193: Calm
After Liam left, we made our way to the living room. Feeling more comfortable with everyone there, the moment we moved to the living room, Lily vanished, proving she had been listening to us, just ignoring the question.
And sure enough, entering the living room, she was also “asleep” on the largest seat in the room.
“It’s fine. We’ll likely need Sylverith to get a proper answer of what’s going on anyway,” Milo said.
I let out a sigh, not going to press the issue, though I did have to wonder just how many people Lily moved to the cells, and how.
It seemed like forever before Sylverith walked into the room, looking the same as always, with a pleasant smile on her face, even coming over and sitting down on top of Lily again, who merely shifted just enough to allow her to sit on the seat.
“That was an eventful day, wasn’t it?” she said cheerfully.
Everyone just looked at her, then I noticed all eyes turned to me.
With a sigh, “Sylverith, what happened when you left?”
“Oh, that. Nothing too important. I just had some words with a little troublemaker,” Sylverith said, now scratching Lily behind the ears.
“By cutting the manor in half?” I continued.
Sylverith just laughed. “It was just a little cut, dear. The house was even still standing.”
I didn’t know what to say. How do you even react to that?
“I can see it troubles you. The young lady there has been pulling a lot of strings behind the scenes, and I felt most of it was harmless nonsense, but she incited violence today to interrupt the store opening. I just had a quick little chat with her and made sure it won’t happen again,” Sylverith explained.
“Right, and the Valriths, then?” I asked.
“Oh, dear. Did she kill them all? I asked her to have some restraint.” Sylverith looked down, no longer scratching behind Lily’s ears. This action seemed to stir Lily from her slumber as an eye opened.
“I don’t know that she killed people, but I know she took them to the cells at the palace,” I explained, going by what Liam said.
A giant smile came back to Sylverith’s face again as she went back to scratching.
“That’s good, then! It’s always good when people listen to reason and don’t need to be killed. Sometimes they are entirely unreasonable, but I will say no more. It was an enjoyable day, though. The store opening was a great distraction from the books. Thank you for inviting me,” Sylverith smiled.
Crisplet let off a burst of sparks, clearly agreeing with her.
Everyone else just stared at the unfolding conversation with nothing to add or say.
I couldn’t help but shake my head. “Sylverith, you know you’re terrifying sometimes, right? I would really like to know more, though. I feel like we’ve missed something significant.”
She just chuckled but didn’t respond, instead pulling out a book. From where, I did not know. I didn’t know illusions could have a storage ring, but I also didn’t know illusions could attack, let alone cut a manor in half.
At this stage, I was fairly certain there would be absolutely no attack, and with both Lily and Sylverith here, if anyone did attack, I’d just feel sorry for them.
“Crisplet, do you want to come cook dinner with me?” I asked.
Getting a burst of sparks, however, I had to fight back laughter as both Liane and Lily got to their feet as well.
“Shameless,” Sylverith muttered, earning a stare from Lily in return.
Entering the kitchen, I immediately pulled out the royal cookbook, looking for something different, something new!
Flipping through the pages, I found something interesting: breaded bird cutlets. It used Rok, but I had been seeing the Galvonson in my storage for what felt like months, and other than the one time I had cooked the wings, the rest still sat in my storage untouched.
It may have been a bird much larger than I was. However, compared to the drake, it would be perfectly reasonable to butcher the rest of it down, and then I’m sure I could take slices of the meat and bread them like the recipe instructed. It looked very similar to what Geo made with his fish.
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I made my way into the butcher room. I still had one that I had not butchered at all, and the other was broken down into pieces. Currently, I had two very large breast pieces as well as the two thighs.
I pulled out one of the thighs. The bone was still inside, so I started with my new knife, finding it cut through it so easily I nearly sliced right into the bone itself, but quickly had the bone removed, storing it away and wondering if I could use it for a stock even if it was the size of me.
Storing the deboned thigh, I took it into the kitchen, where Liane and Lily had made themselves comfortable near the oven Crisplet had lit. I started to prepare the rest. One issue I had was that I didn’t have any stale bread to make the crumbs, but an idea struck me.
“Liane, I don’t suppose you could ask Archie if they have any stale bread in the employees’ residence?” I asked.
Liane stood up to go but hesitated before the door. “Won’t that mean you can’t infuse it?”
I kicked myself internally. That was true… “Yes, never mind. New plan.”
I pulled out several rolls I had cooked prior. They all had minor buffs, and I started by chopping them into small cubes. I then found a large tray and spread them all out in a single layer before taking them close to Crisplet’s fire.
“I don’t want these toasted, just to dry them out, please, Crisplet,” I asked, getting my usual burst of sparks.
With Crisplet working on that, next I pulled out a small sack of grain flour and filled a large mixing bowl most of the way up. Storing the rest away, I pulled out the seasonings, with the book only saying salt and pepper, but I figured we could change that… I added a hefty amount of fire salt, a good amount of pepper, along with a heavy pinch from the dried herb bag, mixing it around. The fire salts gave the flour an orange colour. Lastly, was the egg wash, which was simply eggs and buvul milk.
Next, I pulled out the Galvonson thigh I had deboned, laying it out on the counter, and cut it into slices. I was halfway through when Crisplet gave me the burst of sparks, and I was super thankful for Crisplet’s help because I’m sure I would have burnt them without it.
Removing them from the heat, I would let them cool down while I finished slicing the Galvonson before crushing them up into crumbs.
Soon I had everything crumbed, with nearly forty-seven crumbed slices of Galvonson. I figured all the extra wouldn’t be a problem since I could store it away as backup meals. Needing to stockpile plenty of precooked meals before we left the capital.
I was surprised when Archie knocked on the kitchen door and came in.
“Sir, you have a visitor,” he said, bowing.
“Uh, it’s not Liam again, is it?” I asked curiously.
“No, sir. Prince Luis is here, but he has informed me to tell you it’s not official business.”
I looked to Liane in the corner, who just gave me a nod.
“Sure, let him in. I don’t think Darren and George are back yet, though,” I said.
Archie bowed one more time. “I will inform him, sir.”
Soon the door to the kitchen opened again as Luis poked his head inside. “Thanks for letting me stay. Can I come into the kitchen?” Luis asked.
“Sure.”
Luis took only two steps into the kitchen before stopping, spotting Lily and Liane.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, looking worried.
I waved it off. “Don’t worry about them. They are just waiting for food. What brings you here today?”
Luis awkwardly laughed. “Well, the palace is fairly chaotic right now, and I needed to escape, so I suggested to my father that I come visit you, and I think he was expecting me to come get some information from you, but honestly I just don’t want to be in the palace.”
“Come, take a seat with us. Don’t hold up dinner!” Liane called from the side.
“Are you sure? I can go to the yard and practice by myself,” Luis offered.
“It’s fine. I’m making plenty of food for tonight. Have you had Galvonson before?”
Luis’s eyes went wide. “I’ve had the egg once, but not the bird itself.”
“Then tonight’s going to be a new experience!” Liane said excitedly, shuffling over so Luis could sit next to her and not Lily.
Getting back to the food, I pulled out a large amount of buvul lard, grabbing the largest pan I could find. I started heating it up with the help of Crisplet.
I couldn’t help but overhear Liane talking to Luis, hearing, “Don’t tell your family what you eat here, okay?”
Once the lard had melted and the crumbs were sizzling in the oil, I cooked each piece off. Unfortunately, I could only fit one piece at a time, and I realised pretty quickly this would take a long time to cook them all.
“So, Luis, what’s happening at the palace? If you can speak about it, sorry,” I asked while I was waiting for the Galvonson to get a deep golden-brown crumb before flipping it.
“It’s fine. Well, they are processing all the people Lily dumped in the cells. Most of them don’t know what happened. They were in their homes, felt a great pressure, and then darkness, and woke up in the cell. What’s really impressive is that a bunch of them were not even in the city. Two of them were on a boat that had left hours ago, and one was on his way to the dungeon past Farnox,” Luis explained.
I was shocked to hear that. I didn’t understand how she got people into the cells at all, let alone from a boat or from past Farnox.
Luis laughed, though. “Actually, it’ll probably be a good thing that Father leans into, stating not even a criminal who’s out of the city is free from capture. Even if Lily won’t ever do it again, criminals won’t know that.”
Liane smiled, even reaching out and scratching Lily?! I was so shocked seeing it, I completely missed the start of what Luis was saying.
“…wyn house is a little strange. We didn’t know she had committed a crime until she confessed in the throne room and begged for immediate exile. We couldn’t get a straight answer out of her. When she was put in the cells, she went wild and kept convincing guards to let her out. That’s when I left,” he said.
I pulled the first piece of Galvonson out of the lard. It was golden brown and crunchy all over. I was sure it was still raw on the inside right now, so I passed it over to Crisplet to finish off while I got the next one in the oil. I didn’t have time to cook them fully in the pan.
Forty-six to go.