On a cold, sunny winter morning, the first-years stood side-by-side in a line out in the fields. They only moved to fidget nervously as a man walked across their ranks, assessing their souls with a piercing gaze.

They had been buzzing with energy for the first two weeks of the semester in anticipation of conjuration class with the great Tarragon. Anise could hardly control them in her class. But now, in Tarragon’s presence, the students were speechless.

He reached the end of the line and turned to walk back the other way. Despite the eyepatch covering his left eye, he did not turn to look at them. But Archie felt his gaze all the same.

Tarragon’s reputation was legendary, and Archie knew his story well. In just his third year as a student, Tarragon qualified for the premier division of the Chef Circuit, the predecessor to the IKC that would grow to dominate headlines in Archie’s day. Tarragon was the youngest in the premier division, but that didn’t stop him from winning it all in his second season.

But after an unprecedented run of four straight championships, Tarragon’s career took a turn when the Unification War started. His fame was used and leveraged to sway support in favor of unification. He became a household name, his likeness adorning a hundred banners that lined the streets of Ambrosia City. He toured amongst the troops, improving morale through his cooking as well as his unbeatable skills in combat.

But he wasn’t just a show pony. As the legend went, Tarragon and the future Grand King Flambé were the two greatest warriors in the western forces. Together, they led the charge into the Urokan throne room and forced a surrender, but not before one side of Tarragon’s face was crushed in combat, leaving him with an eyepatch and red, splotchy skin on his left cheek.

He returned home and still competed, but the disadvantage proved too great, and he retired after two lackluster seasons, leaving behind a horde of fans that wondered, “what if?”

Now in his sixties, Tarragon still was as intimidating as ever. He had stopped competing, but he had never stopped taking care of his body, which put the teenagers in his presence to shame. His tan skin still stayed tight against muscles, his black jacket doing little to hide their impressive form. His hair had gone white but remained full, spiked up at the front. He scratched at his well-trimmed white goatee as he walked.

Finally, Tarragon reached the end, turned, and spoke.

“Two of you will die in battle,” he said, his voice full of grit and gravel. “One in eight Chefs die that way. I count fourteen of you. And the odds rarely work in your favor.”

His single icy blue eye darted around from student to student, his piercing gaze as overwhelming as a lighthouse. Archie shriveled once the light shone on him. It was as if Tarragon was determining which two it would be.

Surprisingly, it was Sutton that broke the students’ silence. The word ‘statistically’ must have emboldened him.

“That statistic is influenced by the prevalence of war in the past,” he said. He pushed up his glasses, keeping his hand in front of his face to hide behind. “In the last one hundred years, it’s really one in ten.”

Archie expected Tarragon to declare insubordination, but the old war hero just chuckled.

“Thirty years without war,” he said. “Long enough for those who know its horrors to be replaced by young men eager to create a new world in their vision. Thirty years of peace does not work in your favor, young man. It only makes war overdue.”

A breeze blew through the silent crowd. Tarragon inhaled deeply, one side of his mouth curling down into a frown. Perhaps he had underestimated his ability to kill the mood of an entire class. He grunted as he forced himself to smile.

“Anyway. I’m here to teach you conjuration.” He smoothed out the back of his hair. “And that’s not just war. It’s not just combat, either. There are practical applications, but…Well, I think it’s important that you all learn how to protect yourself.”

Archie thought of the licertes. He had done almost nothing to figure out how to make healing noodles or harden his skin with sugar. But maybe this would be his chance.

“Your jackets have opened many doors for you. But they also make you a target. Thieves, robbers, ransomers. Slavers.”

The students exchanged harrowing looks.

“You might be safe here, but out there…” Tarragon looked out at the forest. “The world is not as ruly as people in the city might have you believe.

“And if you manage to become an Executive Chef? When a Restaurant makes a hundred gold in a night, what stops someone from coming in and taking all that for himself? When was the last time someone tried to rob Cafe Julienne?”

He looked at Julienne, nodding to prompt a response.

“Four years ago,” Julienne said. “Someone waited in the alley behind the kitchen and attacked my uncle.”

“Four years ago…” Tarragon clicked his tongue a few times. “Such a long time. What happened?”

Julienne took a deep breath and stuck his chin out, putting on his best stoic expression. “The robber succumbed to their injuries a week later.”

Tarragon nodded and laughed. “See? Four years ago. Since then, a kingdom’s wealth has moved through those doors, but no one’s tried again. But people forget. Just like war. The horrors just become stories, and then someone starts it all up again. And if it’s you out in the alley right now, what happens?”

Julienne looked around nervously. “I…uh…”

Tarragon leaned in. “You. Die.” He straightened back up. “People forget. Someone will try again. You have to be ready. You have to learn how to defend yourself.”

His voice relaxed. “That being said…you’re young. I get it. I didn’t learn to fight because someone shook me and told me I’d have to fight to survive.

“I did it because I wanted to compete. To be adored. I did it because it was fun. So while I want you to be serious about learning, we’re going to have fun doing it.” He kicked across the top of the grass and let his foot hang in the air. He brought it down. Hard pivot. Stand at attention.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“FIRST LESSON!”

The students flinched.

“Conjuration. Head Chef Pomona has informed me that most of you are already ahead of the curve in the techniques of duplication and extension. These are the first steps toward learning conjuration.”

Tarragon pulled an orange out of his pocket. He put his hands around it and twisted, coming away with two whole oranges. “Duplication.”

He tossed one orange into the grass and tore a hole in the other orange. He squeezed out enough orange juice to make a puddle. “Extension.”

He tossed the juiced orange on the ground and held his hand out loosely. His fingers flexed and his palm pushed out. A bucket’s worth of orange juice appeared from thin air. It splashed down on the other oranges, the acid eating their peels off in seconds.

“Conjuration.”

He swept his arm at the students. A cold fog spilled out from his palm and washed over them, chilling their skin and filling their nostrils with the smell of mint.

“Conjuration.”

He held a finger up. A small wisp of fire with no source hovered in the air.

“Conjuration.”

Archie shifted with bubbly excitement. He looked at Nori, who looked back at him with shared enthusiasm.

“Conjuration is tricky. Take that orange. When I duplicated it, I used my essence to turn two halves into wholes. The more essence in the orange, the more times I’d be able to duplicate it.

“When I extended it by increasing the juice, the process was very similar. I use my essence to instruct the essence in the orange to extend its capabilities and produce more juice. Again, the more essence in the orange, the more juice I’d be able to produce.

“But conjuration…The only essence I can manipulate is my own and the essence in the air. So I’m already working with less. On top of that, I don’t have the head start of the original object. Getting more juice out of an orange is to tell it to do more. Easy enough. To get juice out of the air? You’re not telling it to do more. You’re changing its reality.”

He closed his palm. As he opened it, an orange grew to fit the space between his fingers. He tossed it at Cress, who caught it.

“You could eat it,” Tarragon said. “But you wouldn’t be any fuller. Because it is a fabrication. A lie. Given time, it’ll return to its reality.”

He nodded to direct everyone’s attention to the orange. The skin splintered and dust floated into the air as if the orange were evaporating.

“It’ll return to nothing.” He gestured for the orange. Cress threw it to him. He tossed it up in the air, but it disappeared in the morning sun and never came back down.

“Duplication and extension have very practical applications in the kitchen. Conjuration less so. But the process of learning conjuration will still benefit your kitchen work.

“So how do you learn conjuration? Well, conjuration is two things. First, memory. I remember how the essence of that orange feels in my hand. Second, recreation. I alter my own essence and the essence in the air to match that feeling.”

He conjured another orange for show.

“So the first part of learning is the exact same as the rest of your studies. I grew oranges. I ate oranges. I cooked with oranges. I performed magic with oranges. The essence of the orange became as familiar to me as a brother.

“The second part doesn’t have quite as much overlap. You won’t use these specific manipulations in your cooking, but learning this will help your overall ability to control essence. Which brings me to my next point. Before we work on our conjuration, we must first work on our defenses. I can’t have my students accidentally killing each other, can I?”

Tarragon smiled and then remembered something. “Oh, speaking of that, which one of you is Yarrow?”

Yarrow raised his hand.

“I was warned to monitor you. Supposedly you run a little too acidic.”

Yarrow looked at the ground as some students laughed.

“So, defenses…” Tarragon took a big sigh. “Defenses…look. We said we’d have fun right? Let’s get rid of this whole lecture format and have a demonstration, yeah?”

“Yeah,” some kids repeated quietly.

“Yeah?!” Tarragon said louder, demanding a response.

“Yeah!”

“Alright. We need volunteers. Who’s good with pasta?”

Archie felt his heart skip a beat. He knew he was the best, but he couldn’t admit it. He couldn’t claim to be skilled to such a legend.

But that’s what friends are for. Oliver stood on his tiptoes and pointed down at Archie.

“Okay, you,” Tarragon said. “Archie right? And…”

Julienne’s hand shot up.

“Julienne. Come on up.”

Archie and Julienne stood in front of the class. Tarragon moved toward the crowd and turned to the two boys.

“Arms together, like so.” He slapped his hands down on his thighs. The boys mimicked him. “Aaaand, don’t panic.”

He whipped an arm toward Julienne. A noodle shot out of his hand and wrapped around Julienne from bicep to knee. Before Archie could react, Tarragon whipped his arm again at Archie.

The noodle wound around Archie’s body, squeezing the air out of his lungs as it tightened. Reflexively, he tried to spread his arms, but the noodle wouldn’t budge.

“Okay,” Tarragon said with a big grin. “So before I tell you how to get out of that…” He turned to the rest of the class. “Who wants to place bets?”

“What—” Archie and Julienne protested.

Tarragon pointed to two spots on the ground. “If you think Archie will escape first, stand over there. If you’re team Julienne, over there.”

Yarrow was the first to move, joining team Julienne.

Barley and Sutton went to Archie’s side as Mindy went to Julienne’s, evening the score.

Oliver licked his lips and hummed in indecision as Blanche joined Archie’s side, Benedict in tow. Archie felt a sting when Akando and Cress went to Julienne’s side, but felt outright betrayed when Nori did too.

“What…” he looked at her with disbelief. She smirked and shrugged.

Hyssop and Juniper split their votes.

Oliver groaned as he joined Archie’s side. “I feel like I’m going to regret this.”

An even split.

“Interesting!” Tarragon exclaimed. He turned to the bound Archie and Julienne. “So the challenge will be to see which one of you can escape first.”

Julienne jerked and twisted.

“Please,” Tarragon laughed. “It’s gonna take more than muscle. I hate to break it to the two of you, but you’re both scrawny. I made it weak, but you’re weaker.”

“Okay,” Archie said. “So how do we get out of it?”

“Hold on, hold on. We have to set the stakes. Losing team makes lunch. Agreed?”

“Yeah!” the students yelled. The stillness of the lecture had vanished—rowdiness reigned. They started cheering for their champion.

“Come on Archie!”

“You got this Julienne!”

“Alright, alright, as fun as it is to watch them squirm…” Tarragon motioned for the students to be quiet. “So, to get out, you just have to undo the magic. Make it return to its natural form. If you can expel more essence into the noodle than it contains, it’ll dissipate.

“So, more potent attacks are harder to dispel. In this case, I’ve restrained you with a rather weak spell. If I’d done max strength…it’d never come undone and it’d squeeze you until you had fewer eyeballs than me.”

He laughed—doubly so when he saw the fear in Archie’s and Julienne’s faces.

“No, this is a puny spell. The challenging part is that you two have probably learned how to expel essence…through your hands. A lifetime of touch has made that easy. But…your elbow? Your hips? Your ribs? You haven’t learned those sensitivities yet. But you need to in order to be able to defend yourself.”

Tarragon looked at the other students. “Well? Let’s hear it? Who’s ready to start?!”

“Yeah!” Oliver yelled as he threw a fist into the air.