“Lucinda?” I open my eyes groggily, seeing the redhead beauty walking toward me.

“What?” Flaminia yawns so loudly she might be on the verge of dislocating her jaw.

“Joey, I see you got the job,” the most beautiful woman I have ever set my eyes on smiles at me.

“Hey,” I put a hand in front of my mouth as I yawn. “Isn’t it early? What time is it?”

“It’s 7 AM,” Lucinda says, looking at one of the clocks on the wall. Because, yes, Elves apparently do have clocks. “I came here because I booked the [Enchanter]. Do you have your book with you?”

“Nope,” I yawn again. “It’s back home. We can swing by and get it. Have you had breakfast yet?”

Lucinda shakes her head.

“I have been studying all night; I came here early so I can go to work right after this and not waste hours. I might take a small nap in the afternoon, but I have some practice to attend to.”

Now that I put Lucinda’s figure in focus, I see she’s holding a glass bottle and taking small sips from it. Is that magical Adderall or something?

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Stamina potion,” Lucinda smiles crookedly. “My parents stockpile them for me. This one is pretty high-quality and shouldn’t give me any trouble until later in the day.”

Damn. Lucinda truly is like a medical student from Columbia, isn’t she?

“Do you want to eat something? The bread should be coming out by now and we have to try them out to see which variety of grain is the best for this.”

“No, Joey, we should really go. The [Enchanter]...” Lucinda is cut off by her stomach protesting quite loudly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I—”

“You are hungry,” I nod. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long. Let’s eat something together and then, we can go. I’ll finish the tasting in my next shift. Is that alright, Flam?”

Flaminia has been peeking at me and Lucinda, like most of the other employees, with the most gossip-starved eyes I have ever seen.

“Oh, it is okay. It is very okay,” she says with a smile resembling the one of the Cheshire cat.

...

I cut into several loaves. We have taken them out and put them back close to their respective semolina-based mother yeasts. The crust of the one I’m currently handling is a bit on the thinner side for an Altamura bread, meaning this specific flour is not ideal.

“This one is a failure,” I sigh.

“How so?” Lucinda looks at me, confused. “They all look the same.”

“Soooo, Lucinda,” Flaminia butts in front of me, “how long have you and Joey been friends?”

I physically push Flaminia to the side and apologize to Lucinda.

“Don’t mind her and the rest of the girls; they might be a little jealous of me, you know? Not many males going around in this bakery.”

Lucinda nods distractedly, still staring at the bread.

“To answer your question,” I continue, “these are all different loaves of bread. They are made from different flour. Individually, the difference is not huge, but when your palate is used to semolina bread, you can easily spot the best one. And this one,” I raise the loaf, “has a crust that’s too thin. See?”

Lucinda cranes her neck forward and looks at the crust, shrugging. “I guess?”

Amateurs.

“Anyway,” I say, moving onto cutting into more loaves and gently pushing them in. “You can tell which one is the best simply by touch. If you can’t push it down, the inner part of the bread is too hard. But if you can push down too easily, the crust is too chewy and not crunchy enough.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

In less than five minutes, I’ve fondled all the loaves and I’m left with only four from the initial one hundred.

I know I told Lucinda I’d wait for later, but that was my little lie. I sweated for six long hours to get here, and I’m not going out until I confirm that I’ve made a decent clone of Altamura bread.

I cut into the remaining contenders and move onto sniffing their innards.

“Is that how you usually do things here?” Lucinda casually asks Flaminia, who still has her hounding eyes on.

“No. Joey is very unorthodox in his ways. Anyway, I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Flaminia Lemonia Amata.”

I was almost too taken with the bread until I heard Flaminia’s tria nomina, her full name.

I stare at her, impressed. That’s a mouthful of a name. Lemonia? Lemons? And Amata as in... loved? Goddamn, she must be popular with men, huh?

See, Elves apparently use the same naming system the Ancient Romans did. Why? Beats me.

Anyway, the tria nomina is composed of the praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. The praenomen is the personal name, like Gaius or Lucius. The nomen is the family name, like Julius or Cornelius. The cognomen is like a nickname, and it’s often used to distinguish between different branches of a family, like Gaius Julius Caesar or Lucius Cornelius Scipio.

Not everyone used to have three names. Some only had one, a praenomen. Most had two. If you were somewhat important, you might have three. And my favorite colleague apparently has all three, apparently.

“You are that Flaminia?” Lucinda’s eyes go wide. “The famous [Baker]? The best [Baker] in Amorium? It’s an honor to meet you... My mother tried getting one of your cakes, but she said you were booked for months...”

Flaminia puts on a very smug smile as she looks at me.

“I am, I am. And you are Lucinda, the prodigy.”

“Oh, please,” I see Lucinda cringe at that name. “I’m not a prodigy. That’s my parents talking rot.”

“Plus,” I add from the side, “if your mother wants the cake by the best baker in Amorium, she should come to me.”

Now, I didn’t mean it as anything more than a little jab, but when the entire bakery went silent and Flaminia looked at me with a frown I’ve never seen on her face, I understood she didn’t take it well.

Whatever.

“Are you trying to insult me, Joey?” Flaminia shouts at me.

Huh?

“Miss Flaminia,” Lucinda addresses her very respectfully, “I’m sure he didn’t mean...”

“Flam, I didn’t mean to insult you,” I say, waving a hand. “Let’s just drop it. It was a little jab. Nothing more.”

Flaminia walks up to me and hisses.

“I should slap you for such an insult.”

“Are we being serious right now?” I take a step back and raise an eyebrow as I speak.

“Joey,” Lucinda cringes from the side. “It’s considered a great disrespect to tell someone of higher level that you are better than them in their profession. The fact that your class is very low-level...”

“He has no class,” Flaminia hisses again. “And you dare say that you are better than me just because you know more recipes?”

I start scratching my chin, thinking about how I want to handle this.

Am I a better baker than Flaminia?

Hahahahahahahaha.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I really didn’t want to offend you. I was laughing to myself because I’m so ignorant and I don’t know anything about your culture. I’m sorry, Flam. How about I finish working on the bread? I need to taste these loaves, but I’m positive that that one...”

“Take it back,” Flaminia cuts me off.

“Flam, please, let’s just go back to work.”

“It’s Chef Flaminia for you,” she snaps back. “And either you take back what you said, or I’m stuffing that rotten bread under your rotten eyes.”

I look between Lucinda and Flaminia, feeling an itch at the back of my head.

I am not a big fan of fights, if I am honest.

I see that every other employee is still frozen in their spots, meaning that I have actually tripped over a pretty big taboo while I merely wanted to trash talk a colleague.

Now, is there any chance that Flaminia is actually a better baker than me?

“Why are you smiling again?! Are you taunting me?!”

“Tell you what,” I say, putting down the bread and joining my hands together. “I was wrong. You are the higher-level chef. I take it back. I am very sorry.”

I look at Flaminia as her shoulders suddenly become a bit less tense, and she sighs. “You don’t know any better. But I need you to say that I am the better chef, Joey. That, or one of us two has to quit.”

“Sure, sure,” I say with a smile. “I am sorry, F—Chef.”

“I need a minute,” Flaminia walks past me and goes toward the break room.

I take a bite of each loaf of bread and sigh.

“Melina,” I call out as soon as Flaminia is gone. “This one,” I point at one of the loaves. “Label it. That’s the right wheat. It’s not 100% perfect, but it’s almost impossible to distinguish.”

I cut half of it and give it to her.

“Give it to Clodia together with the grain it came from. Tell her we’ll need much more of it. I’ll have the specific quantities for her by tomorrow. Also, I’ll be taking all the other failed loaves. The starters can be discarded. It’s a waste, but we don’t really need them. Make sure they are disposed of and not taken by any of the employees. Clodia would be really unhappy if it leaked.”

Melina is standing in front of me, holding the loaf, unmoving.

“Melina,” I say with a serious tone. “I didn’t know. I apologized and I will apologize to Flaminia again later. I am new to the customs of Elves, everyone.”

I turn to face the rest of the bakery, where all the others are still shooting glances at me.

“Flaminia is the better baker, okay?”

I sigh, cutting a few slices of bread for myself and Lucinda and trying to remember where they keep the jam here.

“Joey...” Lucinda says, touching my arm, clearly worried, but also... confused?

I stare at her beautiful face for a second before I catch a glimpse of something else. I see a ring on the hand that touched me with a stealthily-concealed stone facing Lucinda. And the stone is flashing...

Red.