet you too, Kalen,” I said, returning his smile as if suddenly remembering my manners. I disconnected my hand from his, our skin to skin contact making it hard for me to think clearly. Those eyes were so captivating and not something I would easily forget. He had to be the man from my dreams.

Had he not promised that we would meet soon? But if it was him, why was he acting like he didn’t know me at all? Ignoring the million questions that formed in my head, I simply stated, “Dinner is almost ready. I am just going to go change and them I will serve it.” I gave a slight curtsey, just like my mother had taught me, and excused myself.

I could hear Kalen’s next words faintly as I ran up the stairs. “She’s beautiful and she cooks, you surely have out done yourself, Andreas.”

“Don’t push it, Kalen.”