Lunch, as it turned out, was another battlefield.
A domestic one, fragrant with herbs and sunlight and the low, constant danger of Lara standing too close in rolled sleeves while pretending she was only trying to chop vegetables.
Sarisa had followed her into the kitchen with all the confidence of a woman who intended to be useful and all the practical skill of someone whose life until recently had mostly involved instructing servants where food should go rather than helping create it.
The kitchen itself was small and warm, built into the heart of the house like a secret. Afternoon light spilled through the little window over the sink, catching on glass jars of dried herbs, a crooked row of knives, and bunches of garlic hanging from a beam.
A pot was already set over the stove. A cutting board waited on the counter. The room smelled of onion, rosemary, clean wood, and the faint sweetness of apples stored in a bowl near the door.
It smelled like life.
Sarisa leaned one hip against the counter and watched Lara with the kind of concentration that had nothing whatsoever to do with culinary education.
Lara had changed after breakfast into simpler clothes again. Dark trousers. Black shirt. Sleeves pushed to her elbows almost immediately, because apparently sleeves offended her on a spiritual level.
Her hair had been tied back badly, which only made Sarisa want to cross the room and fix it for her and ruin whatever food was being attempted in the process.
Instead she stayed where she was.
Mostly.
She had been handed a knife once, entrusted with herbs, and had managed the task so slowly and with such obvious distraction that Lara had laughed under her breath and quietly taken over before Sarisa could remove one of her own fingers in the name of contribution.
So now Sarisa's "help" consisted mainly of handing things to Lara when asked, pretending not to enjoy being ordered around, and blatantly staring whenever Lara turned the wrong way and exposed the line of her throat.
Lara was chopping something green now with quick, efficient strokes, shoulders loose, hips angled toward the stove.
She moved like a woman in a space she understood completely, and there was something indecently attractive about competence performed without vanity.
Sarisa folded her arms and tilted her head. "I thought you didn't know that much about cooking."
Lara did not look up from the board. "I never said I didn't know how."
"You implied it."
"I implied," Lara said, scraping the chopped herbs into the pot, "that I didn't care to."
"That sounds like revision."
"That sounds like selective memory on your part."
Sarisa smiled. "Maybe."
Lara reached for a bowl of cut vegetables, tipped them into the simmering broth, and stirred. The spoon moved slowly through the steam, drawing the scent of herbs and stock and garlic into the room until Sarisa's stomach tightened with very real hunger.
Not for the first time, she was struck by how impossible Lara was. Reckless enough to destroy a royal wedding.
Tender enough to prepare secret rooms full of candles and petals. Competent enough to build a hidden house with her own hands.
And apparently capable of producing lunch from what looked like very little while making it seem offensive that anyone ever doubted her.
"It's not that I don't know much about cooking," Lara said after a moment, her voice easier now, warmed by the ordinary rhythm of the kitchen. "It's just that I don't like cooking for people."
Sarisa lifted one brow. "That sounds hostile."
"It is hostile."
"And yet here you are."
At that Lara finally looked at her.
The expression in her eyes made the whole little kitchen feel suddenly smaller.
"Well," she said, mouth curving slowly, "I make exceptions for the love of my life."
The answer landed with enough force that Sarisa had to look away for exactly one second to recover anything resembling composure.
"Stop flirting," she said.
Lara's smile deepened. "No."
Sarisa reached for the nearest apple and threw it at her with great princessly dignity. Lara caught it one-handed without even flinching.
"Violence," Lara observed.
"You started it."
"With romance?"
"With terrible timing."
Lara bit into the apple and spoke around it, which should not have been attractive and somehow still was. "That sounds like something you secretly enjoy about me."
Sarisa narrowed her eyes. "You're unbearable."
"You're still here."
"That is not proof of anything except poor judgment."
Lara laughed, low and easy, and set the apple aside. Then she crooked one finger toward the stack of bowls near Sarisa's elbow. "If you're done threatening me with fruit, you can help by setting the table."
Sarisa stared. "You just wanted someone to do the boring part."
"Yes."
"That's not help. That's delegation."
"That's leadership."
Sarisa took the bowls anyway.
The table sat just beyond the kitchen in the little main room, close enough that they could still speak without raising their voices. It was small and plain, scarred by use rather than polished for guests.
Sarisa found she liked that. She liked the narrow scratches in the wood, the slight unevenness in one leg, the way the whole house felt built for living rather than display.
When she set the bowls down, she imagined for one dangerous, stupid second what it would feel like to do this often. To move around this room as if it were ordinary.
To complain about Lara's knife placement. To demand better table linens. To be laughed at and kissed and fed and never once have to leave before dawn.
A future, she thought. A tiny domestic future hiding inside the larger impossible one.
She brought spoons back to the table, then returned to the kitchen doorway and leaned there, content to watch again.
Lara had abandoned the spoon and was tasting the broth directly from it now, frowning in concentration.
The sight of her doing something so simple with such seriousness pulled an unexpected laugh out of Sarisa.
Lara glanced over. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Liar."
"You look very offended by your own soup."
"It needs salt."
"You say that as if it's a moral failing."
"Sometimes it is."
Sarisa crossed the room and came to stand at her side. The heat from the stove brushed her skin at once.
So did Lara's presence. She looked into the pot even though she had no idea what improvement she might suggest.
Lara dipped the spoon again and held it out toward her. "Taste."
Sarisa obeyed.
The broth was rich, fragrant, sharper with rosemary than she expected and warm enough to settle somewhere deep in her chest the moment she swallowed.
"It's good."
Lara looked skeptical. "Good or good because you're in love with me?"
Sarisa turned her head and met her eyes. "Those are not mutually exclusive."
For one ridiculous second Lara looked almost shy.
Then she recovered and leaned in just enough that the steam from the pot curled between them like a veil. "Dangerous answer, princess."
"I know."
They stayed like that, too close, for a second longer than was necessary for discussing lunch. Then Lara bumped her lightly with one hip.
"Move," she said. "You're blocking my kitchen."
Sarisa pretended deep offense and shifted only half a step. "Your kitchen."
"My house."
"Our house," Sarisa corrected without thinking.
Silence.
Not a bad one. Just startled. Full.
Lara looked at her in a way that made Sarisa suddenly very aware of everything she had just implied.
The words had slipped out so naturally they had barely felt like a choice, and yet once spoken, they hung in the room with quiet force.
Lara's expression softened.
"Our house," she repeated.
Something warm and helpless opened in Sarisa's chest.
Before either of them could ruin the moment by saying too much or too little, a sharp little ringing sound cut through the room.
The communication device.
Sarisa turned at once. The silver piece sat on the side table near the window, pulsing with soft light.
Lara exhaled once through her nose. "Saved by magic."
"Or interrupted by it," Sarisa said, though she was already crossing the room.
She picked up the device, felt the familiar warmth settle into her palm, and pressed her thumb to the runes.
The light steadied.
Then Elysia's voice came through, bright with amusement and entirely too knowing:
"Good afternoon, love birds."