To call Cafe Julienne a restaurant would be to call the world’s greatest painting a doodle.

Nicknamed “The Grand Restaurant,” Cafe Julienne was nestled in the northwestern most corner of Ambrosia City in a little walled off alcove known as Labruscella. Meaning “Little Labrusca,” Labruscella contained the Labruscan embassy, the city’s largest botanical garden, a few manors and lawns of note, and most significantly of them all, the pride of Labrusca and envy of every restaurant, Cafe Julienne.

A small battalion of heavily armored Labruscan soldiers patrolled the area—it was said you’d have an easier time getting into the grand king’s private quarters than the lobby of Cafe Julienne without a reservation. They nodded to Julienne with respect as he escorted Archie, Nori, Mindy, and Yarrow inside the great walls.

On top of its claim for having the best food in the world, Cafe Julienne also had a claim at being the most beautiful building. Grandiose marble steps led to the temple-like structure.

An outdoor hallway framed the building, formed by a row of forty-foot tall pillars of white marble with streaks of wiry gold like lightning bolts. At the top of the walls, between the pillars and the triangular, marble-tiled roof, a painted cast of famous figures and fables of history told a thousand stories on the stone.

Archie nearly forgot to breathe as he ascended the steps and entered the dining room, a long rectangular stretch going from one end of the building to the other and adorned with marble and beauty and red velvet and smelling of lilacs and honey and riches and a sort of stuffy happiness.

“Pinch me,” Archie said dreamily. He wished he had worn something nicer. Even his orange jacket seemed unbecoming in such an environment.

Three pillars divided the dining area down the middle along its length. On either side of each pillar, twenty-foot long statues extended out and up at a forty five degree angle over the guests.

On the first pillar, the “Patron Saint of Pastries” held out a basket of croissants as an offering. On the other side of the pillar, the first man to call himself “botanist” held a bundle of herbs near his belly.

The middle pillar held the main characters of Labrusca’s history. King Nectarus and the first Julienne rode unicorns, the national animal of Labrusca. Each tendon of the unicorns could be seen in the stone and the carved stone cloth looked like it could waver in the wind.

The final pillar boasted the architect of Cafe Julienne holding a hammer, the opposite side showing the most iconic hero of Labrusca’s many civil wars, a man known as “The White Truffle Hunter,” with his dog.

A religious mural covered the opposite wall, depicting King Nectarus watching from across the sea as his son, Julienne, kneeled before Ambrosia.

Silk chairs with floral embroidery and golden wood surrounded stone slab tables. Archie wondered if selling one chair could put him through all four years at The Academy. While Mindy and Yarrow went into the kitchen with business-as-usual demeanors, Archie stood frozen and gawking in the doorway. Nori stood next to him, mirroring his expression. Even she was surprised by the grandness of the place. It had been weeks since Julienne’s invitation. Weeks that they had spent practicing cooking with essence in Pomona’s class.

But they still felt unprepared.

Julienne yanked them out of the way of incoming diners, pulling them into the kitchen.

Three separate kitchen setups divided the cooking area into spacious pods that sat like three islands in the middle of the massive room. Each pod contained everything needed to run a kitchen, three lines of stoves and ovens and counters forming an incomplete square. The cooks worked on the outside of the square, supervised by someone on the inside.

In the central and most prominent pod, that someone was Uncle Julienne. Even without an introduction, Archie knew it could be no one else. He had the same masculine prettiness as his nephew. Same cutting bone structure. Near-black hair slicked back and parted down the middle, draping to the bottom of his neck. Sharp cheekbones framing a brown and silver goatee heavy on the mustache. Age had robbed his face of its gauntness, but his crow’s feet and smile lines dug down to the shallow face of his past.

Nori stared in awe. So did Archie. He thought both Julienne’s deserved their own marble statue.

Uncle Julienne glanced up at Julienne and paid them no further attention. As five Chefs ran around the outside of the pod, he leaned down and hovered over a plated single scallop, analyzing it with profound intensity. His eyes held decades of experience. Decades of being the best.

The comparatively child-like Julienne led Archie and Nori to one of the other pods.

“Anyone that cooks here must be supervised by a Julienne,” he explained. “This pod is mine.” He nodded at the other two. “My uncle’s. He’s the Executive Chef. And then there’s my great-aunt’s.”

Sixty years had done little to dull Great Aunt Julienne’s beauty. She had crow’s feet three times larger than Uncle Julienne’s, smile lines that came in sets of five, droopy pouches on top of her cheeks that accentuated her cheekbones, and three slanted front teeth, but all of these little imperfections seemed like unique additions that enhanced an otherwise perfect face. Her hair was shorter than either of the male Julienne’s, black hair that had browned—not grayed—at the roots, slicked back into a tight bun. Her small body was wrapped in a double-breasted white jacket—the nicest Chef’s uniform Archie had ever seen. Her tight-lipped smile and hazel-green eyes were charming even from across the room.

Archie watched as she took two handfuls of raspberries and put them together, combining them all into one single raspberry that she placed gently on a chocolate souffle. Her intensity burned just as brightly as Uncle Julienne’s, but it burned with a smile and gentleness. Her Chefs seemed carefree compared to the ones that operated in short sprints around Uncle Julienne.

“Technically Uncle Julienne runs the restaurant, but she does whatever she wants to do. Usually it’s dessert.” Julienne walked into the center of the third pod. “This is me.”

Archie started to walk around the counter to join him.

“Uh, no,” Julienne said. “You’re on that side. Juliennes on the inside.”

“Okay.” Archie and Nori stood opposite Julienne. “So what do you normally do?”

“Well, it’s usually just us three,” Julienne said while Yarrow and Mindy started setting up pots and retrieving vials of spices. “We make one dish. Sometimes two. We have a little freedom in picking what we make—Uncle still has to approve it.”

“Yeah, he approves it,” Yarrow said as he sharpened a knife. “Just so that he can leave it off the menu.”

“What?” Archie asked.

Julienne sighed in disapproval of Yarrow’s tone. “We haven’t been producing food worthy of Cafe Julienne. He’s in control of the menu. He’s within his right to leave us off of it.”

“Just like he’s within his right to make me a waitress since we’re not busy since no one orders our food since it’s not on the menu,” Mindy added as she fished a pot out of a cabinet.

“Enough,” Julienne said with an authority that Archie hadn’t heard from him before. “I won’t have Archie and Nori thinking this is what we do here. We don’t complain. We get better.”

Archie had always sensed an aristocratic pride in Julienne, but the charming boy’s flirtatious and easygoing nature had always masked his seriousness. But inside Cafe Julienne, the mask lifted to reveal fiery determination. His name made him proud, vain, and humble all at the same time.

“Does…” Archie made sure Uncle Julienne wasn’t listening, but doubted he could even be heard over the cacophony of the kitchen. “Does your uncle want you to succeed?”

“Of course,” Julienne said with a certainty that faded with his next words. “I think. I mean. He has two sons. They’re both studying at Lyceum Labrusca. I suppose he wanted one of them to be Julienne, but he’s not…”

Archie bit his lip and looked at Nori to avoid eye contact with Julienne.

“Look,” Julienne said. “He’s not sabotaging me or anything. When you’re Julienne, the standard is higher. While he certainly has no hesitancy to point out my failures, he’s ultimately trying to help me succeed.”

“Okay,” Archie said, taking his foot off of Julienne’s nerves. “We’re here to help. What should we do, Chef?”

While Archie offered the title with a slight jest, Julienne received it with sincerity.

“Okay. Since this is practice for tomorrow, I managed to talk our way into three items. That’s three chances to get on the menu if we do this right. Lemon drop martini. Pasta a limone. Torrone. Nori.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Nori snapped to attention.

“That’s three things that need lemon,” Julienne continued. “I need you at your best. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Chef.”

“The lemon drop martini should be easy. We have lemon-infused vodka that Yarrow has been working on for a couple of weeks now. Yarrow?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Yarrow said as he pulled out a large glass jar full of sliced lemons and vodka.

“Now, Yarrow’s not allowed to use his essence,” Julienne said. “So Nori, you have to coax all of the flavor out.”

Yarrow sucked in his lips, biting them as he took a loud, sharp breath through his nose.

“Archie. You’re on—”

Archie felt a newfound desire to please Julienne. “The torrone. Yes, Chef.”

“That’s right.

Nori set off to work with Yarrow, putting her hands on the jar to examine the way the essence inside had been manipulated. Julienne walked to the fridge and retrieved the dough. Mindy put a bag of pine nuts in front of Archie, who remained unmoving. A cold sweat started to form on his hairline.

“Uh—Chef?” Archie asked timidly. Julienne whipped his head around. “What’s torrone?”

Julienne’s mouth pressed into a wide line. At first, Archie thought it was an expression of anger. But as Julienne’s eyes drifted around, he realized that Julienne was recalculating how to go about achieving perfection. Julienne’s lips unpressed.

“It’s a nougat. Mindy. Heavy bottom pot,” he said without turning away from Archie. “Archie. One cup honey. Three tablespoons sugar. Low heat. Constant stir. Make it silky and smooth. Thirty minutes. Use the essence in the sugar for flavor. I’ll help you on the next step.”

Mindy set the pot in front of Archie. He looked around the kitchen one more time, his heart nearly beating out of his chest. This was it. Even though it was just a practice run, this was still the biggest opportunity Archie ever had. His hands felt tight. He had to remind himself to breathe.

His eyes found Nori’s.

She smiled at him.

And everything was okay.

He measured out the sugar and honey and got to work.

“Mindy. Roast the almonds and pistachios for the torrone. Yarrow. Two eggs whites, room temperature. Once you two are done with that, I want you practicing for tomorrow. Mint yogurt meatballs. Yarrow, if your essence makes those meatballs acidic, the profile is ruined. Mindy, the sauce needs to blend. I don’t want layers of olive oil and yogurt again. And the mint is a surprise, not a statement. Fresh, not frosty.”

Julienne’s impressive command of the kitchen distracted Archie, who realized he had been stirring the sugar and honey without intent. Cooking without essence in Cafe Julienne seemed like blasphemy. He pushed his consciousness down the wooden spoon, trying to connect to the sugar and honey.

The profound essence of the mixture shocked him with its intensity. He felt proud of the sugarcane and wheat he had grown back in the greenhouse, but they didn’t hold a candle to the sun that was Cafe Julienne sugar. Even Blanche’s most essence-packed crops weren’t worthy of a comparison.

The essence simultaneously resisted his manipulation while also feeling like it could explode at the slightest provocation. Archie struggled to find a foothold, his essence gliding around the honey and sugar without connecting.

He remembered what Akando had said—the mysterious power of motion. He focused on the movement of the spin. Forward. Back. Forward. Back. Forward. Back. His arm entered a rhythm that would continue in perpetuity if not broken with conscious thought. Without intending to, Archie’s essence matched the rhythm, becoming more potent with each change of direction.

His essence pierced the shell of the mixture’s essence. He did not celebrate—if he did not keep his mind’s connection to the process, the essence would burst like a pressure valve.

With each move of the spoon, he converted some of the mixture’s essence into flavor, drip feeding his own essence to catalyze the process.

Archie’s consciousness ceased to exist on the physical plane. His mind operated in a void—just him, the spoon, the pot, and the movement. As the essence converted into flavor, the remaining essence became more docile and easier to control. Archie started to convert it with more efficiency. Half an hour passed by in a flash. The essence told him when it was ready.

He left the void, his mind returning to the kitchen.

Yarrow and Mindy whispered at each other in a subdued argument. Nori used a paring knife on a lemon with remarkably slow control, pulling all of the essence of the lemon into the peel as she cut. Julienne rolled dough onto a set of suspended wires, cutting it into noodles.

“Done, Chef,” Archie said.

Julienne concentrated and held his hands over the mixture, assessing its essence. Archie had half a mind to ask Julienne to teach him that trick, but he knew better.

Julienne’s eyebrows raised as he blinked. “Wow. Good job. Off the heat. Whisk those egg whites with salt. Three minutes. Then put the honey mixture back on the heat. Mix in the whipped egg whites gradually in four batches.”

“Yes, Chef.”

“Good. Once it’s all in, you need to keep stirring over low heat for forty minutes. It’ll turn white. Mix until you can drip a ribbon that doesn’t incorporate quickly. Can you handle that?”

“Yes, Chef.”

“Archie. That’s forty minutes.” Julienne’s eyes dipped down to Archie’s leg. The only remnant of the wound was a pink and purple scar. That and the memory of the rotten lemon curd. “Can you handle that?”

Archie nodded. This was his chance to prove himself. To achieve his dream. He wasn’t going to fail. “Yes, Chef.”

Julienne turned around to his uncle. “Uncle Julienne,” he shouted, his voice hitting a rare deepness as it cut through the clatter of the kitchen. “Put us on the menu.”

Uncle Julienne stopped mid-taste, a red sauce dripping off his spoon. He looked at his nephew for a moment, then nodded. “Eclair, amend the menu.”

One of his Chefs rushed out of the kitchen to add the new items to each daily menu with expert calligraphy. Julienne smiled.

Archie whisked the egg whites into a foam, getting familiar with their essence in the process. He returned the honey mixture to the heat and added one whisk-full of egg foam. He stirred with his spoon, coaxing the essence of the egg foam to marry the mixture’s. As they blended, he found new pockets of essence in the mixture to convert to flavor. Whatever nerves he had started with, they were long gone. If he hadn’t been so concentrated, he might have thought of how proud his father would be.

After a couple of minutes, he added another splash of egg foam. Mix. Another foam. Mix. Another. Mix. Finally, the mixture turned into a white syrup. He never stopped stirring. After twenty minutes, he started to feel empty. Sweat drenched his uniform. He searched the corners of his being for any spare essence. His eyes glazed over, unfocused. His leg itched. He was hungry.

Julienne reached across and took the spoon, never letting the stirring stop.

“I gave you the most draining task. Take a breather.”

Archie stepped back and wiped his brow. Yarrow and Mindy continued to fuss over their meatballs. Nori heated oil, garlic, parsley, and lemon zest in a pan for the pasta.

Archie took a deep breath. The nagging in his stomach retreated down to his leg and disappeared. He became aware of all of the littles aches and fires in his joints.

He turned to watch Uncle Julienne’s pod. The Executive Chef cut into a wheel of parmesan with a wire while three Chefs had their bare hands on a piece of meat the size of Archie’s torso.

“See this?” Julienne asked.

Archie turned back to look. Julienne lifted the whisk, drizzling a line that sat on the top of the mixture for a few seconds before recombining.

“Water,” Julienne commanded with a point. “And fill this with it.”

Archie grabbed a pitcher of ice water. Julienne slid a ramekin over that Archie filled. Julienne dripped a bit of the mixture into cold water. It turned into a putty. Julienne grabbed it and squeezed, then tossed it to Archie.

“That’s the final texture,” Julienne said. “Should be like firm clay.”

Archie squeezed. “Feels good.”

“Good. Remember that for tomorrow. Nori?”

“Yes, Chef?”

“Cover the top of this with a thin layer of lemon zest. Splash of vanilla extract. Archie. Once she’s done, put the roasted nuts in and mix it. Put it on a tray between two sheets of rice paper. Press it even and firm, but not so firm that you break the paper.”

“Yes, Chef.”

They did their parts, Nori zesting the lemon as Archie poured the nuts in.

As Archie stirred, the mixture unnaturally slid off the nuts, refusing to combine. He felt dangerously empty on essence, but mustered up a last bit of strength. He was a Kent. And nothing would stop a Kent.

The nuts cooperated, incorporating into the mixture. Nori helped him set up the rice paper and they patted the mixture down into a smooth, even rectangle that could serve forty guests.

“What now?” Archie asked Julienne.

“It rests for an hour,” Julienne said as he stirred pasta in sauce.

“An hour? The first guests were sitting down when we got here. What if someone orders it now?”

Julienne laughed. “There are no first guests. Nor are there last guests. Just guests. They show up at the same time and stay until closing. And they don’t order things. They’re served the Chef’s choice.”

Archie wondered if Petrichor had subscribed to such luxury dining norms at its height.

“Excellent job today, Chef,” Julienne said. It didn’t matter that they were the same rank—Archie felt like the compliment came from a higher power. “That was a marathon and you finished the race. Go outside and take thirty. Back door there. Then come back and help me with the pasta.”

“Yes, Chef. Thank you, Chef.”

Archie exited the kitchen to a marble balcony that hung over a pond and looked out at the wild plants of the botanical garden. He rested against the intricately carved guardrail and breathed out his tension. He marveled at the variety of plants in the garden, counting the ones he’d never seen before. He watched a white and brown crane peck for fish at the shallows of the pond.

He had done it.

So far, at least. It was only the practice run. And he wasn’t done.

After breathing in the night air for a few minutes, he returned to the kitchen. Julienne plated the first three pastas while ordering Archie to start cutting the next batch of noodles. Nori started a new sauce, her fatigue quickly catching up to Archie’s.

The plates went out. Archie finished cutting the noodles and started cutting the torrone into squares with a serrated knife, revealing cross sections of almonds and pistachios suspended in white. Firm to the touch, but soft and flexible under pressure. Archie popped the excess from a cut square into his mouth. It was as delicious as it was beautiful. Archie had never been so proud of a dish.

A waitress came in, bringing the first reviews of Julienne’s pasta with her.

“Fresh. Vibrant. Bursting with flavor.”

Julienne’s breath wavered as if he might burst into tears.

Uncle Julienne walked over and offered a subdued, “good job.” He sampled a bite of torrone and nodded in approval. “Good. Although if you plan on serving this tomorrow, Grand King Flambé prefers a heavier balance of pistachios.”

Archie and Nori waited until Uncle Julienne left before turning to each other.

They smiled at each other with the knowledge that months of work were about to pay off.

Tomorrow, they would cook for the grand king. The most powerful man in the world.

He would remember the name Kent. Archie would make sure of it.