Mat's meeting with Ms. Collins after the burn incident in the infirmary had gone better than he anticipated. Maybe it was that it had snowed two days earlier and Charlie had been almost as excited as Ayan even though, unlike her, it wasn't Charlie's first snow. Or maybe it was that Ms. Collins' office was less stuffy now that campus was cooling off. She confirmed what Charlie had told him--that leaving had been the right thing to do. There had been other people there who had been better equipped to care for the student. Then she told him she had to cancel their meeting the following week.
Without having to visit Ms. Collins, Mat spent time every day in the infirmary with Charlie. On the slow days, Charlie helped him study, and on the busy days, he enjoyed being able to help. Either way, he was learning something. He was even getting along with Mr. Putyam and Iona, who worked the same shift. But he still couldn't bear the sight of burns, even when the others told him they looked nastier than they were.
After three weeks, Matsias felt like he owed Charlie an explanation. The older boy had never asked for one, but he wanted to talk to someone other than Key or Ms. Collins. At the end of their shift on Springday, when Charlie asked if Mat wanted to eat dinner with him, as they sometimes did, Matsias took a deep breath and said, "Actually, there's something I want to talk to you about... in private."
Charlie's easy smile dropped for only a moment before he said, "okay, why don't we go to the garden?"
The garden was near the cafeteria, surrounded by a brick wall, with a short space that served as an entrance. One side was herbs and vegetables for the kitchen, and the other was for the infirmary. It was tended primarily by the cooking classes and the plant magic classes. And when they weren't there, it was usually empty. There were stone paths between the rows and a few stone benches, which made it a nice place to find solitude.
Charlie and Matsias sat on a bench near some lavender. "There's something you should know. About me." Mat said. And then he told Charlie everything. He told him about growing up in Ethion. He told him about rooming with Reed. He even told Charlie about the fire and how he had left Lamel behind to save his parents. It was as if once he had taken the risk of talking, the words spilled out of his mouth and he couldn't stop them.
And Charlie listened. He said nothing until Matsias had finished with his story and wiped his streaming eyes on his sleeve. Then for a minute longer, he still said nothing. Just as Matsias was beginning to worry about what was going through Charlie's head, the older boy spoke. "Well, I guess since we're making confessions, I have something to tell you too." He took a breath. "I already know."
"Ms. Collins told you."
"No. All she told me was that if you shared anything personal with me, I had to keep it confidential. That should go without saying, but... I knew who you were when I met you the night of the fire. And I knew who your sister was when I met her at the Hawthorne House pageant. Because I read your applications."
"You what?"
Now Charlie sounded exactly as Matsias had a moment ago. "Last spring, I was in Mrs. Theelnin's room during lunch. I've never been great at my heat gift, and sometimes she helps me practice. She left to get her lunch, and there was this other kid in there--someone from Providence House who was finishing a test--and he suggested we look at the new student applications."
"How?"
"Mrs. Theelnin was on the admissions committee last year, and he knew she had them in her filing cabinet. She'd left her keys on the table."
"So you opened it." Matsias had to admit to himself that his own curiosity would have been hard to battle.
Charlie nodded. "We flipped through the applications, and we noticed two of them had the same last name. We don't usually get siblings in the same year, so we were curious. When I saw your picture, I recognized the embroidery on your collar. It's the same as Tisheet's."
"Faraday doesn't get a lot of Thisaazhou kids either."
Charlie shook his head in agreement. "So we read your applications. Or, as much of them as we could before we heard Mrs. Theelnin coming back."
Now it was Mat's turn to be quiet. When he didn't say anything, Charlie filled the silence. "Look, Mat. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it, but I did. And I promise, I haven't told anyone, and I'm not going to. My grandmother had a story like that. And I mean, after Clary, I..."
Without even thinking about it, Matsias burst out laughing. Charlie looked at him alarmed and started blubbering something he couldn't understand, but it only made Mat laugh harder. It took him a moment to catch his breath before he could explain. "What's Clary?"
"What?"
"I mean, I know it's a movie, but I've never seen it."
Like before, Charlie's face fell for a moment and then returned to a smile, this one hopeful. "It's about a Pelan girl who saves the town of Mevi. Apparently Euon Wright wrote it for his neighbor. I think you would like it." Charlie's eyes went out of focus as he was suddenly lost in thought. Then he turned to Matsias and said, "do you know how to make tinamod?"
"Of course I know how to make tinamod." The cookies were a cultral staple among the Pelan.
"We should make some."
"Why?"
Charlie's easy smile returned. "Because you've never been inside the Westwood kitchen."
***
The Westwood kitchen was on the second floor, above the common. Matsias marveled as he looked at the red and white tiled floor and the shiny appliances. He was sure that Victoria House only had more rooms on the second floor. "Why does Westwood have a kitchen when the other houses don't?"
"Oh, Victoria's the only one that doesn't. I think the teachers are afraid the freshmen might burn it down." He looked away from Mat after he said it, but the younger boy was far too busy running his fingers along the polished counter tops to notice.
As Matisias walked with his father to temple, he was so excited he could barely walk straight. It would be his first day getting to help the men prepare the meal for temple service the next day. He hopped on one foot, a piece of his headscarf coming untucked.
Mat's father, noticing the bit of purple fabric that hung loose, squatted down next to Matsias. He pinched the loose edge with his fingers. "Do you know why Pelan men wear the ibi'an?" he asked.
"It's a reminder of our heritage as nomads on the Major Continent and helps us remember our line, all the way to the Grand Matriarch, Tsia Xitano," Matsias proudly recited the words as if answering the question during school.
His father chuckled. "It also helps us keep our hair pinned back while we cook." He laughed again at Mat's wide eyes and helped the boy re-tie his headscarf.
Matsias tugged at his braid. He had cooked with Toak plenty of times the last year with barely a thought to his ibi'an, but he suddenly felt naked without it.
"Are you all right?" Charlie asked.
Mat considered saying he was fine. But he had started this with honesty, so he decided he might as well keep it up. "I'm still not used to having my head bare."
Charlie looked down at his Westwood tie, smoothing it out. "Yeah, I imagine that's difficult."
Mat's stomach grumbled. "Do you have any food in this fancy kitchen of yours?"
"Always. We use part our house funds to keep it stocked with staples." Charlie checked the refrigerator. "I think we have some smoked fish."
"Smoked fish is a staple?"
"In Nefrale, it is." Charlie extracted a parcel wrapped in butcher paper and gathered some other ingredients.
Charlie sliced the fish and tossed it into a salad with a homemade dressing. Once his belly was full, Matsias taught Charlie how to make tinemod. It had been over a year since he had eaten the cookies, but the recipe came to him easily. As he prepared the frosting, he realized it was tradition to color it. "You... don't happen to have any kind of food dye, do you?" He wished he'd thought to make the frosting in two batches, so he could brown the butter in one, as his dad often had.
But Charlie reached into a cupboard and brought out several small bottles of coloring. He laughed at what must have been a very surprised look on Mat's face. "I told you we have all the staples."
Matsias didn't mention that at home, they had usually colored the frosting with berries or cocoa, if they could get it. He separated the frosting into two bowls and colored them purple and yellow. Then he showed Charlie how to make the Pelan sun symbol on the cookies.
"Something smells good in here, what's this?"
Charlie was frosting the last of them when Chloe walked in carrying the notebook she always had with her. Matsias froze. He had not expected to share this with anyone but Charlie. But Charlie replied, "Tinemod. Mat and I were talking about Clary, and I remembered I had found a recipe somewhere."
Matsias relaxed again and offered a cookie to the girl. He wanted to crow over his accomplishments, to tell her that his tinemod recipe had been passed down in the family for four generations, but Charlie's lie had been so smooth, he half thought even Miriam wouldn't have noticed.
Chloe bit into a cookie and squealed. "These are so good!"
"Of course they are," Charlie said, "We made them." He winked at Mat.
Shortly afterward, more students stumbled into the Westwood kitchen, following their noses to the tinemod. It turned out that none of them were surprised Charlie had made cookies, since he was regularly in the kitchen on weekends. Charlie's roommate brought in a deck of cards and there was a brief argument about whether to play Feast or a game Mat hadn't heard of called Echoes. Feast won out, and Mat stayed until curfew. Then he returned to Victoria House and has his best night's sleep in a year.
