Chapter 382: What's that

She looked down at it, then at the cobblestones between her boots, and when she spoke again her voice was only a little lower than before.

"Don't worry. I know this is a secret. I won't tell anyone."

"I know you won't." He gave her a warm, easy grin and meant it. His eyes had already dropped to the box. "What's that?"

"Oh." She blinked, then held it out toward him with both hands. The shy smile came back with a little more effort behind it. "Cookies. They're for you. A token of appreciation for all the work you do."

He lifted the lid.

Golden rounds lay in tidy rows with sugar glittering across their tops, still faintly warm. The smell of butter and vanilla rose out of the box and hit him so hard that his stomach actually clenched.

"Nellie, you're a lifesaver." He took one and bit it in half. It was crisp at the edge, soft and almost creamy at the center, with a hint of lemon at the back of it.

He closed his eyes.

"Thank you. Seriously. I haven't eaten a single thing since breakfast."

She watched him chew. A little color rose along her cheekbones under the powder.

The corner of her mouth went up of its own accord, the way it did whenever he praised her.

The plum ribbon at the end of her braid brushed the side of the box when she shifted her weight.

"You should have lunch at my house," she said. "The cook is off today, but I could make—"

Lor thought about it, honestly, for a long moment.

Her mansion sat in the opposite direction. It was a good thirty minutes away on foot.

Then he thought about the pot of stew his mother would have bubbling on the stove by now, thick with root vegetables and the bone broth she always started the night before.

Grrrrr~~

His stomach answered both thoughts for him with a long, undignified rumble that made the pigeons take off in a clatter of wings.

Nellie's eyes flicked down to his belly.

She pressed her lips together. He could see her fighting very hard not to laugh. The glossy pink on them caught the light.

"Okay," she said. "I guess my house will be too far. There's a place two streets from here. I'll treat you. For all the help you've given me."

Lor stared at her.

"You're paying?"

"Yes."

"For real? Anything on the menu?"

"Anything," she said, with the first completely genuine smile she had given him since the corner. It reached her eyes behind the lenses and stayed there.

He lit up like a lantern.

He swallowed the second half of the cookie in one bite, tucked the gold box under one arm, and offered her the other with an exaggerated bow.

"Lead the way, my lady."

Nellie giggled behind her hand, tugged the hem of her skirt down an inch that made no difference at all, and slid her arm through his.

Her thigh brushed his as they walked.

It was warm through the stocking, and she did not move away. The short plum fabric shifted with every step.

When the cobblestones tilted under her boot, the pleats lifted just enough for the black thigh-high to show again before she smoothed it down with her free hand.

She did not look at him while she did it, so that Lor can look at it without being embarrassed.

The restaurant 'Lios Bliss' stood at the corner of the merchants' row, a tall building of pale stone and dark timber with a row of enchanted lanterns floating above its double doors.

Each held a small sphere of mana-light that drifted in a slow circle and never once bumped its neighbor.

Lor had walked past it a few times and never gone in.

The prices on the board by the door had kept him honest.

The numbers were written in neat silver script, and the cheapest plate was more than what his father made in a day at the shop.

The doorman wore a long gray coat with silver buttons, and he did not so much as glance at the rinsed shirt or the creased collar. His eyes went to Nellie, and he bowed from the waist.

"Miss Nellie. Pleased to see you here."

"A cabin, please," she said, in a voice that had grown half an inch taller somewhere on the steps. "For two."

The man nodded and showed them inside.

Inside, the air was thick with roasted herbs, warm bread and sweet wine.

Crystal chandeliers glowed with a candle-yellow light though there was no candle in any of them, and velvet drapes divided the hall into pools of quiet.

Three nobles sat at the nearest tables, each with an attendant standing a respectful step behind his chair.

One of the nobles glanced over when they entered, then looked away again when he saw the doorman's bow.

A hostess with a sash of green silk met them at the foot of the staircase and led them up.

The stairs were carpeted.

Nellie's boots made almost no sound.

Lor's did.

He watched the short skirt move ahead of him and kept his free hand in his pocket.

The cabins ran along a corridor of dark wood on the second floor. Beside every carved door hung a brass plate stamped with a sigil and a small glass lamp that burned green or red.

Lor knew the sigil from his lessons and books he 'borrowed'.

It was a sound ward, the kind that sealed the examiners' offices at the academy. He could feel the faint hum of it as they passed. The green lamps glowed steadily. The red ones pulsed once every few seconds.

"Red means do not disturb," Nellie said quietly, seeing him look. She walked close to his side.

"The house is bound by oath. Every waiter and cook who works upstairs signs a silence contract, and nothing they hear or see here leaves outside. My father holds his business meetings here."