Yann bent his head low and studied one of the machines in the Watchmen’s house. “What do you think this one does?”

  “It’s used for cooking,” Anríq told him from the other side of the room. “It creates a fire. If you look in the cupboards near your knees, you’ll find pots and pans to cook things on the fire.”

  Yann frowned at the machine and then at Anríq. “How do you know that?”

  “I saw some of the housewives doing it when I looked through the windows of other houses. They put the pans on that grate there, turn those knobs, and the fire comes out of those holes underneath the pan.”

  Yann frowned at the contraption again and then raised his eyes and shook his head. “This is all too complicated for me.”

  “It isn’t complicated.” Anríq crossed the room to his side, took hold of one of the knobs, and turned it. Tiny blue flames shot out of the holes and created a small ring under the grate. “See? It’s simple. It’s just different from the way we’re used to doing it.”

  “You can do the cooking, then. You can become the Watch’s new housewife.”

  Anríq laughed. “You’ll have to learn to cook for yourself if we stay in this Island for very long—unless you find a girl and marry her. Then she can cook for you.”

  Yann glared at him. Anríq only laughed at him and went back to what he had been doing before, which was walking around the living room. He studied all the furnishings with great interest.

  Yann turned away from the fire machine—or whatever it was. He went through the room trying to figure out what all the other machines were for.

  He didn’t want to ask Anríq. Yann didn’t want to admit that Anríq noticed more and learned more about Tenby in a few short hours than Yann did.

  He came to a different machine that looked like a large wardrobe. He opened one of the doors and a rush of cold air hit him in the face.

  “Hey!” he called over his shoulder. “This one is full of food!”

  “Enjoy yourself,” Anríq replied over his shoulder.

  Yann hesitated. “I don’t recognize any of it.”

  Anríq finally came over to him and shouldered Yann out of the way. “You really need a wife to cook for you. Stand aside. I’ll do it.”

  Yann stepped out of the way. Anríq started taking things out of the wardrobe, laying them on the counter, and then he pulled out a whole bunch of other utensils, pots, pans, and a few small kitchen knives.

  “What are you doing?” Yann asked.

  “I’m cooking. I’m hungry.”

  Yann stood back and watched him cut up vegetables and meat. Anríq also dug up some potatoes from somewhere.

  He turned the knob to make flames come out of the fire machine. He also switched on a device that looked like a water pump. It poured water into one of his pots and he put it over the flames.

  “How do you know so much about these machines?” Yann asked.

  “I told you. I watched the housewives doing it. Didn’t you take your turn cooking for the Watch in Middleborough?”

  “Yes, but that was different. We didn’t have all this.”

  “We didn’t have all this when we camped in the open, either, but you didn’t forget how you did things in Middleborough.” Anríq dumped a bunch of cut potatoes into his pot of boiling water.

  He went back to cutting up the vegetables when Yvan came in with Eliska. Both of them frowned when they saw what Anríq was doing.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Eating.” Anríq went over to the wardrobe, opened it, pulled out a block of chocolate wrapped in paper, and stuck it into her hand. “Eat this.”

  She turned it over in her hand and studied it from all sides. “What is it? I’m not eating anything if I don’t know what it is.”

  “You young ones stay here,” Yvan told them. “I’m going back out to the wall to check in with Atian and the other Watchmen. I don’t know what duty rotation he wants us to follow. The men might be coming in later.”

  “I’ll make enough for everyone,” Anríq told him.

  Yvan left. Eliska put the bar of chocolate down on the counter without taking the wrapper off. Yann made a mental note to introduce Eliska to chocolate later.

  She watched Anríq cutting up meat and vegetables and putting them into a pan to fry them. “How did you learn to do all this?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “He watched the housewives through their windows,” Yann explained.

  “It isn’t hard,” Anríq replied. “It’s the same as cooking over an open fire.”

  “Not quite the same,” Eliska pointed out.

  Yann turned to her. “What did you see out on the wall? Father said he was going to get your opinion on the Layers collapsing.”

  She looked away. “He didn’t take me to the wall. He brought me straight here.”

  Just then, Marine burst in glowing with life. She’d cleaned herself up, changed her dress, and she radiated with beautiful vivacious energy.

  “You won’t believe the books O’akim has in his library!” she gushed. “I could spend the rest of my life reading them and never get bored. Oh, Anríq! You’re the greatest! I’m starving!” She kissed him on the cheek and made him blush.

  Yann stared at her in stunned shock. He had only ever let himself imagine what she looked like all cleaned up with her hair combed and her clothes neat.

  He never dared to dream she could look like this. Eliska said Marine was a princess and that she looked and acted like one.

  She acted like one before, but now she really looked like one. She shone like some kind of star fallen to Earth.

  She wore one of the frilly dresses all the other women in town wore, but without the elaborate extra skirts underneath that made them stick out in the back.

  This one surrounded her in lemon-beige ruffles. They billowed from her shoulders, ran down her chest, and came together in a tight, flat cone that surrounded her hips before they flared down to her skirts.

  Her glistening black hair tumbled over her shoulders and her eyes sparkled with high energy.

  She only belatedly noticed what Anríq was doing. “How do you know how to do all this?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Yann interjected.

  “I already told you how I know,” Anríq replied.

  “Are you going to become a cook?” Marine teased.

  He only smiled at her. “I’m a Servant. I serve where I’m needed.”

  “What does it take to become a Servant?” Marine asked. “Do you have to go through some kind if ritual where the other Servants decide if you can join?”

  “Nothing like that. You just decide you want to be one and then you go off and do it. Ask Yann. He already is one.”

  Yann froze when both girls spun around to stare at him. “You are?” Marine gasped.

  “I am?” Yann asked.

  “Aren’t you?” Anríq asked. “Isn’t that what happened when we freed Amala and the others from the Dark Layers? You became a Servant, didn’t you?”

  Yann shrugged that away, but he still found himself smiling. “I guess I am.”

  “How is he a Servant and we aren’t?” Eliska asked.

  Anríq looked up from his work. “Are you a Servant?”

  She squirmed, but right then, Marine changed the subject as though they never had been talking about Servants at all. “You should all see the books O’akim has! He has histories of all the civilizations in the Coil going back thousands of years.”

  “Does he have anything about the Voyant?” Yann asked.

  Marine’s face fell, but not even that could make her look less radiant or excited. “Unfortunately not. I don’t think this Island has any history of magic at all. Anyway, I might be able to find out something in the histories. I mean, if Eliska is right about there being more than one Voyant, then they would have to come from somewhere, right? These Voyants must be bringing in people from the regular population…..”

  “Unless they’re recruiting their own children,” Eliska pointed out. “Then the new recruits wouldn’t show up on any history.”

  “Aha!” Marine pointed at her and burst into one of her mischievous smirks. “But we know they aren’t recruiting their own children or the Voyant wouldn’t be after a bunch of imp Watchmen from Middleborough. If he is trying to find someone to replace him—or to stop someone from replacing him—then that person must come from the regular population.”

  Eliska shrugged. “You’re right.”

  “Ooo! Chocolate!” Marine pounced on the bar, tore it open, and started munching.

  “What I don’t understand is why no one is keeping a history on the Voyants,” Marine went on. “If they really control the Coil, then someone must have been keeping track of who they are and where they came from. I mean, every kingdom in the Hallowed Vales keeps detailed records of all the kings, their families, marriages, births, and deaths, and every detail of the kings’ reign. We have historians who do nothing else but keep track of what everyone in all the royal families is doing every day. You would think it would be even more important to do the same thing with the people who control the entire Coil. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe the Voyants keep that information secret between themselves,” Yann pointed out.

  She burst out in high-pitched, childish giggles. “Should we send someone in undercover to find out?” She exploded in giggles. “We would send someone in to stop someone from going in!”

  Yann found himself laughing, not so much because what she said was so funny.

  Her laughter infected him with the need to laugh. He laughed just because she found everything so engaging and exciting.

  Anríq interrupted their conversation. “Maybe you should be looking for the bolus of knowledge Brother Matherus and the other Templars hid in the Layers.”

  She spun around, gasped out loud, and shot out her hand to grab his arm. “Anríq! You’re a genius! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?! You’re so much smarter than I am! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!”

  She dove in and kissed him on the cheek again before she raced away.

  “I have to go back to the library!” she exclaimed. “I have to find out how to locate the bolus in the Layers.”

  “Hey!” Yann yelled after her. “Don’t you want to eat something first?”

  “Later!” she yelled and the door slammed behind her.

  Yann and Eliska exchanged glances. Then they turned around to find Anríq serving the food onto plates.

  He’d somehow combined the potatoes, meat, and vegetables into a creamy goulash swimming in bright yellow sauce. The smell wafting off the food made Yann’s head explode.

  “Aargh!” Yann groaned. “That smells incredible.”

  Anríq handed each of them a bowl. “I hope you like it.”

  Yann lifted the dish to his nose and his knees trembled when he took a deep breath of the smell. “Where did you learn to do all this?”

  Anríq shrugged. “You learn a lot of things wandering around in the Coil.”

  He took the last plate for himself, forked a bite into his mouth, and then set the dish aside. He went to work making another batch of exactly the same food for the other Watchmen.

  Yann and Eliska stood there in stunned amazement while Anríq went back and forth between all the machines in the house.

  Now that Yann saw someone doing all of this at close range, he seemed to recall catching fleeting glimpses of the Tenby housewives working like this through the windows outside.

  Anríq kept working and made an absolute ton of food as mind-blowingly delicious as the dish he served Yann and Eliska.

  They eventually sat down at the table and ate it while he finished. Yann didn’t know what to think, but as usual, he did come to one conclusion above all others.

  Anríq would always be better at everything. He could do anything and women gravitated to him. He was basically the perfect man.

  End of Chapter 32.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Corrupted Coil series on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday PST.

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