Book One – Chapter 15

Bubs was nothing like them. Oh, he looked friendly, all right. His yellow-and-orange hues glowed warmly beneath the dim common-room light, his slick skin reflecting the flickering illumination in a way that made him appear almost soft. Deceptively so. He was young, too, his colours still bright. Younger than Lib and Url, certainly. Perhaps even younger than Yu. It was hard to tell. His size and that wobbly way of walking did not help. He was the only guard not towering over Yu, the only one that did not look like an absolute menace of a berserker. Compared to the others, he was small and weak, with almost childlike proportions.

And yet. There was nothing meek about him. Bubs carried himself with an authority that neither fit his absurdly light-hearted name nor his colourful, diminutive frame. He had served them food, but he was no servant. There was something in the way he approached them, in the way he distributed mugs and bowls, and in the way he watched them eat — calm, unwavering, measuring. The kitchen was his domain. Theirs was the privilege of partaking in it. He decided whether they deserved to eat or whether they starved. Absolutely all matters related to food fell under his jurisdiction: ordering, growing, managing supplies, preparing, cooking. And he made sure everyone knew it.

“Meal times are fixed, and so are portion sizes. Do not ask for food outside of meal times. This is an exception, since you just arrived.” Bubs had delivered this decree the moment the travelling party crossed the threshold. “Outside of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and witchset, no one eats without me knowing.” His voice was clipped and firm. His tone brooked no argument. He expected obedience to be a given. “Not a crumb, not a grain. Understood?”

Where Tirran’s eyes had been erratic, darting everywhere, Bubs’ massive, bulbous gaze swept the room with slow, deliberate weight. He did not blink.