The air in the cellar did not go foul all at once. It came on like a spoiled vintage uncorked at the back of a damp pantry—a faint, sour prickle of fermenting skins that cut through the clean smell of steam and wet river quartz.
Jon Hale kept his palms pressed flat against the outer bronze rim of the bowl. The metal was steady beneath his hands, vibrating with the four-minute harmonic of the cooling flumes, but as he counted the second minute of the transfer, his nostrils twitched.
It was not river silt. It was not the sharp cider vinegar he had used to scour the bowl, and it was not the bitter comfrey grease Elin had packed into Cael’s groin. It was the thick, yeasty reek of spoiled grape must—the heavy, acidic stench of red wine that had turned to vinegar in unwashed casks, mixed with the greasy smell of old lees and stagnant cellar puddles.
“Do you smell that?” Jon asked, not lifting his head from the water.
Across the oak boards, Cael sat with his eyes shut, his gray face slick with cold sweat. The knight’s breathing had slowed, but at Jon’s words, his eyelids fluttered open.
