The Continent (The Continent #1)(55)

I feel Noro’s eyes on me, but when I glance at him, he looks away. I clear my throat. “Yes,” I say. “I’m just fine, now that I can put a kettle on and feed myself properly.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Takashi says. “I’ll marry you, if you can’t find anyone else. I figure you might have a hard time matching up, with your hair all yellow, and your skin so white and pale.”

I am aghast. “My hair,” I say, “is not yellow.”

“Go find a wife up north,” Yuki says. “Leave our sweet Vaela out of it.”

“I’ve tried,” says Takashi miserably. “All the good ones are taken.”

“It is not yellow,” I repeat, scowling. Yuki tries to take my glass of wine, but I slide it out of her reach. “It is blonde.”

“It looks yellow to me,” Takashi says, and promptly buries his face in his arms atop the table. Half a moment later, he is snoring.

“What do you think, then?” Noro asks quietly. “Is Takashi Yen what you seek?”

“I seek nothing,” I say, “except manure. It is the focus of my life. I find it, I shovel it, and I have oka in my pocket.”

“And wine in your belly!” Yuki says, eyeing my glass. “Want me to take that for you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

She sighs, then stands up and pokes Takashi in the side. “Get up, get up. It’s the couch for you tonight.” He lifts his head, a thin stream of drool gleaming on the left side of his chin. Yuki helps him up, rolls her eyes, and walks him to the sofa. I hear them talking softly to one another as she searches through the cupboard for a blanket.

I feel suddenly uncertain of myself, left alone with Noro. My head is swimming with wine, and the only solution seems to be to drink more, but I know that can’t be wise. I push my glass to the center of the table.

“So,” I say. “Takashi is a bit of a disaster.”

“No wedding plans, then?” Noro says, those calm, steady eyes of his fixed on mine. He’s hardly touched his glass, which makes me feel all the more drunk and self-conscious.

I laugh. “Takashi…he is very likable, but I think we would not be well suited.”

“And why not?”

“He’s not my type.”

“Your ‘type’?”

“Well, yes. You know. The sort of person I’m attracted to.”

Noro’s eyes are like two black flames, burning through me. “What sort of person is that?”

I hesitate, frozen, my heart inexplicably thumping in my chest. I have words, somewhere, but can’t seem to conjure them—I can hardly breathe, much less speak.

Yuki leans through the kitchen entrance. “The sort who knows when to go home,” she says. “Off with you, Noro Zensuke.”

He looks at me for a moment longer, and I feel a fluttering inside that I can no longer ignore. A little flutter that’s been happening for a while now, if I am honest.

Noro, it would seem, is exactly, perfectly my type.

The following morning, Takashi is gone, but I find Yuki curled up with a book in the sitting room. She sets it aside when she sees me, then throws her head back and laughs.

“Oh, Vaela!” she says. “You look even worse than I expected. No more wine after dinner for you.”

I close my eyes and rub my temples. “If I never see another bottle, it will be too soon.”

“I have the perfect remedy,” she says. “Come along.”

Her eyes are clear, and she seems completely unaffected by the previous night’s indulgences, though I know she drank nearly twice as much as I did. I follow her into the kitchen and sit at the table while she rummages around in the pantry cupboard.

The noise of bottles and packages clinking about is terrible. I’ve never had more than a single glass of wine at once, though we drank it nightly in the Spire. It’s meant to complement a meal; why would anyone want to make herself sick? My head is swimming.

“Vaela,” Yuki says, too loudly, “do you honestly not have even a pinch of salt in the house?”

I give her a queasy smile. “I’m afraid I don’t care much for salt, except in preserved meats and the like.”

She stares at me with her mouth open, then shuts the pantry door with a loud clack. I wince.

“Don’t care much for salt…well. I suppose you’ve never had a salted egg, then?” I shake my head. “Well. Now I’ve heard everything.”

“Yuki?”

“Yes?”

“My mouth tastes like dirty cotton.”

“Yes, well, that’s what happens when you drink too much wine.”

“You had your share!”

“Yes,” she says, leaning against the table, “but I am an old widow, and have far more practice than you.”

“You’re seventeen.”

“Shush.”

I draw my knees up to my chest. “I noticed Noro didn’t drink much.”

“Oooh,” she says, and hurries to sit in the chair opposite. “I was waiting for his name to come up. You’re sweet on each other, right?”

I turn to face her, my cheeks growing warm. “We’re friends.”

She laughs. “Right. Well, here’s how it works,” she says, leaning forward. “Half the girls—and some of the older women—in this village have their sights set on Noro. But Noro isn’t really what they want.”