Book One – Chapter 19

From there, he tried again. He pressed the long side into his chest and arched backward until it found a shallow rest along his breastbone. It was the best he could do. It was not good enough. He knew it would fail. But because he was out of ideas, he did not want to believe it. So he lingered there, half-clutched, half-bound to the tray, weighing the thing against the risk of motion. Could he rush it? Could he make it if he just ran — burst through the doors, right up to the first table in the common room? It seemed impossible. It seemed like a very, very bad idea. Then again, there was no sense in delaying any longer. Yu could either drag out the tray now, or drag out the inevitable.

Patience abandoned him first. He lifted. The weight bit into his ribs. The bowls shuddered. Stew lapped at their rims. One backward step, one tremor in his grip, and the whole thing began to slide. Panic seized him faster than thought. He bent forward and slammed the tray back down onto the workbench. It struck hard but landed upright. A tide of stew sloshed over the edges, yet the bowls stayed standing.

After that, Yu simply stood there, bent over the tray with his wings resting on the table, breathing hard and staring down at the bowls, at the mess pooling round them, and at the waste slicking the table’s edge. This was four servings of stupid decisions.

At last, he gave in. He would take them out one at a time. So he removed the first bowl, then the second, and then the third, each set down a few steps to the right, beyond the spills. When only one remained, Yu returned to wrestling with the tray, spinning and shifting it about, pushing it towards the edge while readjusting the lone bowl again and again. It was an utterly pointless struggle underlined with many curses. A pathetic waste of time. It was so stupid you would not even believe it was a parody.
Then suddenly, long before he would ever grasp the thing, he grasped a much simpler, much lighter truth;