I’m going to be a Chef.

It was the last thought to go through Archie’s mind as he fell asleep and the first thought that struck him when he woke up.

And then, a terrible thought. Had it been real? He reached under his pillow. No vanilla extract. Had it ever existed? But wait, it wasn’t the tart that was magic. It was the water. The lemon! He snapped up and shielded his eyes from the noon sun that poured through the window. His excitement had kept him up late, but for the first time in weeks, he had managed to sleep in.

He bounded down the stairs to the kitchen one step, two steps, three steps at a time. He jumped across the last few and landed in an unfamiliar scene. Anastas and Boyan, two of Arty’s friends that weren’t Chefs but made for decent cooks, chopped ingredients with a focus that kept them from looking up at Archie.

Petrichor rarely pulled a crowd that required their help, so Archie had never spent much time with the two. It took a second for him to squeak out an, “Um?”

“What?” Anastas responded with a gruff voice, too rushed by his work to be bothered. But that didn’t make sense to Archie—for Anastas to be busy, Petrichor had to be busy, and Petrichor was never busy.

“Have you seen a glass pitcher? It had a lemon in it.”

The two looked up with a smile. “Oh yes,” Boyan said. “You’ll find it out there.” He nodded toward the dining area.

Archie skipped toward the swinging door just as it slammed open in his direction. Arty came barrelling through the door, stopping just in front of Archie. Archie looked up at his father with great excitement, expecting a congratulations or a happy birthday, but Arty looked past Archie and into the kitchen.

“Duck!” Arty yelled.

Anastas flinched. Boyan hit the deck.

“No!” Arty yelled again. At another time, he might have laughed. “Duck! There should be some in the freezer.”

Boyan, already low to the ground, slid over to the freezer, a small metallic box that was cooled by some Khalyan magic. When Archie was a child, they had a much larger freezer, nearly ten feet tall. He would have nightmares of getting trapped inside. But as Petrichor took on debts, they got rid of the behemoth and replaced it with one that matched Petrichor’s diminished stature.

Boyan pulled the latch and peeked inside, careful to not let too much of the cold mist out. “Yeah, you got enough for a few meals.”

“I’ll stretch it. What else is left?”

“Uhhh…that’s it.”

“Okay. The potatoes?” Arty turned to Anastas, who responded with a nod and gave the pot a stir. “Okay. Fry them in vegetable oil. Rosemary and garlic. I think I have a couple of figs in the pantry. I’ll grab them. Archie—”

Archie’s heart raced. He ached to talk about becoming a Chef.

“—go grab my jacket. You know where it is.”

Archie gasped with excitement and stormed up the stairs and into his parents’ room. He fished his father’s Chef jacket from a cabinet as he had done so many times before. For years, Archie had slipped on his father’s jacket, hoping the sand-colored kalypo fibers would transform into the vibrant blues or reds or whites that marked a true Chef. Archie imagined it changing colors as he ran downstairs, even though it wouldn’t transform until he was an official student of the culinary academies.

Arty never wore his jacket. He was ashamed that when he put it on, it transformed into a fiery orange, the lowest rank in culinary society.

But on this day, Arty only had pride. He took the jacket from Archie, the fibers turning orange where his hand touched. He threw it around himself, the jacket turning orange as he pulled the slanted right breast down to his lower left ribs and attached it with a little bronze buckle.

“Okay, Archie. You go serve water. I’ve never seen people so thirsty.” Arty waited for no response, running into the pantry and stepping up on the lowest shelf to reach the highest.

Archie looked around for something to serve water with. Every cup, container, and pitcher had been repurposed for the frenzied cooking of Anastas and Boyan. “I need a pitcher.”

Arty leaned back into view, his hands gripping the shelves to keep himself from falling. “Use yours. I left it out there!”

A wave of nervous excitement hit Archie. He looked to Anastas and Boyan for a reaction, but they were already back to work, Boyan setting the duck out and Anastas pulling a vial of rosemary from the herb rack.

Nothing left to do but do it.

Archie pushed through the swinging door and stepped into something he had never seen before.

A crowd in Petrichor.

Eight tables lined three walls at Petrichor, two chairs apiece. All taken. Two large tables, each twelve feet long and four feet across, occupied the middle of the room. Benches ran along the tables, each meant to seat eight, each seating ten. Finally, the fourth wall, the kitchen wall, consisted of a great stone oven, the hearth of the room, ten feet long, four feet deep, stretching up to the ceiling, the fire heating a waist-high slab of stone that jutted out towards the center of the room. The last relic of Kent greatness, too large and heavy to be sold off to make ends meet.

On a cool corner of stone away from the fire, Archie found his pitcher. The lemon remained, unshriveled, unemptied. It bobbed at the top of the water, still just as high as the night before. Archie grabbed its handle. A tingling sensation crept up his arm. Had he felt that the day before?

His eyes followed the sensation as it moved into his chest. It stayed there a moment, a warm feeling swimming in circles around his heart. Finally, it returned down his arm and into the pitcher. He smiled. The magic was still there. Then, he looked up.

Fifty people looked back at him, another twenty peering through the windows. Almost none of them had food. But all of them had cups.

Archie froze.

But then Arty came from the kitchen, more comfortable than ever in his orange jacket, holding a platter of duck in one hand and slapping Archie’s back with the other.

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“Come on,” he said. “The people are thirsty!”

A cheer from the crowd stirred Archie into motion. He walked through the dining area, filling cup after cup. After each group, he’d lift the pitcher up to see that it hadn’t emptied at all. Eventually, this became a cue to the crowd that cheered every time.

Meanwhile, Arty worked at the oven. Archie loved to watch him work, but rarely got the opportunity. Arty and Adeline were both Academy dropouts, but Arty wore his failure around his neck like an albatross. He only cooked when Adeline couldn’t.

But not this day. On this day, Arty performed magic at a quality that Archie had never seen. He slid a large clay tray, several times too large for the food he carried, into the oven. He placed sliced duck over a bed of figs and fried potatoes. The meal suited three, maybe four diners, occupying only a tenth of the clay tray. Arty tapped his fingertips on the stone slab a few times and the fire roared, grabbing the attention of the crowd. Then came the real magic.

His hands hovered over the food. Then, slowly, they moved in either direction along the tray. For each inch his hands moved, the food multiplied to occupy another foot of tray. Eventually, the entire ten-foot tray was filled, each bite looking as delicious as the last.

People clapped. Such advanced magic hadn’t been seen in Petrichor in decades—and certainly shouldn’t have been achievable by an Orange Jacket.

Archie had abandoned his cupbearer duties to stare in awe at his father’s magic. A nearby patron shook his cup, goading Archie back into action.

Arty pushed the tray further into the fire and placed his hands flat on the stone slab. The fire grew, no longer wisps of flame but a wave that curled down into the tray. It receded back deep into the oven, then grew again, crashing into the tray again and again like the tides.

Sometime during the cooking, Adeline, wearing an identical orange jacket as her husband, had slipped into the dining area with a stack of plates borrowed from all over town—they had sold their extra plates over the years. She put the stack down and started scooping the food onto plates, balancing speed and presentation.

The first plate went out, then the second, then the third. Archie hurried to match with water. By the time the fifth plate was served, the first person to have received a plate, some woman that Archie didn’t recognize, reached out to rub his forearm affectionately. The second diner stopped eating to watch Archie with a warm expression. The third started telling stories about Archie as a boy. As they ate, the people looked at Archie with love.

Twenty plates had gone out before Arty stopped Archie.

“Here, you haven’t eaten yet,” Arty said as exchanged a plate of food for Archie’s pitcher. “Go ahead, sit down.”

A man at the end of a bench pulled Archie down to sit next to him, scooting over and creating a domino effect that would result in someone falling off the other end of the crowded bench. They watched Archie lift the food to his mouth, waiting for him to understand.

As Archie chewed, warmth spread throughout his body. He swallowed, and he felt something. Pride, as intense as the sun. Pride of himself, but not produced from vanity. From love. A great, parental thing, something a teenage boy would be incapable of feeling if not for magic.

So that was it—today’s secret ingredient. Archie looked into the crowd for his father, who spared one moment to look back and smile before filling another cup.

For hours, people dined at Petrichor. It became the talk of the town, the other Chefs of Sain closing down for the day and bringing cuts of meat and fruits over to cook with Arty and Adeline. When Arty offered payment to the other Chefs, they refused. One explained, “It’s nice to see you cook again, Arty. To really cook. The town is more full for that.”

A piece of paper went around the room, accumulating signatures before returning to Arty’s hand.

“Excuse me!” he announced, silencing the guests. “Thank you all for coming and celebrating this wonderful day. We still have some Chefs working, so stick around, but please excuse my son and I…”

He grinned at Archie.

“...while we go send his letter to the Academy!”

The guests cheered and jumped up with their mugs of ale—it was a fortunate miracle that Archie had produced infinite water to slow their descent into drunkenness.

“So what’s the Academy like?” Archie asked his father as they walked through Sain. Archie had always steered his curiosity about the Academy to his mother, but with Arty wearing his orange jacket for the first time in years, Archie felt like he could finally have the conversation he always wanted with his father.

“It’s, uh…” Arty squinted as he looked up into the sky. “You’ll have a great time. You’ll make friends. You’ll learn so much.”

Archie frowned. He knew his father had a rough time in the Academy, but had hoped for more detail.

“What will I learn in my first year?” Archie asked, giving his father a clear direction for the conversation.

“Well…It’s been a while, but if they do it the same way, you’ll start with farming, then cooking. By the end of the first semester, you should have a grasp on your own essence—but it’s okay if you don’t! You just turned eighteen, you haven’t had as long to feel out your own essence.”

“What about fighting?” Archie asked as he punched the air. He had always dreamed of seeing two Chefs fight in one of Ambrosia City’s tournaments.

“Second semester.”

“Really?!”

Arty laughed. “Well, technically you learn conjuration, not combat, in your second semester. But it’s taught by Tarragon. Do you know who Tarragon is?”

“Like…war hero Tarragon?” It had been thirty years since the last war—the Unification War. Still, Archie knew many names and stories from the battles, and no names stuck in his mind quite like the two that were credited for ending the war. The first was easy enough to remember—they called him Grand King Flambé these days. The other, Tarragon, hadn’t risen to any political office, but was still the subject of admiration for all the boys of Ambrosia that dreamed themselves a fighter.

“Yep. So when a war hero teaches conjuration, it inevitably becomes combat training.”

“Cool.”

“You’ll get some history lessons thrown in, so it won’t be all exciting. And then you’ll get tested.” Arty looked at the two black stripes that wrapped around the sleeve of his jacket. “You’ll get advancement stripes or…if you do really well, you’ll get promoted to a yellow jacket.”

Archie pursed his lips to keep his excitement from bubbling out. It didn’t seem appropriate to wish for a higher rank than his parents.

But then Archie received another reason for excitement as a tall stone tower came into view. Growing up, Archie’s favorite place was always Petrichor’s kitchen, but the rookery was a close second.

Midnight kestrels perched in the windows, watching Archie and his father approach. While most children were frightened by the birds, Archie had always found them fascinating.

They were from another time—the pre-Ambrosia time—when terrifying creatures ruled the earth. While most of the creatures perished with the rise of Chefs, some were integrated into society—perhaps none as important as the midnight kestrel.

By consuming a single piece of grain, the midnight kestrel could carry a letter to the place that the grain had been grown. But no one had ever witnessed their cross-country flight. From beak to talon, the birds were as blue or as gray or as purple as that night’s midnight, perfectly camouflaging them as they delivered letters by night.

Archie had once heard it described that the midnight kestrels were strokes of paint that joined the great painting of the night sky, leaving existence until they jumped out from the painting again at their destination.

“We’ve got a letter for the Academy,” Arty announced to the birdkeeper. “Witness statement from…” He looked at the letter. “Our Lord Mayor and about fifty other people.”

The birdkeeper, a gruff man that preferred the company of birds over humans, slapped Archie on the back and laughed. Archie couldn’t be sure if the man was proud or just happy that the kid that always snuck into the rookery would finally be out of his thinning hair.

“Wait,” Arty said as he examined the letter closer. “We’re missing one signature.”

“Whose?” Archie asked.

“Yours.”

Arty handed over the parchment and scooped a feather off the ground—on top of their ability to deliver messages, midnight kestrels also provided feathers loaded with their midnight blue color. Archie used the stones of the tower to support the parchment as he signed.

The birdkeeper took the letter, bound it to a bird’s talons, fed it a grain from a bag labeled “Academy,” and smiled. “All set.”

Archie’s balled up fists shook with excitement. “How long will it take?”

“One night to get there,” the birdkeeper answered. “Then they’ll send someone up to verify the claim. So probably…three days.”

Archie grinned at his father.

“Three more days,” Arty said, “and you’ll be invited to the Ambrosial Summit.”