Perhaps he’d cooked with Bella before, and any difference in her desperately-honed methods would have been noticed at once. 

Perhaps he’d had to keep stirring his sauces through gunfire and smoke, and every drop that spilled would be paid for in bells. When the danger was greatest, composure was all that could keep you safe. Hers had cracked the minute Dany’s back was turned.

Perhaps he’d not heard anything but the scream and the silence, since the garden. She is older. You don’t have to be as careful, when they’re not children. The knife only needs one hand. He won’t have to let go of his cobbled-together crutch. There might not be any sound. But there might be. He’d hear, if there was anything to hear. 

No.

“Thank you,” he says, so that even the smallest of princesses can hear. “If you had not spoken up, I would have gotten the recipe all wrong. We rarely got wonderberries in my kitchen. They are as tricky to work with as they say.”

For the first time since coming here, he hears Bella. And the Bella he knew would never harm her Dany like this. Not like this.

“Whatever you’d like to eat, would you like to learn how to make it yourself?” Did you see, little Bella? Did you see how clean his hands are? He may be a master, but you’ve been able to cook more in this kitchen than him, and it’s not close at all. “Can’t be useful to this world on an empty stomach.”