“How terrible of the lady to call me a liar.”

“No matter how you smile, you’re still baring your teeth.”

Despite her words, Sionann’s eyes glittered with amusement, pale lips tilted in a worrisome smirk. Roderick cleared his throat.

“Play nice, won’t you?”

Henry glanced at him, shrugged, and said, “As my lord wishes.”

Sionann snickered.

“Miss Sionann, as well. Please, get along.”

“I follow no one’s wishes but my own, Sir Werewolf. And if it pleases me to drive your knight to frustration, I will do exactly that.”

She merrily bade them to the table and served them each generous portions of a questionable brown stew. However, when Henry reached for his first bite, Sionann slapped his hand with her ladle.

“Not yet, Sir Sleepyhead.”

“Was that necessary?” Henry frowned at his soup-splattered knuckles.

Sionann merely smiled. No, it wasn’t.

Rather than answer, she returned to the heaped ashes upon her hearth and unburied the curious phial Roderick had watched her prepare upon his arrival. The liquid was a putrid color—brown with green sediment and eerie purple froth. She gave it a saucy wiggle and a jaunty shake, popped the cork, and poured the whole of it into Henry’s bowl.

“Now you may eat,” she asserted quite proudly.

“Now I do not want to eat. Whatever was that?”

“Something good for you.” Henry’s eyes narrowed and lips pursed in a show of doubt. Hand on heart, Sionann said, “I swear it.”

He remained dubious. Roderick would have, as well, if not for Sionann’s claims of faefolk honesty. Her smile was far too pleased to be trusted...and much as she’d assured him of their candor, she had similarly confirmed they did not lack for tricksters.

I sense shenanigans afoot. Even so, Roderick prodded Henry along, and willfully closed his eyes on his suspicions. Surely not. Surely.

Henry’s full-body shudder at the first taste of soup rattled his resolve.

…Surely.

Roderick took up his spoon and ate with something akin to dread determination, but Sionann’s cooking proved surprisingly passable. The broth was thick and flavorful, the meat tender, the onions sweet. There were even herbs here and there, the likes of which he seldom had the chance to sample. When it seemed his bowl would empty, she filled it with another generous helping.

Henry shivered with every bite and returned their host a sulky glare when his bowl, empty at last, likewise received another helping.

“Eat, gosling,” Sionann insisted. “I won’t tamper with it this time.”

“You won’t eat your own cooking?” Henry asked testily.

“I’ve already eaten. Didn’t you realize how long you lazed about my bathhouse? I thought I might end up entertaining prunes instead of humans.”

“…I am not a gosling,” he grumbled, and returned to his food.

Roderick observed them by turns as he ate. Sionann liked to tease. Henry seldom sulked. Sionann’s teasing made Henry sulk—and it seemed that, somehow, Henry’s guard remained intact thanks to her jolly prodding.

So long as we stay on our guards, we should be able to avoid the worst, he told himself.

Yet, doubt remained.

Sionann returned the pot to the fireplace and prompted the coals a little to keep it warm. The way she looked about the kitchen struck him as far too deliberate. As Henry settled in to his second helping with shoulders sagging in relief, Roderick became more and more convinced that something truly was afoot, and he had already missed his chance to stop her.

And as if perfectly timed, the moment Henry laid down his spoon, he slumped face-first into the empty bowl.