“And I’m cook to Madonna Giulia Farnese,” I found myself shooting back. “The Holy Father’s concubine herself. I have powerful friends—”

“The Pope’s cunt?” For someone who could talk so smooth and pretty for the clients, he had a mouth like a gutter in the kitchen. His voice rose steadily toward the bellow I remembered so well. “I should have known you’d end up cooking for another whore. If you think she’ll protect you, well, she’ll be too busy flopping on her back for the French, once they finally arrive and turn this town into a sewer. We’ll be well gone, and you’ll be headed back to—”

“I’m not going back there!” I shouted back. “Not that place. Not ever!” The corner of the trestle table pressed into my hip, and I dodged around it.

“Oh, yes, you are.” My father’s voice dropped from a bellow to a silky whisper. One of his most effective tricks to terrify his apprentices, that sudden modulation from roar to murmur; I often used the same technique myself. “But I want my recipes back first, girl. Hand them over.”

“I don’t have them.” My hand felt sweaty on the knife hilt.

“Lying bitch,” he said almost fondly. “Hand them over and maybe I’ll just turn turn a blind eye rather than report you to the Archbishop as a desecrator and a runaway—”

“I don’t have your precious recipes!” I yelled. “I left them behind when Madonna Giulia took herself to the country, and you know why? Because I don’t need them anymore, Father, because I make up my own recipes now and they’re better than yours. Because I’m a better cook than you are now, and the Pope himself eats my food and—”