As the door clicked closed behind the Admin, Judge Steel relaxed again. “You have a death wish, boy?”

Remy released Jim’s arm and crossed his arms. “Me? No. Just experienced in handling neurotic rulers.”

“I was really getting somewhere,” said Jim mournfully. “I thought I might be able to find the raw materials for you, Ainsel. The flour and whatever else goes into that stuff.”

Ainsel blinked, surprised. She hadn’t even realized he’d been aware of what she was doing. “Oh! Thank you for trying. I think we’ll be all right, though. At least… how long does he usually nap for?”

Judge Steel adjusted his tunic, checking the buckles on his bandolier, like a cat grooming itself after a misstep. “Oh, he’s very irregular. Sometimes he’s in there for an hour, sometimes he’s in there for days. Once he was calling for me after five minutes.” He sniffed. “The old blood, through and through.”

Ainsel had no idea what he was talking about but she was too worried about her cookery to investigate. “Five minutes isn’t enough. An hour…” She shrugged.

The arrival of more carts cut off further conversation. They brought more fruit and sap, and other things. Nestled in with the fruit was a woven bag the size of both Ainsel’s hands, filled with some withered green bulbs. Ainsel sniffed one, then peeled the skin back and tasted it.

“Ginger,” she breathed. “It doesn’t look like Earth ginger, but it’ll do.”

A scrawny carter edged into her line of sight. “Hey,” he said, then frowned and waved at Nabi, speaking rapidly to him in another language. Nabi responded, slow and halting, and they had an exchange. Then Nabi gave the carter the jam stirring stick. The carter licked it, then handed it back and pulled a jar out of an expansive pocket and pushed it into Ainsel’s hands. “Yum.”

Ainsel accepted the jar, but said, “Next time put the jam on the bread, please. No licking spoons! Go clean it at a steam vent, right now, Nabi.”

Nabi and the carter exchanged grins, before the carter retreated. Ainsel inspected the jar. It was full of brown dead insects the size of her thumbnail.

“Oh God, are those food?” asked Jim, looking ill.

“Yup.” Nabi lowered his voice. “He grows ‘em out behind the fort.”

Ainsel took a deep breath, then tried one of the insects. It crunched pleasantly between her teeth and the taste reminded her of pecans. “Great!” she said a little breathlessly. “I can use these too.” Then she rushed over to check on some of her steaming pots and wondered what else would show up.

That the soldiers had secret caches of delicacies they didn’t willingly share she’d never been in doubt of. But the best way to convince people to share was to show them what could be done with teamwork. Sour fruit and sweet sap together made jam. But jam alone wasn’t going to be enough.

But over the next couple of hours, more gifts arrived from hopeful eaters: a large jar of small dried lizards, a bag of tiny dried flower petals that tasted of thyme, an armful of warty hard squash, strips of peppery bark, a flask of some kind of tangy fermented paste, and an earthen jar decorated with fangs and full of pickled snakes. Ainsel tasted each delivery, ignoring some of the snickers from the natives and Jim’s horrified expressions, and made a plan to incorporate each ingredient into a dish.

That wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was figuring out how to bake. “Steam won’t work,” she explained to Nabi and Remy. “Baking doesn’t properly happen until much hotter.”

“Why do it, then?” asked Nabi. “You can make more things like the jam.”

Ainsel set her jaw. “I want to bake. Baking will be better.” She rattled a sheet of metal. “You have a forge here?”

“A small one. The smith is a very busy man. He will not share his space with you. He is very jealous.”

Ainsel wondered if she could bribe him with food, but something in Nabi’s face told her not to even try. “If we have to, we can make a fire outside. Wait, how is the steam heated?”

The Judge said calmly, “No leaving the audience chamber before judgement has been rendered. What would be be if we let prisoners roam freely through the fortress?”

“Slackers?” suggested Remy.

The Judge turned a baleful glare onto him. “I can send you back to your cell, young man.”

Remy’s eyes were very bright. “That would be exciting.”

Ainsel wondered if the curse was resurfacing. She hadn’t done more than brush Remy’s hand since she made her challenge. He’d tell her if he needed her help, wouldn’t he? But maybe he didn’t want to hold hands with her in front of so many people.

“Hey!” said somebody from the door, looking in. “Good, good. He’s not here. Just the Judge. Hey, lady!” said a tall, thin man, advancing with a smile and a swagger. “We have a present for you.”

Ainsel blinked. She’d received quite a few ingredients as gifts, but they’d all been delivered with some slyness. This soldier radiated smugness.

Deserved smugness, it turned out. Two men came in behind him, bearing something heavy wrapped in a tarp. They dumped it in the ground and with nods and grins, waved Ainsel over to unwrap it.

Inside was a giant fish, elongated with a narrow, fanged snout. It bore stab wounds, and had already been gutted “From secret underground river below cellars,” explained one of the bearers, earning a prompt kick from the other one.

The first soldier strutted back and forth. “From my river, yes. My fish. It will be the gem of your feast, lady.”

“Yes,” said Ainsel weakly. It had to be at least three hundred pounds. “You’ve eaten it before?”

The soldier grinned. “I’ve eaten her babies. Very small, tasty mouthfuls.”

“He needed help getting this one,” translated Nabi.

“Hmmm,” said Judge Steel, nudging the top fin of the fish with one boot. “All right, get out of here before I toss you in a cell.”

The smug fisherman looked shocked. “But I am a hero! The star! Motivated by lady’s glorious beauty! I have done no wrong.” He blew a kiss to Ainsel and she blushed.

“Boys?” said the Judge, and the fisherman’s two friends took his arms and hurried him away. Once they were gone, the Judge turned to Ainsel. “All of my men seem to be spilling their secrets for you. So many little delicacies they’ve been hiding away from their commanders, tsk tsk.”

“Were they breaking any rules?” asked Ainsel, anxious that her helpers not get into trouble.

“It’s hard to throw a stone and not hit a broken rule, as your companion so clearly has noticed,” said Judge Steel dryly. “Will they be punished for it? That depends.” He shot an inscrutable glance at Nabi.

Ainsel thought about the situation for a moment. “You’re right. I’d hoped for a bit of help, but this is…” she waved her arms at the bounty that surrounded her. “More than I expected. Why would they all do this?”

Remy and Nabi exchanged looks, but said nothing. Then the Judge cleared his throat. “You were speaking of ovens a moment ago.”

Ainsel remembered. “Yes. And you said we couldn’t leave this hall, which—” She shook her head. “We can steam the fish, and I can season it, but… I really need more heat for the pies!”

The Judge scratched his beard. “Well. It seems as if everybody else is contributing. I wouldn’t want to be left out. Let me see those sheets of metal.”

Nabi handed the sheets of metal over, then respectfully retreated back to Ainsel. “You are okay now,” he whispered. “Forgelords have power over heat.”

The Judge, overhearing, snorted, but sealed the metal together into an open box with no more than his fingers. Then he inserted another sheet inside the box and showed it to Ainsel. “A passable oven, I suspect.”

“I don’t think it will get any hotter than the steam,” said Ainsel dubiously.

“Oh, right,” said the Judge, and fished something out of a pocket. It was a polished black stone the size of Ainsel’s palm. The Judge held it between both his hands and brought it to his mouth for a moment. When he lowered his hands again, the stone had turned bright cherry-red. He slid it into the bottom partition of the oven. “Less heat, slower cooling than it looks. Much hotter than steam, though.”

Ainsel held her hand near the stone for a moment, then pulled it away. “That should be hot enough.” She kissed the Judge on his forehead. “Than you so much. What do you want in your pie?”

The Judge pushed her away gently. “I still don’t believe you can make pies. But if you do something with those lizards, I’d eat it.”