Chapter 2: The Taxonomy of Things Aldric Will Not Discuss

Dinner was lamb stew and silence, served in approximately equal portions.

Aldric set the bowl in front of her without ceremony and folded himself into the chair at the head of the table with the efficiency of someone who has eaten alone long enough that the presence of another person registers as a minor logistical adjustment rather than an occasion. He had lit two candles on the table, which Maren took as either habit or an attempt at atmosphere, and which produced mostly shadow. The kitchen was warm. It smelled of rosemary and old iron and something underneath both of those things that she could not isolate.

She ate. He ate. Outside, the fog had thickened into something almost physical, and the window above the sink reflected the room back at them in pale, inexact duplicate.