By the time Arthur and the others left the baby animal cafe, it was well after dark. Everyone took turns with what animals were available and the nocturnal beasts ended up being just as cute as the daytime ones, if in a slightly different, night-vision compatible way.

And throughout it all, Karbo was flat-out having the time of his life amid the presence of the little infants. He was still visibly the same man who could, given the right motivation, destroy a Jeremy with a single move. But that big mountain of muscle was completely tamed by the animals, to the point where he couldn’t stop babbling about them even after they left.

“Did you see when the Hing jumped completely over me, Itela?” Karbo was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet as Itela clung to his giant arm. “All the way over. And he’s so little.”

“I saw, Karbo. It was very cute,” Itela said.

“It wasn’t just cute. He’s going to be a big guy when he grows up. I can tell. Good and strong.” Karbo smiled. “And those little puffy things. I couldn’t tell what they are. What are those?”

“Oh, I meant to ask about the little puffs but they were too cute,” Arthur said. “Mizu, did you ask what they were?”

“I didn’t. And there’s no way to see what they look like under all that fur. They could be anything,” Mizu said.

“Lily?”

“No idea. I want one though. Itela, is there a way to keep animals little and puffy forever?”

Karbo looked hopefully at Itela when she lifted her head at the suggestion of permanent baby animals, then drooped visibly as she shook her head.

“Of course not. It wouldn’t be fair to the animal. And it wouldn’t be good for combat, so even the old combat tamer classes wouldn’t be able to do it,” Itela said.

“Darn,” Lily said. “I can’t go adopting animals that end up bigger than me.”

“You have Arthur,” Mizu said. “He’s bigger than you.”

“That’s true but he was always bigger than me.” Lily kicked at the ground. “I guess I wouldn’t be able to get the puff home. Darn.”

“Tell you what.” Arthur smiled. “When we get home, we’ll steal some fish from Skal. And then we can go find Rumble. Does he still let you climb on him?”

“He better!” Lily said. “After all the cookies I’ve brought him, he better. I’m like his big sister, so he has to do what I say. He’s bigger, not older.”

“Speaking of bigger and older,” Ella said, “how’d my boy’s talk go? Was your genius properly appreciated?”

“Reasonably well,” Milo said. “I think they mostly get the possibilities of automation, but it’s a harder problem for big cities than you’d think. Honestly, more people were interested in the work I’ve done with Mizu. Which means I have to be present for at least one more talk, if Mizu wants me.”

“I do.” Mizu nodded. “I hardly understand how those pumps work. I wish we had an enchanter with us, as well.”

“You could ask Philbin for one,” Arthur said. “If he can get them here by tomorrow, that is.”

“Nope,” Mizu said. “It’s not tomorrow anymore. Philbin sent a note about that, while we were fussing around with Lily-research. He said there was going to be a lot of demand for my talk, and he needed to get more space, which meant he shuffled things around.”

“So what’s next, then?” Arthur asked. “I’m not ready for most of them.”

“Your tea talk, probably,” Itela said. “If he’s competent, he would have picked what he knew you’d be prepared for, even without notes.”

“That’s right.” Mizu squeezed Arthur’s arm. “It should be a nice calm break for you, Arthur. Just talking about what you understand.”

“Here’s hoping.”

Arthur really was hoping it would be. He doubted he’d get that lucky, especially given that two entire experienced teamasters were telling him he was going to cause a stir. He briefly considered just keeping his talk to his strictly defined medicinal teas and general innovations regarding boba, but realized that was a bad idea in more ways than one.

The expo was, in the end, meant for sharing the progress one town had made with the entire world. Not only would it feel weird to hide his skill, it would also be subverting the entire purpose of him being here. And it would be betraying the spirit of the expo and Demon World entirely.

Mizu brought Arthur back to the present by leaning hard into him once they got to the dark lobby of the hotel. The staff had long since gone home. In a nice way, Demon World hotels were more or less abandoned after normal business hours. It made sense, in their logic. Nobody here needed supervision for something as simple as taking good care of a rented room, and no lodger would be so selfish as to force someone to stay away from their family in friends just in case they wanted a fresh towel or a snack.

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“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about our interrupted appointment. I’m going to get you, Arthur Teamaster. I don’t care how busy you are. I will have my Arthur-time.”

“Believe me, I want that,” Arthur said. “How do I keep getting drawn into responsibilities, Mizu? We could both be at home right now if I could just figure out how to dodge them. Drinking tea. We could go up to the cliff platform. Just us.”

“Keep talking.” Mizu turned her body to look at Arthur in the dark. “I like thinking about it.”

“I’d bring that cushion thing I bought. The puffy blanket thing.”

“Picnic mat,” Mizu said. “That’s what they’re called.”

“And that little heating thing. And we’d stop before we went up there and get enormous steaks. And a loaf of bread. And that sauce that Hyio makes.”

“Hyio is a magician.”

“He is.” Arthur agreed. “We’d make gigantic sandwiches. The biggest sandwiches that have ever been. And we’d eat them, and it would be warm…”

“And we’d be so full.”

“So very full.” Arthur kissed the top of Mizu’s head. “And then we’d probably fall asleep, like last time. And people would be afraid of you, so nobody would wake us up.”

“Unless Onna was there,” Mizu added.

“But we get to decide. It’s our little pretend, not hers. So she wouldn’t be there, and we wouldn’t wake up until halfway through the night, and then we’d decide it was too much work to walk down to our houses, and we’d sit up for a little while talking before we fell asleep again.”

“Mmm,” Mizu said. “Yes. I want that. And the sandwiches.”

Arthur stomach grumbled. He looked down in confusion. “Wait, we didn’t get dinner, did we?”

“No. I was wondering when you’d notice.”

It took the better part of an hour to find a stand that was still open. It didn’t have steak sandwiches, but it did have huge bowls of stir fry loaded with meat, which was almost as good. And just as in their little dream, the fatigue hit Arthur and Mizu both like bricks as soon as their stomachs were good and full.

Between yawns and just before going to her room, Mizu managed to secure a promise from Arthur that he’d try his best to make real time for her the next night. With that done, they both went up to their rooms and slept. As his eyes drooped, Arthur groggily blessed his Demon World reincarnator’s body’s ability to sleep in almost any circumstance.

Tomorrow was going to be a crazy day. He’d need every bit of that rest.

—

“Are you ready?” Lily asked. “You don’t look ready. You look freaked out.”

“I am freaked out. No question,” Arthur said. “But I think it’s like jumping in a pool, right? Once you jump, there’s nothing you can do about it. You find peace midair. It’s a kind of airborne enlightenment that’s…”

“Arthur. You’re babbling,” Lily cut it.

“Fair.” Arthur took a deep breath. “But yeah. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“Why are you so stressed, anyway? It’s just talking about tea. That’s all you do anyway. It should just be another day for you.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

Arthur avoided talking about the possible world-shaking effects of his talk. Lily was nice enough to not force him to. She seemed to sense there was something gnawing at Arthur’s mind.

Somewhere in his thought process, Arthur was hoping it wouldn’t be that big of a deal and he wouldn’t have to talk about his new tea discoveries with anyone. Something about tea, of which he still felt like he was a novice, was scary to Arthur in a way he didn’t felt with other subjects. He had just about managed his nerves before the door to the room opened one more time and some surprising guests arrived.

“Gods, that scared me.” Arthur turned to Lily. “Did you know they were coming?”

“Eito and Itela? Of course. Ella is too, probably, although only if she can get away from another talk in time.”

“But why?” Arthur asked. “They don’t even make tea.”

“Because, Arthur, they love you,” Lily said. “Would you skip a talk if I was giving it? Just because you aren’t an assistant class?”

“Oh. I didn’t think about it like that. I guess that makes sense.” Arthur watched them walk through the door, and waited a few seconds to verify nobody else followed after them. “No Karbo?”

“Of course not. He’d fall asleep,” Lily said. “No offense.”

“None taken. It’s who he is.”

Eito and Itela found seats and settled in, after which Arthur’s stalling time was well and truly used up. He saw Philbin moving towards him, and decided to take mercy on the poor tour guide by standing up and walking to the stage.

Well, here we go. Let’s see if I can get through this clean.

“Hi, everyone. I’m Arthur Teamaster of Coldbrook. As you probably picked up from my name, I make tea.” There was a mild chuckle, which was more than the semi-joke deserved. He took it as a good sign. “If my class name was a bit more detailed, I’d be Arthur Boba Teamaster, but I guess that was too long to work with. My class focuses on a specific variant of tea that I first learned about in my first life, on Earth.”

The next bit of his talk focused on things Arthur had assumed would be entirely too boring for most people to enjoy. Happily, he was wrong. Most of the people in attendance were cooks or drink-makers of one stripe or another, and several of them leaned forward as he worked through the basics of how to prepare boba, from the grinding of the flour to the mixing of the final product.

Those that weren’t there for the actual recipes and drink descriptions seemed to be in attendance to hear about the more magical aspects of the class. Philbin had written up the talk as both a description of a new kind of drink, and of an interesting semi-alchemical application of that drink which might have niche applicability to people who made pills and medicines. Given that there weren’t pill-making talks going on at all times, he had a pretty good turnout of medicine-makers and medically interested people who tuned in when he started talking about Medicinal Brewer’s many low-powered benefits.

“So it’s not ingredient-driven?” an alchemist asked. “You can do it with any food product?”

“Yes and no. I’ve been working with more and more varied ingredients lately, and some definitely work better with some effects than others,” Arthur said. “And some I can’t carry off without the right ingredients at all. I have a cooling drink that absolutely requires a fungus which produces cold-focused majicka. But broadly, I can do most things with most ingredients, so long as I have the majicka to brute-force it.”

Arthur was thankful for the questions. People were engaged.

But I can’t stall forever. Sooner than he liked, Arthur had given the audience everything relevant he knew about both making boba tea and making it carry magical effects to its drinkers. It’s time to drop the bomb. Please, gods who may or may not exist. Please, let it be a dud.