“They’re dead.” Archie rubbed his forehead as he grieved. “Maybe…maybe we can bring them back?”

“It’s too late, Archie,” Nori said. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“No. This one. What about this one? Maybe…” Archie ran his hand from his forehead through his hair. He fell onto the dirt in a heap.

“It’s too late, Archie. Look at the color. It’s yellow.”

“But maybe…maybe that’s just the lemon!”

“Archie. Feel it.”

Archie put his hands around the fledgling sprout of sugarcane. His essence passed through it with no resistance. Nothing to bounce off of. Nothing to manipulate. Dead.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s dig ‘em up. We’ll try again.”

“That was the third batch,” Nori said in mild protest. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”

Archie stretched his neck to look around the greenhouse. “Where is she…”

“Looking for Blanche?”

“Yeah.”

“She got called up to Blue Orchards.”

“After dinner? On a weekday?”

Nori shrugged. “It was an emergency.”

Archie scratched his neck with dirt-covered fingers. “An emergency? What, like, a tree got sick?”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

“Oh.”

“Your sugarcane is dead,” Julienne called out from the other side of the greenhouse. “And so are you.” He locked eyes with Archie, a palpable line of tension forming between them. Archie got up slow, slow, slow, no sudden movements. His hand fell to his side. They froze. They waited.

Like cowboys at high noon, Archie’s and Julienne’s hands whipped toward each other. Archie’s conjured blueberry hit Julienne’s forehead with a splat. Julienne only managed to conjure a lemon seed, which flew harmlessly over Archie’s head.

Archie pumped his fist in victory.

Julienne wiped blueberry juice from his forehead. “Not fair. Lemons are too big compared to blueberries. I can’t do it as fast.”

“You should try kumquats,” Nori said. “They’re like little oranges. They grow in Uroko.”

Julienne looked at Archie for confirmation. Archie shrugged.

“You’re making that up,” Julienne said. Nori rolled her eyes.

“Did you just come over here to make fun of our dead sugarcane?” Archie asked.

“I came to check on my garden. I haven’t been down here in a few weeks. At this point, I’m kind of resigned to failing the cultivation portion of the exam and just passing on the other four. Still, I’d rather not embarrass myself.” Julienne touched one of the sugar cane sprouts and gave it a gentle shake. “Speaking of…what happened to you? You were growing sugar cane fine. Now you can’t even get a decent stalk going.”

“We’re trying something,” Nori explained.

“Show me.”

Archie nodded at Nori. She sighed and set to digging up the dead sugarcane. Archie went to his healthy patch of un-lemoned sugarcane and grabbed the bottom of a stalk.

“So, you see the joints? This line here where it buckles?” Archie explained. “That’s where the roots grow. So you just need one joint to grow a new stalk.”

He split the stalk into five sections as Nori ripped dead stalks from the dirt.

“Can you get the water?” he asked Nori.

“Seriously? I have to do the digging and I have to go to the well?”

“I need to prepare the stalks so you don’t kill them.”

“I have to prepare the lemons!”

“Please?”

“Whatever.” Nori grabbed a bucket and walked out of the greenhouse toward the water pump.

“Kill them?” Julienne asked.

“Yeah. So you know how sugarcane takes a ton of water to grow? We’re trying to use lemon water.”

“Why? What is that going to do?”

“We…” Archie looked out the glass window. Nori wore a scowl as she cranked the water pump. “Our theory—well, my theory, but Nori is entertaining me—is that we can sort of…prime the sugarcane so that when we create sugar, it’ll sorta…bond better with the flavor of lemon.”

“So,” Julienne chuckled at the ridiculousness. “You’re trying to grow a lemon supercandy?”

Archie gripped a stalk and focused his essence into it.

“Yeah. Basically. But of course the acid from the lemon kills the sugarcane. We’ve tried a few things.” Archie put the sections of stalks into separate buckets. “I tried to make the sugarcane resistant to acid, but that just made it not absorb the water. Nori tried killing the acidity, but that killed the flavor too, so it was just like growing with regular water. Now the best we can do is make the sugarcane as healthy as possible before giving it any lemon. We’re essentially trying to nurse it while also poisoning it and hoping it makes it through.”

Nori returned, the bucket of water bumping painfully into her shins as she walked. She groaned at Archie as she started pouring water into the other buckets, submerging the stalks. “I’m telling you, we need to find something else for our innovation project.”

“It’s gonna work!” Archie insisted. He nodded to Julienne. “What’s your plan for the innovation exam?”

Julienne offered a sly smile and raised his eyebrows twice. “I have a plan. It’s a secret. It’s not going to get me the max score, but it’ll get me close.”

Nori sighed. “You’re not helpful.”

“I could be,” Julienne with a shrug. “Have you tried an ambrosial handshake?”

“Ambrosial handshake?” Archie had never heard the term, but he was already on board. Whatever it was, it sounded like something for the best Chefs.

“It’s a Labruscan thing.” Julienne stuck his hand out to Archie. “You exchange a little bit of essence. It’s…you're gifting each other.”

Archie shook hands with Julienne. Velvety essence flowed into Archie’s hand. It ran both smooth and heavy in his body, at first separated from his own essence like oil and water, but then the two essences slowly slipped into one.

“If you do that handshake first, you can use each other’s essence. It can be a little clumsy to try to do, but it might help the sugarcane and lemon water get along. You know, make their essences more compatible.”

“Sounds like voodoo mumbo jumbo,” Nori said.

“No, I felt that,” Archie countered.

He reached over to Nori, who took his hand after a skeptical pause. As essence left his hand, it was replaced by Nori’s. At first it felt sweet, then sour, lacking the uniformity of Julienne’s essence. It fought Archie’s essence, but then cozied up to it, but then fought it again. He kept it down in his hand until it seemed to settle in with his own essence. He grabbed a stalk as Nori did the same with a lemon.

“Cool,” she said as they infused their respective crops.

“Alright, lemon time.”

Nori took a minute to squeeze lemon juice into each bucket. Before, she had been able to squeeze an entire cup of juice from just one lemon, but now, having exhausted herself making kulkida risotto, she barely got more than the normal amount. All of her essence was accounted for with the risotto, and the supercharged noodle left her with nasty hangovers.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“We replace the water in the buckets every two days,” Archie explained to Julienne. “After a week, there should be a bud. Then we bury the stalk completely with the new bud sticking out of the dirt.”

“Interesting,” Julienne said. “Well, if it works, I’m taking all the credit.”

Archie and Julienne laughed, but Nori did not join them. Instead, she lifted a hand to her eyebrows to hide her fatigued dizziness.

“Is it ready?” Nori asked.

“There’s only one way to tell,” Archie answered.

They looked at each other, then at the finished kulkida risotto.

At the same time, Archie and Nori grabbed a pinch of rice. The rice had stayed warm through the entire week of cooking, even when it spent the night without a fire. Through his fingers, Archie felt the warmth and a thousand layers of essence compacted into a single grain. He questioned whether or not to eat it—was it curiosity or Gluttony that informed his desire?

Nori swung her clump of rice toward Archie, mimicking a cheers.

Archie popped the rice in his mouth.

“It’s…” Archie started, looking for the words. “Full of essence. But the taste…It’s…”

“Exactly like normal risotto?” Nori finished.

“Yeah. Did we do it right?”

“According to the recipe, yeah.”

“Well, hopefully he isn’t disappointed.”

Nori put a lid on the pot of finished kulkida risotto, looped a string through the handle and around the bottom, and tied it tight.

While the Ackers had sent servants to transport the rest of the food, Archie and Nori had decided to not let the contraband meal out of their sight. They weren’t about to trust someone else with what would either be their fortune or their doom.

They slipped the pot into a canvas sack with a strap that wrapped around Archie’s shoulder. The pot bounced awkwardly and painfully against his hip as he walked out of the Academy and to the main road. His heart quickened at every sideways glance, his stomach twisting with fear that they might be discovered. It would only take one person opening that pot for Archie and Nori to be imprisoned or worse.

They just needed to get to Caviar Court.

“Well, what do we have here?”

Stop Him marched from his post to cut Archie and Nori off.

No.

“Archie…” Nori whispered. “Keep walking.”

But Stop Him did what he did best, stepping out with white knuckles gripping his spear. “Got something for me?”

“Shouldn’t you be worried about the gate?” Archie asked.

“Aren’t you defensive?” Stop Him asked with a sneer. But then his expression changed. For the first time ever, Archie saw a sense of duty on Stop Him’s face. “Why do you look so nervous?”

“We’re—we’re just—we’re just in a rush,” Archie tried to explain. “We don’t have anything for you, sorry. Next time.”

“You didn’t bring nothing?”

“No. I’m sorry.” Archie tried to walk, but Stop Him cut him off again.

“If you don’t have nothing…” Stop Him tapped the bag with the butt of his spear, the impact with the pot producing a metal clank clank. “What’s in the bag?”

A chill went through Archie. He looked to the gate. Somewhere just beyond that, just a short walk away, Prince Waldorf roamed the keep. Just over the wall, stuffing his face with a dozen dishes an hour. What would he do if he found out about the kulkida risotto? Would he kill them? What would he do to Nori?

Archie’s mouth had too much saliva in it, he needed to swallow, but it was hard, so hard, his body had forgotten how, he had to force it down with a gulp. With the lump in his throat gone, he realized that the important thing was to keep his cool.

But Stop Him had already noticed the nervousness. The fear.

“What’s in the bag?” he repeated.

Archie was silent.

“What’s in the bag?” Stop Him stepped forward and reached for the bag.

Nori stepped between the two, her finger pointed up in Stop Him’s face.

“Hey!” she yelled. “You wanna stop us from going into the keep, fine! But we’re not going into the keep. We’re going to Caviar Court.”

Stop Him growled, but Nori was not so easily deterred.

“You know who lives in Caviar Court?” Nori continued, stepping into the guard. “People that won’t tolerate a lowly city guard that confiscated THEIR food! Who are you? Nobody! So back off!”

Bystanders had started paying attention. Archie looked around frantically, only serving to draw more attention to himself.

“And who do you think you are?” Stop Him growled as he took a step back and lowered the point of his spear. “I won’t have you in a cell. I’ll have you right here.”

“You want to know who I am?” Nori stepped forward again, letting the point of the spear hover just inches away from her. “You ever heard of the Harpers? That’s me. You know Tataki? Six feet tall, turns his body into an octopus and suckers people’s faces off?”

Stop Him stepped back, but Nori did not relent, following him and berating him until he ended up back at his post. “If he hears that you even so much as threatened me, he’ll pay you a visit. You’re not even a Chef. How do you think that’s gonna go? They’ll never even find your body.”

Stop Him squeezed his lips tight together, shooting dirty looks at anyone that looked at him too long. Anyone but Nori.

Nori walked back to Archie, grabbed his forearm, and dragged him away. Archie looked back at Stop Him, who pouted and muttered to himself.

“Good job,” Archie said, feeling a bit of sympathy for the guard.

“Yeah,” Nori said with an impatient sigh. “Let’s go.”

Archie and Nori hadn’t even finished setting up in the kitchen when Mr. Ackers came snooping around. He obviously had something on his mind, but danced around it by talking about other things—a fat ballerina trying to tiptoe a tightrope.

“Oh, you brought blueberries. Good, Teff loved the blueberry tricks…Wow, that crab is certainly ‘king.’ Did you get it from Sebastian’s Crabbery? Be sure to put an extra lemon slice next to the tilapia. I do like a little extra zing…Now, will the salmon be baked or pan-seared? How do they do it in Uroko?”

Nori had enough of the questions. With exaggerated movement, she grabbed the pot of kulkida risotto out of the bag and set it down with a loud clang that finally shut Mr. Ackers up. He stared at the pot as his finger slowly glided along the edge of the counter toward the risotto.

“Is that what I think it is…” Mr. Ackers said, dragging his words with his finger.

“Yes,” Nori said.

“Very well,” he said, turning to depart. He made it three steps before he stopped and spun around. He held his hand near his chest and pinched his thumb and forefinger together repeatedly. “You wouldn’t mind if I…”

“Go ahead,” Nori said.

“Just to make sure it’s been made right,” he said with a shrug.

Nori opened the lid, releasing the smell of the risotto. Mr. Ackers exhaled softly and looked at the rice with a combination of awe and desire.

Archie had seen the face before. Mr. Ackers wasn’t a Glutton, but he wore a Glutton’s expression.

Mr. Ackers dipped his hand into the pot, taking just a pinch of risotto. “Mm, warm,” he commented. He lifted the rice to his nose before putting it in his mouth along with half of his fingers.

Archie and Nori looked at each other. This was it. If Mr. Ackers liked it, they were in business.

And he did more than like it. His eyes closed in bliss, his chest deflating as he exhaled through his nose. He reached for another pinch.

He took a third bite. Then a fourth. A soft, uncontrollable groan slipped out between his chewing. Bits of rice stuck to his hands. He reached into the pot again.

Nori and Archie looked at each other, communicating with their expressions.

What do we do?

He’s going to eat all three servings.

Do we stop him?

I don’t know!

Mr. Ackers stopped taking pinches and started scooping up entire handfuls of risotto, smacking his palm against his lips. He rubbed his hand all over his mouth, desperate to eat every grain. He seemed possessed, having forgotten his surroundings—a raging fire couldn’t have broken his trance.

Another handful. And another and another. Mr. Ackers became bestial, grabbing the pot with one hand and scooping risotto down his throat with the other. He made the noises of a feasting lion and ate faster and faster.

Archie stepped back, bewildered and disgusted.

Nails scratched against iron, ensuring no single grain of rice would be wasted.

The empty pot rattled down on the counter. Three servings gone in seconds.

Mr. Ackers’s eyes seemed to refocus. He returned to the world.

“Hmm,” he said, his voice landing somewhere between delight and embarrassment. “It appears I ate it all.”

He checked the pot again to make sure it was empty and let out a heaving sigh.

“That’s the first time I’ve had it. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to enjoy anything else.” He laughed, pure bliss. “I feel like my life has been changed.”

Archie and Nori stood frozen in terror.

But Mr. Ackers was all smiles. He giggled as he counted out six gold pieces, putting them on the counter in front of Nori.

“Can you make more?” Mr. Ackers asked.

“Uhm—I…” Archie struggled to find his composure. He wanted to say no. No, they couldn’t do it. This wasn’t right. It hadn’t been right from the start. They stole their ingredients, they served contraband, The Gift gathered dust in the Roots, and whatever just happened wasn’t natural. They wouldn’t do it.

“Of course,” Nori said.

“Fantastic. How long do you need?”

“Two weeks?”

“Great. I’ll host another party here in two weeks. You’ll cater a get-together for me. And we’ll have a little extra on the side. Another three servings. Oh, and next time, don’t let me eat any until everyone’s been served. I’m going to have to tell them that you didn’t have any today!” He roared with laughter.

“Five servings,” Nori stated. “Four gold per serving.” Not a negotiation. A declaration. Archie looked at her like she was crazy.

“My, my. Taking me from three servings at two gold each to that?” Mr. Ackers sucked air through his teeth.

“You’re welcome to find someone else to make it,” Nori’s stoney expression cut through Mr. Ackers. He backed down like a mouse to a lion. “Right now it’s not worth the effort,” Nori continued. “Or the risk.”

Mr. Ackers pouted for a moment, then stood up straight and smiled. “Deal. Five servings. Twenty gold.”

Archie audibly swallowed. That would put them almost halfway to their goal. But it was wrong. He didn’t want to do it. This meal was dangerous in more ways than one.

Mr. Ackers stuck his hand out for Nori.

No. Don’t shake it.

She took his hand in hers and gave it a firm shake. Mr. Ackers grinned as he went to Archie with his hand out.

Archie stared at the hand. A few errant pieces of rice had hidden in the creases of Mr. Ackers’s fingers—they would surely be discovered soon and eaten with haste. His palm was sticky with residue and sweat.

Archie’s chest constricted. He looked up at Nori with pleading eyes. He must have looked just like her on the night of the Induction Ceremony. He didn’t want to do it. He wanted out. Wouldn’t she save him?

Nori gave Archie a stern look and nodded her head.

He shook hands, the residue gluing their skin together and leaving his hand dirty.

“Good work,” Mr. Ackers said, his voice happy and without any indication of his bestial episode or Nori’s shakedown. “As much as you can make...I’ll take it.”