Milo, Lily, and Arthur invited Philbin to breakfast. After dashing off a few notes to get the wheels turning on acquiring more auditorium space, Philbin accepted. It was a good thing too. If transporters knew a lot about where to eat, a tour guide in his own home environment knew more.

“Okay,” Philbin said. “So you all know of the breakfast master, right?”

“We do,” Milo answered. “He’s something else. I don’t think I want to eat that much this morning though. That was a tough presentation. Questions coming at me like rocks from a trebuchet.”

“Oh, you’ve eaten at the breakfast master? Good on you. Well, don’t worry. This is one of his apprentices, but he just makes egg and meat sandwiches, with cheese. That’s it.”

“That’s awfully specific. The buttered noodle lady was too,” Lily said. “How do they stay in business?”

“In a city this big, people specialize. I know a guy who only makes door hinges,” Philbin said.

“Is that fun?”

“Oh, no, not really. Anyone else would be spectacularly bored. He seems to like it. Anyway, come on. There’s a juice store to stop at on the way. The breakfast chef doesn’t mess around with drinks, just sandwiches.”

Arthur quietly hoped the sandwiches would be good. He didn’t say so, but the entire setup struck him as more than a little overdramatic. His sensibilities were clear on the matter, in that most restaurants should cover more than a couple of food items. He understood what Philbin was saying about specialization. But it didn’t seem like a good strategy. Arthur wanted to have a full breakfast, which included juice or some type of beverage. To have only sandwiches felt incomplete.

Arthur was wrong.

The chef nodded as Philbin walked in with four fingers lifted up, and quickly pulled eight abnormally large slices of bread off a toasting rack. He cracked some eggs, pulled some meat off the grill, added both and some cheese to the space between the slices of bread, and regrilled them just long enough to get the cheese melted before serving them up.

“Enjoy.” The cook glanced at Philbin. “He’s an out-of-towner?”

“More than you know. An offworlder,” Philbin replied.

“Ah. I knew he must be something like that. He has that look.” The cook handed Arthur his sandwich.

The food was not better than the breakfast master’s. It wasn’t even clearly better than Ella’s or the buttered noodle chef’s. At their level, concepts like “better” tended to fray around the edges anyway. What Arthur had found with masters is that they were, eventually, all working on being good at some specific aspect of things.

Ella wanted to be able to feed the same people every day, keeping them just as warm and safe from meal to meal. The noodle girl wanted to perfect one dish. Talca wanted to dominate every single land-speed record between any two given cities. Lup, Arthur guessed, wanted to create a unified theory of mixing ingredients that would capture every single possible combination of leaves and herbs in a single deterministic formula.

And this chef wanted to make the perfect breakfast sandwich. Arthur doubted he had done it or that it even could be done. Perfection was more of a concept than anything anyone could achieve, and there was always a little bit of room left for improvement. But he was close. Really, really close.

“I apologize,” Arthur said, after one bite. “For my insulting thoughts.”

“That must be a new record.” The chef laughed. “Most people finish at least half the sandwich.”

“There’s no point. You make better sandwiches than I make tea. By far. It beats having a variety of options,” Arthur said.

“Oh, variety has its place. For example, you just made the mistake of telling me that you make tea. Do you have any with you?”

“Some.”

“Then get back here. The kettle’s on the wall. Does it have a lot of pep?”

“Literally as much as you can handle,” Arthur said. “System-limited.”

The cook leaned back from the grill and stretched. “Thank the gods, then. It’s been a long morning, and I haven’t had a chance to pick up anything for myself. Get to work.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Arthur did. In the world of cooks, this kind of interaction wasn’t as odd as it seemed. He kept his sandwich in one hand and ate as he got the water boiling and prepared ingredients, while keeping an eye on the grills and the cook as much as he could. Getting a close up look at someone else’s kitchen, even without direct instruction, was valuable. Arthur was sure there were dozens of cooks in the city who would be green with envy if they knew he was this close.

Could he make full use of what he was seeing? No. But an experienced cook in their kitchen was a type of lesson in and of itself. Somewhere down the road, Arthur was sure some aspect of how the breakfast cook did business would be remembered and end up being useful to him.

“What are these little balls?” the cook asked once he had his pepped tea. “I wasn’t expecting that. Or for it to be sweet.”

“It’s a regional specialty,” Arthur explained. “Of Earth, I mean. It’s something I brought from there.”

“Ah. Too bad. I could have gotten used to something like this. It’s like half a meal.”

“That’s the aim. Do you know Ceti?”

“Of course! She’s the type to make herself known.”

Arthur chuckled. “Well, she can make it. Maybe not quite as well on the boba pearl side, but the tea she makes is better than what I can do. It’ll balance out.”

—

On the way out of the sandwich shop, Arthur ran into Mizu.

“Oh, hey. Have you had breakfast?” Arthur yelled.

“No.” Mizu looked frazzled. “No chance. I was up all night watching a rune etching.”

“Well, you are going to have one now,” Arthur said as he turned to the breakfast chef. “Hey, Brian? Make up another sandwich. And save some of that tea.”

Mizu glanced into the shop, bleary-eyed. “Did you subvert a cook?” She looked up at the sign and widened her eyes a little. “Did you subvert a famous cook?”

“I wouldn’t say subvert. We have a working relationship.” Arthur turned to Lily and Milo. “I think I’m going to tend to Mizu. I don’t want her falling over into a ditch.”

“Good on you,” Lily said. “I’m going to go scout out something I heard about. There’s a guy who lets you fire a giant crossbow at vases he throws.”

Milo gasped. “I was going there too!”

“Then it sounds like you guys are going together,” Arthur said. “Mizu, go sit down. And just so you know…”

“Yes, yes. We are doing the crossbow thing later. Absolutely.” Mizu staggered towards the store. “Please go make me tea. I have two talks to listen to after this. I’ll need it.”

Arthur watched his friends leave and then went in side. He kept her from nodding off with the most basic conversation he could generate, then stuffed her full of a sandwich and over-pepped tea. She looked a little better afterward. Not fixed, exactly, but good enough to get through at least one of those talks.

She did. The combination of magical caffeine and note-taking kept her awake through an entire speech on innovations in artificial waterways, and even peppy enough to ask a few questions. She had high hopes for getting through the next talk too, until the person giving the speech ended up making the mistakes of both presenting on a subject barely deep enough to merit a talk and doing so in a dull monotone that left even well-rested people in the audience fighting heavy eyelids.

If they were having trouble, that meant Mizu never stood a chance. Five minutes into the talk, she was out like a light. Arthur managed to guide her to his shoulder, where she nestled in and breathed softly for the entirety of the presentation. Once it was done, people absorbed what they could from the presenting weller’s notes before the room emptied.

Arthur was aghast when the last person in the room was the weller himself, and more horrified when he made his way to where Arthur was still cradling a deeply unconscious water-demon girlfriend.

“Sorry about that. It wasn’t my most interesting speechm” the weller said.

“No! It’s not that. She’s just had a big week.” Arthur smiled weakly. “It was a good talk.”

“No, it wasn’t. It’s not my main presentation. I wouldn’t have given it at all, except for that one bit about rune stacks used near sources of salt water.” He looked down at Mizu and chuckled. “I bet she was up all night at that rune etching.”

“I think so,” Arthur said.

“No wonder, then. Well, make yourself comfortable. It’s a few hours until this room will be used again, anyway.”

The presenter turned to leave. Arthur sunk back down into his chair, trying not to fall asleep himself under the weight and warmth of an entire demon. Then, just in time, he had a realization.

“Hey!” Arthur called, softly. “Can you do me a favor?”

—

It was an hour before Mizu woke up, and then another five minutes before she really acknowledged she had.

“Hi,” she said, “did I miss that whole presentation?”

“You did. The guy giving the talk said it was fine.”

“He noticed?”

“Yup. But he really wasn’t bothered.” Arthur held up a handful of papers the man had given him. “He gave you these, in fact. Something to do with welling near large sources of salt water.”

“Oooh. Gimme.” Mizu reached out and took the papers from him, quickly scanning the contents. “This is actually really useful, Arthur.”

“I thought it might be. Did I do well?”

“Yes. Arthur is a very good boyfriend.” Mizu reached up and touched his cheek with her hand. “And so soft right now.”

“Thanks, I think?”

“It’s a complement.” Mizu stretched out in her chair, reminding Arthur of a cat waking up from a nap. “So. How long is this room empty for?”

“This one? Probably another hour. Why?”

“Kissing times,” Mizu said, moving in. “Unless you have any objections.”

Arthur didn’t. Someone else, however, did.

“Actually, guys, could you wait on that?” Corbin said.

“Good sweet fancy gods!” Arthur yelled. “Corbin, what are you doing here?”

“I’m early for the next talk, and I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Corbin answered.

“Not that, why are you here? In the capital.”

“What do you mean?” Corbin asked back. “I was going on this trip the whole time. We talked about it, Arthur. You remember, right? That Itela said I had to go? I refuse to believe you forgot.”

But Arthur had. And Arthur was pretty sure he wasn’t the only person who felt this way. Corbin had proved he was one of the best people at hiding in the entire world. Once again, he had managed to stealth so completely that even the system had probably forgotten about him.