Book One – Chapter 19

Bubs passed them. He actually walked right past.

Yu’s feathers sank at once, collapsing back into something almost smooth.

Bubs stopped.

He stared at Yu.

Then he turned around and looked at the sink behind him.

Then back at Yu.

Then beneath the centre workbench.

And back at Yu.

Then he turned left, bringing his face level with the table pressed against the wall.

Yu’s feathers bristled.

Bubs watched him as they rose.

Then, very slowly, Bubs turned back to the wall table. His gaze moved across the clutter. And then he saw them: the dark square bottle and the mug, shoved all the way back against the wall, almost entirely hidden behind another dirty mug and a pair of ragged dishtowels. He extended one arm across the tabletop, but he could not reach. His fingers hovered just short of the bottle. Bubs pulled them back.

“Get this out,” he said.

Yu … did. He scrambled the mug and the Vey bottle to the middle of the table. There they stood, in the light.

“What is this?” Bubs asked.

“Uhm,” Yu said, in a voice that seemed to have crawled out of a much smaller creature than him. “Well, so the mug was just when I —“

“Did you serve this?” Bubs grabbed and pulled the bottle of Vey close to the edge, his black gaze fixed on the ruptured areole.

Yu stared as well.