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air would be good for Baba, he insisted. Our new home occupied the corner of Yanamer and Tongsa Streets, across from a shop that made hand-pulled noodles so long you could get full on just one, and a bakery that sold the best steamed buns and milk bread in the world—at least it tasted that way to my brothers and me when we were hungry, which we often were.
He waved me inside his father’s bakery. The fragrance from the breads and cakes wafted out the door, and my mouth watered at the smell of yeast, fermented rice flour, and roasted peanuts and sesame seeds. “It’s better than starving.” He wiped red-bean paste off his palm.
“I know how much you love my father’s puff pastries, his steamed buns with lotus paste, his coconut buns.”
A maid passed, carrying a platter of almond cookies and steaming chestnut cakes, and my stomach grumbled as I followed Lorsa along the narrow path.
Passing several bakers’ shops and tents, I spied sesame cakes and honeycomb cookies. The palace fed me well, but there was nothing like honeycomb cookies fresh off the griddle.
I stopped by the baker whose steamed vegetable buns looked and smelled freshest, and got an apple from the farmer next door with my remaining fen.
“A tailor who’s been invited to sew for the emperor. A girl couldn’t do that. A girl isn’t fit to be anything more than a prize. My father promised he’d never force me to marry. He taught me to hunt and to fight like a man. I was just as good as all my brothers. And now?” Lady Sarnai wrung her hands. “He broke his promise to me. At first I thought it was because the war and magic had blackened his heart, but that is just the way of men. For what is a promise if it’s made to a woman?” Her words rang so true to me, I almost staggered back.
Edan was waiting, so I closed my eyes and imagined my mother’s chicken porridge, steaming with chives and ginger, Keton’s favorite dumplings with chili oil, and enough sweets to last me a week: steamed coconut buns, fried flatbread, sticky rice with nuts and sliced apricots.
got up to help Korin serve the men and children. The stew smelled delicious. It was a feast of spices, with chunks of cactus and juniper, though I didn’t recognize the meat.
I inhaled, savoring the smells of chicken with cabbage and salted fish. “Do you need help?” I asked. “No, no,” Mama replied, pouring rice wine into the pot and covering it. “I’ve the maids. They’re outside with the oven now, baking coconut buns and taro puffs. Your favorite.” She started frying pork with cabbage and cracked a salted egg into the pan. Oil splattered, and the fumes wafted to my nose. I inhaled greedily.
