Food

It had also taught her to make the best life she could, wherever she ended up.

Resigning herself to the situation, Avery went into the storeroom for firewood.

Each stone house had a little yard, and people usually kept their wood in a lean-to outside. But the few sticks Silas had collected were all this household possessed. The original Avery had been ashamed to leave such obvious evidence of their poverty on display, so she had made him store them indoors.

Silas stood with his head lowered. All he could see were her feet.

Those feet, which had trampled over his life and dignity, disappeared into the storeroom, then returned.

He did not dare look directly at anyone's face. When someone approached, he saw their feet first: whether they were coming toward him, which direction they pointed.

Reading those small movements gave him what little sense of safety he could find.

He heard Avery's breathing grow slightly heavier.

People who were hurt for long enough either withdrew farther into themselves or became painfully alert to everything around them.

Silas pressed his dry lips together.

All their water had to be carried from the river, and Avery forbade him to drink too much. Sometimes, when he was desperately thirsty, he drank extra while fetching it. But she did not let him leave the house without a chore to do. She said he embarrassed her.

He had not had a mouthful since collecting the morning's water.

After a moment's hesitation, he lifted his gaze a little.

Avery was carrying a few dry branches in her strong arms. She set them beside the hearth as though she intended to light a fire.

She never did things like that.

Alarmed, Silas hurried forward to gather up the sticks.

"Are you going to cook flourpods? I... I'll do it. This isn't a female's work."

He was trembling faintly.

Stone houses were not particularly warm. Nobody here had a window covering that blocked the cold while admitting daylight. Instead, broad leaves were removed during the day and put back afterward. With them uncovered, the wind came straight through.

Avery could not tell whether he was shivering from the cold or something else.

She glanced at his hands.

His long fingers might have been beautiful if he were not so thin. Now they looked like fine bones wrapped in shriveled skin. Every joint stood out, and bruises and wounds covered them.

She considered herself a reasonably normal person. Watching someone injured and frightened work while she stood by did not sit well with her. Back home, she would at least have wanted to give someone like him something to eat.

But he looked terrified at the prospect of being stopped, as though losing his usefulness would mean being sold after all.

Being allowed to work was the only reassurance he had left.

"All right. Go and get the flourpods."

Her gentle voice puzzled him for an instant. Then he hurried to the corner.

There were only four left.

Silas hesitated. Avery needed about two at a meal just to keep from feeling hungry. With Ronan still two days away, how was he supposed to find enough for her?

"Come on."

At her voice, he quickly picked up two.

This world was backward, but not entirely inconvenient. People used firestones to start their fires easily enough.

Unfortunately, Avery's predecessor had hardly ever used them, leaving no useful memories to follow. Avery herself only knew how to use a lighter.

She crouched with two black stones in her hands, tapping them together without producing so much as a spark.

"Let me."

Silas crouched carefully beside her.

With no meat to roast, there was no need to light the open hearth. Avery had put the sticks into the stove instead. To reach the opening beneath it, both of them had to crouch low, close together.

She could feel how tightly he held himself, like an arrow drawn back on a bowstring.

She was the one holding the bow. One wrong movement might send him flying apart.

Understanding, she moved back.

Silas felt her warm presence recede a little. Some of the tension eased, though he did not dare turn around.

Having her behind him felt like knowing a direbeast was there, ready to swallow him at any moment.

The firestones behaved obediently in his hands. Two quick strikes sent sparks onto the dry kindling, and a tiny flame caught.

He stood, fetched water in a small wooden basin, and tipped it into the stone pot. Then he picked up a pointed stone and pressed it into the seam at the top of a flourpod.

Avery watched him struggle for purchase.

The hard stone rubbed his hands red. One rough edge pressed directly into an old wound, but the boy—only sixteen, newly an adult by this world's standards—made no sound.

Smashing the shell would have been easier.

Then a memory surfaced. The original Avery disliked the noise. She had beaten him for cracking a flourpod that way, and he had never done it again.

Avery sighed and took the pod from his hands.

Following the body's memories, she awkwardly extended her claws. Sharp leopard claws sliced through the shell with ease, exposing white flesh.

It was not loose flour, as she had imagined, but packed together in clumps.

"So that's what they look like inside."

The original Avery had never bothered with preparing food. She only ate it. Naturally, she had no idea what went into the pot.

Avery reached for the second pod and noticed Silas's anxious gaze fixed on her hands.

"Your hands are covered in cuts. I'll do it."

"I can still work. It... it doesn't matter."

He could not understand. Even back in Beastmeet, she had never treated him like this. Before Ronan's awakening, the brothers often went hungry, and Avery had watched without the slightest concern.

"I said I've got it."

She split the second flourpod and tipped its contents into the pot. The white clumps began breaking apart in the water. Now it did look more like flour.

Moving away from the stove opening, she drew Silas a little nearer to it.

Before he could react, she spoke in that calm, gentle voice, so different from the shrill edge he remembered.

"You're hardly wearing anything. Sit closer. It's warmer here."

Normally, lighting the fire meant immediately starting the food. He had never been allowed to linger beside it just to warm himself.

Adding wood brought brief moments of heat, but afterward the cold always felt worse.

Now he crouched in the firelight while warm shadows moved over his pale cheeks.

He was a snake shifter. He craved this gentle warmth.

Avery fetched the salt container.

Only a little remained at the bottom: coarse yellowish grains. After a moment's painful indecision, she added enough for two people.

The gruel soon began to bubble. She stirred until the remaining lumps dissolved.

Silas had already brought a wooden bowl.

She took it, examining it curiously. Some kind of plant liquid seemed to seal the surface. It did not feel like bare wood, and presumably would neither rot so easily nor leave everything tasting of splinters.

She filled it, then looked at Silas.

He was still sitting exactly where she had told him to sit, showing no sign that he expected to eat.

Of course.

The original Avery had barely had enough for herself. Why would she have fed the brother she hated?

Avery sighed.