THE KITCHEN

TATIANA

There was still no news from Julian. I wouldn’t be shocked to find out I had been tricked by Kain and Dr Irina.

It’s three in the morning. I’ve been awake since one, lying on my back staring at the ceiling of my new room, counting the cracks in the plaster because there’s nothing else to do.

I found the kitchen by accident.

I’d been stuck in my head, weighing escape attempt number three. The window, or the service corridor Dmitri showed me yesterday. I couldn’t decide.

My stomach decides for me. The smell of something warm pulls me out of it, and the next thing I know I’m in the hallway in nothing but my socks, following it.

The kitchen is at the end of the east wing, past two closed doors and a painting of someone’s grandmother that watches me like I’ve already disappointed her.

I push the door open, expecting an empty room. Maybe a refrigerator I can raid while I work up the nerve to do something useful with my time here.

He’s already there.

Kain stands at the stove with his back to me, sleeves pushed to his elbows, stirring something in a pot that smells like butter and herbs and something I can’t name but immediately recognize as food.

Real food.

Not the perfectly arranged tray left outside my door at dinner, which I ate half of before deciding I shouldn’t be enjoying it and pushing the rest around the plate out of principle.

He doesn’t turn.

I stand in the doorway a second too long.

The smart thing would be to leave. But my stomach makes a small, humiliating sound, and that settles it.

I walk in.

He still doesn’t turn.

I move to the far side of the counter and lean against it, folding my arms just to have something to do with my hands.

The room is big. Not as big as my parents’, but close. There’s a window above the sink looking out over the cliffside, and even in the dark I can see the water far below, grey and distant.

Vera, Kain’s housekeeper, keeps everything in place. Counters clear. Nothing out of line. There’s a small wooden bowl of lemons by the window, the only thing that looks like someone chose it on purpose.

I don’t think it was him.

“You should be asleep,” Kain says, to the pot.

“I should be home,” I say. “We don’t always get what we should.”

He stirs. I watch the line of his shoulders.

There’s bread on the counter near the refrigerator. A dark loaf, already sliced, left out on a wooden board.

My eyes go to it and stay there.

I hesitate for a second. I wonder if taking it means something I don’t want it to mean, then decide I don’t care and cross the kitchen.

I take two slices.

He doesn’t stop me. Doesn’t say anything.

I lean against the counter and eat in small bites, watching him cook. It’s probably the strangest thing I’ve done since I got here, which is saying something, considering I tried to pick my lock with a broken hairpin and ended up stabbing him with it when that didn’t work.

The bread is good. Annoyingly good.

But there’s no point being hungry and annoyed, so I keep eating.

“What are you making?” I ask.

He takes a second before answering. “Soup.”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“I’m aware.”

I watch him move.

Nothing wasted. No hesitation. He reaches for things like he already knows where they’ll be before he looks.

It’s the kind of familiarity that settles into your body instead of your mind, and I have a brief, stupid thought about what else he does like that, which I immediately ignore.

I finish the second slice.

He ladles the soup into a bowl and sets it on the far end of the island.

Not handed to me. Just placed there.

Like something left out in case I decide I want it.

I don’t move.

He turns back to the stove.

The bowl is plain white. The soup is pale gold with dark flecks scattered across the surface. It smells better up close.

I’m aware this is ridiculous. I already ate his bread.

But the bread I took.

This, he offered.

For a second, I can’t tell if that matters or if I’m just tired enough to think it does.

My stomach answers for me.

I pick up the bowl and carry it to the sink, turning slightly so I’m facing the window instead of him.

I eat standing up, watching the water below in the dark, moving without really going anywhere.

It’s good.

Better than the bread.

I finish the bowl.

Neither of us says anything. He cleans the pot while I stand there a little longer than necessary, watching the reflection of the light in the glass.

At some point, he turns off the light above the stove. The kitchen is left with just the one over the sink, dim and yellow, softening everything into something that looks older than it is.

I set the empty bowl in the sink because I don’t know where else it goes.

Then I leave.

I don’t say thank you.

He doesn’t say goodnight.

But when I step back into the hallway, the dark doesn’t feel the same as it did before.