at all,” Kayla said nervously, glancing from Beara's face to the sharp knife in her hand. Probably the same knife that sliced the finger off of . . . whoever it is that's in the soup. Don't panic, don't panic, just get out of here. . . . “There's just something . . . about the soup . . . it's . . . it's not . . . not what I was expecting.”
“Ah, of course,” the old woman said, nodding. She set down the knife and picked up another wooden spoon, hobbling back to the cauldron to stir it. “That's the problem nowadays: it's hard to find good meat. How can you make good stock from something like this?” She fished the floating finger out of the soup and tossed it into a trash can several feet away. Kayla flinched as she saw the large pile of white bones in the bin.
“I thought that young man looked so tasty,” the old woman continued. “After all, he was very muscular. He broke into my house without even working up a sweat. You just can't tell with these things, though. It's terribly difficult to cook a ­decent meal when you have to work with raw ingredients like that.”
“Yeah, I can guess,” Kayla said weakly, glad she