The Cook and the Butterfly

You hear it first. The babble and banter of thronging voices. Hungry. Vibrant. Pitched toward mania. Then come the smells. Shivers of smoke turned ravishing in the pores of succulent meat. Low, savory rumbles wet your tongue with the promise of butter and rosemary. Bright spices salt your brow with flushed longing. The heat and tang of faraway shores.

You catch a flash of color through the misted gloom. Pavilions cast streaming banners into the breeze, their ruffled canopies flung wide over purring cook fires and bustling counters where patrons flock despite the early hour. Coins clink to the ready. Bitter discs, hammered thin and minted with the queen's disapproving pout, hardly seem an equal exchange for the dripping, sinful delights cradled in squares of butcher paper.

Your stomach moans. A pitiful plea.

Not yet, you scold.

This is but the outskirts of the market. A trap for the uninitiated. You are no tourist.

The crowd thickens as you venture deeper. Elbows jostle. Tempers bark hot. Time is short, and most will leave empty-handed. You leap aside as a dagger swipes at a would-be line jumper. The shifty-eyed fool loses his nerve and stumbles away. The grimacing defender presses forward to hold his place in the queue. You know better than to waste the day in line. Instead, you skirt around silver canvas walls to the fragrant curtain of cedarwood beads carved in death's head grins.
You feel it now like a fine electric mist. It saturates the humid gloom. Jittering between flippant folds of silk that dangle from the tent's iron bones.

"You've come back."

The voice curls as a sultry tendril of smoke from the darkness. Your heartbeat grinds in your chest. Breath catches. You've waited so long to feel this creeping dread.

He looks like a man. Noble stature. Jet black hair. Quicksilver gaze. You don’t mind looking at him, but it's not your eyes that send quills of alarm pricking down your arms.

He approaches. Whispering shadows follow. Watching. Listening. Clacking their teeth. Cook he is called. He's never supplied an alternative. You suspect his real name might shatter eardrums. Set fire to synapses.

"I assume you've brought payment?" he inquires, lips quirked upward. You can't quite call it a smile.

"I have," you say, voice steady, though your hands shake as you fumble for the bag secured to your belt. 

You hand him the stained leather pouch. Its gruesome contents sour your stomach every time you flash back to that fevered midnight, clawing through thick, clotted grave soil.

"Poor little butterfly," he croons, "are you still frightened of me?"

You meet his eyes, sterling like the eaves of his pavilion.

"No," you reply. And it is true. "I'm frightened of myself."

"Savor it, then," he intones. "You won't be forever."

Cook beckons you deeper into his enclave where live coals flutter withering wings beneath a pewter cauldron. He stirs its murky contents with a broken blade, crossguard tarnished but recognizable. Knight of the queen's court. Payment or trophy?

Cook lifts expectant eyes to your face. "A name?" he asks.

You draw a scrap of paper from your pocket and toss it into the bubbling brew. It disappears with a hiss into the depths. Cook stirs the disintegrated pulp with a seductive hum that freezes in your marrow. He sets the sword aside and fetches a ladle. It plunges into the cauldron's lagoon, emerging cupped around the gently pulsing chambers of a heart. Slick and translucent. Smaller than you expected.

Cook extends the ladle and deposits the tender organ between your itching palms. 

"There you are, butterfly. I hope it will be the one this time."