Every dish at the Court of Saffrey carries an oath. Maren Thale's job is to taste it first.
Maren is the king's oath-taster, born with the rare tongue that can read the binding words a sworn cook salts into a meal. She tastes before the king eats, and she says exactly what a dish binds. Ten days before the Founding Feast, when the whole court eats its yearly oath of loyalty, the palace has a new head cook, and his name reads wrong on her tongue.
Tobias Fenn is quick, warm, maddeningly good at his work, and hiding something. The kitchen ledger shows crown salt that went into no dish, and the Master of the Table orders Maren to taste everything Tobias sets. Then a forged dish turns up under his name, the court blames them both, and the only way to keep their posts and save the feast is to work through the night at his side.
The closer she stands to his range, the clearer it gets: Tobias is cooking toward the king's plate, for a reason twenty years old that he will not tell her. And on Founding Day, the letter of her duty and the man beside her will meet at the same plate.
Can she trust the man she is paid to catch?
It is a slow burn told in two voices, with a steamy romance, the bedroom door mostly closed, and a happy ending.
