Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [72]
Old One put a hand to his back. “That wore me out. I’m going to lie down.” He pointed to the opposite side of the room. “Kitchen’s in there.” He limped to another door and entered the room. Orli slipped in just before the urohm closed the door behind him.
As the latched clicked, Bealomondore pulled Ellie into his arms. “Old One is a completely inadequate chaperone.”
Ellie thoroughly enjoyed his kiss. His arms around her made her feel safe.
She could get used to this.
She pulled back. “Did I think that, or did you think that?”
He planted a quick kiss on her forehead and stepped away. “I think we thought that.”
Taking her hand, he pulled her toward the kitchen. “Let’s get busy.”
The kitchen surprised Ellie. Smaller furniture made the room seem bigger. Old One had already put ingredients on the one table in the center. He’d stoked the stove and put manageable-sized bowls out for them to use.
Bealomondore walked around the room, reading small pieces of paper scattered on counters, pinned to the walls, and stuck to cabinets.
“What do they say?” she asked.
“Most of them label what is in the cupboards.” He touched one hanging by the doorframe. “This one is interesting. Two tumanhofers downstairs.”
“Why would he write that?”
Bealomondore shrugged. He read the next slip. “Name—Bealomondore.”
Ellie looked at a note next to the window. “Goat—park—girl.” She shook her head. “Tak is not a girl.”
“No, but he belongs to a girl.” On a cabinet, he found another cryptic note. “Daggarts—girl—dumbwaiter.”
Ellie glanced at the many flags of paper around the place. “What do you think all these are for?”
“I think they are reminders. I don’t think he remembers things.”
She looked out the window and saw Tak strolling among a bank of flowers in the library park. “So when he figures something out, he writes it down?”
“And the next day he doesn’t have to figure it out again.”
She took a moment to digest that possibility. What would it be like to have to rely on written messages for memories of the day before? How would one decide what was important to record? “I wonder if he knows how to get out—”
“—of Rumbard but forgot.”
She moved over to the table and climbed up to examine the ingredients. “The spell is such that the children never get past six and don’t remember enough to learn from mistakes and mature.”
Bealomondore continued to read the notes as he toured the kitchen. “And Old One doesn’t remember details, so he can’t plan to escape.”
“That’s probably why he doesn’t leave the library.”
Bealomondore put his finger on one of the notes and then turned to look out the window. From this spot he could see the labyrinth of city streets beyond the jumble of a garden. “He’s afraid he wouldn’t remember how to get back.”
“Yes, and no notes to help him.” She thumped a bag of flour and saw a fine puff of white powder escape the weave of burlap. “He has all the ingredients. Shall we begin?”
Bealomondore nodded and climbed the wooden chair. “I have the feeling that if we could put the things we know together like we combine these ingredients, we might have a solution to our problem.”
“That sounds optimistic.”
“I’m hoping I am not being too optimistic.” He paused. “Wulder provides.”
That puzzled her. What did that have to do with daggarts or escaping? “I don’t—”
“From the Tomes, ‘All things are provided but not all work is done.’ ”
“So we have to provide the labor?”
He maneuvered onto the seat and stood beside her. “Exactly, so we can share the satisfaction.”
“Do you think we’ll ever get the right clues put together in the right way?”
He winked. “As sure as we’re going to make the best daggarts this city has ever seen.”
Old One came out of his room just as Ellie and Bealomondore prepared the first baking sheet to go into the oven. He did a double take and stood for a moment with a belligerent look on his face, but then his eyes fell on the daggarts, shaped and ready to be baked.
“I’ll put that in for you,” he said. “My things are smaller than the furnishings in most of the houses. But still, the oven door would