“Before the Beltane Festival, I thought watching a Gave Noir would be vulgar. But afterward”—he looks up at her from beneath his fall of gold hair—“there is something alluring about it. That you may eat something that I will never be able to taste.” “Shall I describe it to you?” “Do you think you could?” “I do not know.” She looks down at the mushrooms: their bright red caps spotted with white. “Much of what we eat is bitter or has little taste. But there is something in the sensation of it. It is like eating power.”
