"This is not deer. I promise you, Winston's stores are safe. This is the heart of a monster, smoked with wood from Sorrow's grove." Indeed, much of their meat in Hadriel had been from the creatures who sometimes threatened the populace, so it was perfectly innocent, except in the way that it really was not.

"As a young man, I had to learn many things that came with caring for oneself," he remarked lightly. "Cooking was something that I found particularly fascinating, the transformation of simple things into something divine."