“The Leafdrift blends extremely well with these… what did you call them?”

“Burgers. Hamburgers.”

“With these burgers,” she speaks the word slowly, savoring it the same way she does the burger. “If you opened a stall with this as the main attraction, you could probably make it a standalone business.”

“Thanks,” I say, biting into my burger after finishing the fries.

“What did you do with the bread? It’s… particular.”

I smile, taking a sip of my wine before responding. "Ah, that. I made that myself too. I added some sourdough starter to the dough, and then I let it rise for a long time to develop more flavor. It gives it a bit of a tangy taste and a chewy texture that complements the meat and toppings nicely."

The woman nods thoughtfully, taking another bite of her burger. "Sourdough? Is that one of the things you have been doing at Happy Bakery as they start flooding Amorium with the new bread? By the way, why are you working for Happy Bakery at all?"

I raise an eyebrow, and I answer with my mouth half-full. “Are you trying to make me switch sides? Is this a job interview?”

“Camilla almost came here with me,” Irene sighs. “I told her I would be seeing you tonight. She said that if I didn’t try to recruit you, she’d take my head off.”

Wow. The little Elf is a real firecracker.

“That Camilla is really something. Clodia had to bodycheck her when she came to the bakery with Violante to exchange the contracts or whatever.”

“Camilla is a genius,” Irene shakes her head. “She just gets fixated on things—obsessed, really. Now, she said we needed to get you on our side.”

Huh.

“Interesting. Why would you tell me? Shouldn’t you try to pull a Mata Hari on me? Sorry, that’s… a [Spy], I suppose. Wouldn’t it make sense for you to use your feminine wiles to make me fall for you and then bring me to the other side?”

Irene, who is drinking from her glass, suddenly freezes. She gently places the chalice on the table before giving me an icy look.

“Are you suggesting I should whore myself out just to get you to work for Camilla?”

Holy—

“Wait, wait, wait,” I panic, “I didn’t say that! It was a joke!”

Irene holds my gaze, and I feel my knees buckle even though I’m sitting. But after what must have been half a minute, she actually erupts into a laugh.

“Oh my, oh my,” she wheezes. “I am making fun of you. Humans are fooled really easily, aren’t they? Camilla herself said that she would give me a raise if I slept with you, Joey. It’s funny how red you get when you are embarrassed, by the way. You must still be pretty green behind your ears when it comes to Elven women, I suppose.”

“I am,” I nod and exhale, smiling to myself. “You are my first Elven date, really. I have been very busy with magic—sorry, baking. My head has been all over the place. When I was at The Three Roses the other day, I remembered that I hadn’t yet extended a real invitation.”

Irene waves a hand and doesn’t even reply.

“Oh, by the way, I wanted to ask if the gossip Flaminia told me about Clodia and… what’s the oldest sister at your bakery? Anyway, is it true they are dating?”

My date actually looks behind her shoulder, shivering for a second.

“Do not mention that to Clodia, Joey. Both she and Amelia are very protective of their privacy.”

“Is it because they are both girls or because they are competitors?”

“Competitors,” Irene sighs. “Clodia punched a lot of people who wouldn’t shut up about it. Amelia is the same—she just prefers kicks.”

“Damn.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Irene says, with her eyes still moving left and right and her tone dropping lower. “Camilla is the only one who not only brings it up constantly but also mocks her sister for it. Considering that the two bakeries are enemies, it’s not surprising that they also break up quite often. You can actually tell from the kitchen floor whether Amelia has had a good day with Clodia or not.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I will be very honest with you. I have barely listened to what Irene just said. The thought of the young Angelina-Jolie-look-alike and my super fit employer doing backflips in bed is quite the picture. Also, you know, I have great visualization skills.

“Let’s talk about something else, please. It makes my skin crawl to talk about Amelia and Clodia. Instead, how about you tell me how come people around Amorium say you spend a lot of time in the Pratus? Is it true that you are a [Hairdresser]? They say that the beggars are getting interesting haircuts now, and that’s on you.”

“Okay, first, let’s acknowledge that Amorium is the biggest gossip mill I have ever encountered.”

Irene nods with a faint smile on her red lips.

“Alright, then. Yes, I’m trying to help them out. I know how to cut hair and decided it was a nice thing to do, you know? People who have fallen on harder times have trouble even recognizing themselves. If you want someone to feel like a person, a real person, not just a throwaway piece of garbage, you need them to look like a person. Got them some soap too. But can I be honest? The soap here sucks. Got a project with a friend, the same guy who got me the truffles, to make some good soap.”

“Make soap?” Irene’s mouth opens and closes. “Wait. You go there and… where did you find soap and the tools to cut their hair? Who’s giving you the money for all that?”

“What? I just pay out of pocket.”

Irene looks at me, uncomprehending.

“Soap? As in a [Merchant]’s soap? The soap that costs golds?”

“Yes?”

“Be honest with me. Are you a high-level [Thief] who branched out into baking?”

I snort so hard I feel my nose hurting.

“Nah. I just don’t have much use for my money. I’m trying to help; that’s all. No [Thief], no [Spy]—that’s what the boys hypothesized, I think. They get really dodgy when I tell them I’m not one.”

“But…” Irene falls silent for a second, a deep frown all over her face. “Is it true that you hired two of the… beggars?”

“Oh, yeah, Tiberius and Quintus. They live next door, matter of fact. Very nice guys.”

“How? Don’t they have a [Vow: Debt of Honor] on them? Was it, I don’t know, twenty golds or something? I have heard of situations like those where it’s actually more convenient for a future employer to pay out the debt.”

I scratch my head, slightly embarrassed by all the money talk. It reminds me of the time I met the parents of this Asian girl I was dating, and I got grilled so hard about my finances that I almost had a panic attack.

“I—not exactly. It was a bit more expensive than that.”

“Really?! How expensive?”

I see Irene hunch forward on the table.

“Well… do you really want to know? I mean, it’s not the most interesting thing in the world.”

“How is it not? A Human paying out debts for ex-[Soldiers], the most racist people on the continent?”

“Alright,” I say, embarrassed. “It was around three-hundred golds.”

Irene looks at me with her mouth and eyes wide open. Not blinking, not speaking. Slowly, she turns around to evaluate my quarters.

“You… how… but this place…” She stutters incoherent pieces of questions.

“I didn’t really fork that much money out myself. I requested that Clodia pays out of her pocket for them. It was the price for hiring me, basically. For all other people I want to hire next, I’ll have to pay out of my pocket.”

“You asked Clodia to pay them to hire you?” Irene is beyond disbelief.

“Yes? I mean, Violante works at your bakery, right? Hasn’t any gossip about that trickled down to you?”

Irene shakes her head, still astounded.

“I just know that you tried to get on the prodigy [Mage]’s ears and something about your baking skills. I didn’t know the details of you hiring those people…”

Her eyes move over to the open window.

I de-activated the fan-spell, but she still looks where the [Light] blades had been rotating.

“Are all Humans as peculiar as you are?” She asks when her dark eyes move back to me.

“Believe me or not, I don’t know many Humans from Teiko, or any other continent, really.”

“Can I ask why you would help those people?” Irene asks, biting her lower lip.

“The homeless? Ex-[Soldiers]? Which of the two? Many ex-[Soldiers] are homeless, apparently, but not all the homeless are ex-[Soldiers].”

I see her wincing every time I say those words.

“It’s… I know wives and sisters who are left behind when their husbands, previously in the military, get crippled. Many kill themselves before even coming home from their deployment: especially those with a family to care for. Those who do return, on the other hand, quickly end up being unable to provide for themselves. Not even [Generals], though, visit the people at the park. So… why do you?”

“I come from a place where many had the luxury to worry about the less fortunate. I’ve always been involved with them, you know? Even back where I come from… which is very, very far. You are not the first person to ask me about this here and back home, but I don’t really have an answer. Maybe I just don’t like to spend time at home alone. It makes me anxious when there’s too much silence. And if I really need to get out and do something, why not make it something useful for the world.”

I see Irene opening and closing her mouth again.

“Oh,” I add, “also, I have to admit that if I had some good fiction with me, I’d probably spend a little less time with the boys.”

“Fiction?”

“Books with cool stories?”

Irene nods and finishes her burger. I’m about to get up to get another one when she asks, “Did you make one too many of these burgers? I have a younger brother that would probably enjoy them.”

I looked at the two burgers that I had whipped up and turned around with a smile of broken glass.

“Sure. You know what? I am not even that hungry anymore. I have two, actually. How about I wrap them for you before you go?”

She smiles at me.

“Thank you.”

“Heh, no problem,” I say as I feel my stomach whisper in hunger, “not a problem at all.”