Read Incarnate (A Spellmason Chronicle) for Free Online Page A

tables lit only by the minimal light of the moon and a few scattered candles. One of the tables was set with a dark red tablecloth, flowers, and place settings. On either side of the gold chargers were more forks and spoons than I was used to seeing. Caleb worked over a mix of food, test tubes, and vials at the other table, the moonlight catching in his muss of dirty blond hair.
    The string led to one of the chairs and I went over to it, finally drawing Caleb’s notice.
    “Sorry I’m late,” I said, as sheepishly as I could. “I . . . umm, almost forgot.”
    “Forgot?” he said, looking up from the table he was working at. “Or were you working too hard?”
    “Not you, too,” I said. “Did Rory and Marshall call you?”
    “No,” he said. “Let’s just say I have mad pattern recognition skills.”
    “It’s busy out there,” I said in my defense. “Halloween’s coming, and I’d like as many gargoyles off the street as possible before costume confusion sets in. I don’t want someone getting crushed because they mistook a
grotesque
for someone on their way to a Halloween party.”
    “Relax,” he said, coming over to pull my chair out for me. “You’re home now.”
    “Thanks,” I said, remaining standing. I leaned against the back of the chair.
    Caleb held a small white spoon with a raw slice of beef in it. He pulled a vial from within his jacket of a thousand pockets and poured whatever mixture was in it over the spoon. The piece of meat sizzled, and I detected not only the aroma of the meat from the spoon but the hint of buttery potatoes, corn, and what smelled like apple pie.
    “What is it?” I asked when he offered me the spoon, taking it with a bit of reluctance.
    “Taste it,” he said. “It’s something new I’m trying. Alchemical cooking.”
    I pulled the spoon away from my mouth. “I’m really not an experimental-alchemical-potions-imbibing kind of gal,” I said.
    Caleb took my hand in his and eased it back to my lips. “Try it,” he said. “It’s safe. I promise. Alchemist’s honor.”
    Given his checkered past, I wondered how honorable that actually was, but held my tongue. There was a comfort and trust in the way he asked, and I put the spoon in my mouth. An explosion of the flavors I thought I had smelled erupted in my mouth, so intense I couldn’t quite process all of them.
    “What exactly am I tasting?”
    “It’s your complete dinner,” he said. “All in one spoon. There’s steak and potatoes, creamed spinach and corn, topped off with both a blueberry and apple pie. But that’s just the beginning of dinner. That amuse-bouche is the essence of the arc of the meal I’ve prepared tonight for you.”
    I sat there for a moment, moving it around in my mouth, letting the various flavors hit me. Hearing what Caleb was going for helped me to pin down each of them.
    “Well . . . ?” he asked, his eyes desperately seeking approval.
    I smiled. “The snozzberries taste like snozzberries, Wonka.”
    His face lit up. He walked back to his prep table.
    “So, honey,” he asked in a singsong voice. “How was your day?”
    “Day?”
I repeated. “During the day, I was asleep. My night, on the other hand . . .”
    “Busy?”
    “You might say that,” I said, pulling off my coat. I poked my finger through the gash in the upper part of the left sleeve of my shirt, the blood there now a dried brown stain.
    Caleb’s eyes widened and he stepped back over to me, examining the jagged hole.
    Under the moonlight the hint of a scar was barely visible. I reminded myself to get something fancy for Marshall from that ThinkGeek site he was always showing Rory and me.
    “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m okay. Now, anyway.”
    I wasn’t about to tell Caleb the full extent of my wounds from earlier. There had been enough lectures about it at the game store this evening. My late-night dinner date with Caleb might go easier if I kept quiet on the subject.
    “You really should