Despite its rocky start, that Saturday ended up being Lyra’s favorite day at the academy thus far.

The proofing spell for Texture wasn’t complicated. It was just tedious to stand over a lump of dough and recite the super-long incantation, silently and at a painfully slow pace.

“Ten pages…” Boysen groaned. “Ten pages of magic words, with a breath between each one and three breaths between each sentence. Go too fast, and the dough collapses. Miss a beat, and the dough collapses. I love ciabattas and all, but just how amazing is this bread supposed to be for all of this work?”

“At least the spell makes proofing go faster,” Lyra pointed out. “You can actually see the dough growing. And the words themselves kind of tell a story.”

Boysen flipped through the pages of parchment. “A really boring story.”

“It doesn’t have to be boring.” Lyra began measuring flour, salt, and yeast into a large bowl. “The spell’s all about slow, steady growth. Right? Encouraging the yeast to bloom faster, but in a controlled way. So we can just imagine the dough is some poor student discouraged by their lack of progress.”

“They’re the unlikely hero of the story,” Boysen said, a grin spreading across his face. “A diamond in the rough. And we’re the wise old mentor giving them that crucial pep talk before the big moment.”

“Exactly.”

Boysen grabbed his own bowl with a sigh and started measuring flour into it. “A really long, slow, boring pep talk.”

“That’s the spirit,” Lyra sang, keeping her eyes on the water she was heating to a precise temperature. “But I only want to do this spell once this morning, Berry. No weird faces or trying to make me laugh, got that?”

“Who, me?” Boysen placed a hand to his heart, covering his apron with flour in the process. “I never engage in such childish activities.”

Lyra flicked a pinch of flour at his face. “Behave.”

“I will if you will, Trouble.”

They chatted pleasantly as they each whisked the dry ingredients together and used a spoon to create a well in the center. Adding a liberal dash of olive oil and a cup of warm water, they worked the liquid through the dough. Then they turned the oozing blobs out onto the floured counter for more kneading.

Lyra enjoyed every second of it. In fact, ciabatta was the first yeast-bread she had ever attempted, so it held a special place in her heart.

She remembered vividly how terrified she had been of the proofing process when she first began baking. Her goal had always been to make cakes: light, fluffy, gorgeous dessert masterpieces. Yet, after mastering brownies and various kinds of cookies, she still didn’t feel ready to try a cake recipe.

Only true bakers made cakes. And until she successfully made bread, Lyra didn’t feel like she could call herself a baker.

Cakes, Magic, and You had recommended soda bread as a good beginner recipe. Soda bread contained no yeast, went directly into the oven without rising, and barely required any kneading. Especially considering the endless list of flavors and fillings one could add, soda bread was the perfect tune for a scared little bard to practice on and build some confidence.

Lyra had tried every single one of the soda bread variations listed in Cakes, Magic, and You. She had then taken to inventing her own flavor combinations. ‘Peanut Butter Chocolate Soda Bread’ had been a dismal failure, but ‘Sundried Tomato with Smoked Sweet Paprika’ was a family favorite. Even after her long-suffering parents declared a household ban on soda bread for the next decade, Lyra was still allowed to make what her oldest brother had termed ‘red bread.’

After the ban, though, Lyra knew she couldn’t delay any longer. She had flipped glumly through the rest of her already tattered cookbook’s limited bread section, staring at the instructions for proofing times and water temperatures and kneading rhythms. Her heart had quailed at the many tables of complicated Texture spell equations. For one terrible morning, she had considered abandoning her cake-dreams altogether.

Then, buried towards the end of the cookbook, she found the recipe for ciabatta.

Unlike enriched breads which had to proof twice and took up the entire morning, ciabatta required only one proof and could be ready to eat in under two hours. The yeast went directly into the dry ingredients, without needing to be bloomed in warm water. The only measurement listed for the olive oil was ‘a healthy splash.’

The process itself also just felt more… casual. There was still kneading, but it mostly involved picking up bits of dough and slapping it back down to create air pockets. No finicky shaping, either. Cakes, Magic, and You assured Lyra that ciabatta dough was supposed to resemble a blob-monster.

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Lyra smiled as she and Boysen each rubbed olive oil around the inside of their bowls, then plopped their dough back in, ready for proofing.

Thank you, beautiful blob-monster, she sang softly in her mind. You gave me the courage to learn more complex songs.

Arranging the stack of spell pages carefully on a clean patch of counter, Lyra spread her hands over the bowl, pressing down lightly into the dough. Next to her, Boysen did the same. They looked at each other.

“Ready?” Lyra asked.

He nodded. “Ready.”

“Deep breath. Three, two, one, go.”

Silently, they each began reciting the spell.

Pink…

Lyra inhaled, waited a beat, and exhaled, matching the rhythm of Boysen’s breathing beside her.

Mauve…

Inhale. Beat. Exhale.

Red… Breathe. Scarlet… Breathe. Orange… Breathe. Marigold… Breathe. Yellow…

Slowly, silently, Lyra recited the colors of the sunrise. The page-long sentence culminated in the stirring words ‘Dawn… is… near.’ Then, after three measured breaths, she and Boysen moved on to the next page.

It wasn’t as bad as Lyra had feared. She felt herself being drawn into the rhythm, savoring each word as it rolled off her mental tongue. Every page described a different kind of ‘rise’, from morning dawns to ocean tides to the journey of a tiny acorn into a majestic tree. Lyra’s favorite part was near the end, when the spell followed a baby bird through its first wondrous flight.

Throughout, the words seemed to fit perfectly with the tune Lyra had composed the first time she made ciabatta. She let that tune roll through her head automatically, its cadence keeping her breath and mental recitation steady. Far from being a distraction, the music wove effortlessly through the words and lifted her heart to join the sun and the bird in their rising.

Even better was the spell’s effect on the proofing. Not only was the dough rising visibly with every phrase, but it felt softer and smoother beneath her fingers, and gleamed with a satiny sheen. She could sense the spell binding the separate ingredients closer together, while simultaneously expanding them: a blob-monster caught in an ever-expanding net. The whole experience was rather soothing, especially with Boysen standing beside her, breathing in unison as they helped keep each other locked into the appropriate pace.

Finally, half an hour later, they reached the last word on the last page. Lyra paused, her hands still resting gently on the dough, hardly daring to breathe. Then Boysen’s face slowly leaned into her peripheral vision. Darting a glance, she saw he had twisted his features into a ridiculous mask of pretend agony.

“I’m dead,” he pronounced in hollow, sepulchral tones. “That spell has killed me.”

Chuckling, she pushed him away and stepped back to survey their handiwork. “Didn’t kill the bread, though. Both look pretty good to me.”

“I just don’t see the point,” Boysen complained. “What normal baker would go through all this trouble to shave fifteen minutes off proofing time? Baking is all about multitasking. If we had just set the bread to proof normally, we could have been halfway through another assignment by now.”

“The spell guarantees a good proof,” Lyra reminded him. “Eliminates the risk of misjudging how long the dough needs, or something else going wrong. Wouldn’t that save time in the long run?”

“Sure. But I don’t think it’s practical, overall. My mom never uses this spell.”

“She doesn’t need to.” Lyra closed her eyes briefly, remembering the remarkable meal she had enjoyed at the Berry house. “I bet her proofing instincts are never wrong.”

“That’s not true,” Boysen said slowly. “Everyone has their bad days. She and dad both have plenty of horror stories, especially from their early years. The thing is, they’re so experienced, they can usually salvage a disaster.”

Lyra turned on the kitchen’s two ovens, setting them to the right temperature. “And the only way to get that experience is…”

“Repetition.” Boysen drizzled olive oil over two baking sheets. “They’re always telling us that. ‘Practice, practice, practice. Learn the rules so you can break them responsibly later.’”

“Now that’s incentive to keep using this spell,” Lyra said with a smile. As one, they plopped their dough onto the prepared baking sheets and stuck them in the ovens. “Though honestly, I don’t need it. That was the most relaxing thirty minutes I’ve had all week.”

“I always knew you were weird.”

Lyra flicked another pinch of flour at him, scoring a direct hit on his nose. “I’m serious. I know baking is all about multitasking. That’s why it’s kinda nice to have an excuse to just do one thing for a while. I bet your mom would say the same.”

“Probably.” He rubbed the flour off his nose and started helping her wipe down the counters. “Next time you come over for dinner, you can ask her. Maybe you two can have a nice chat about meditation practices.”

“That sounds nice, actually.” Skipping over to the table, Lyra scanned the assignment list. “But for now, let’s knock out those color spells for Presentation.”

“Are you sure?” Boysen asked. “We can end with that, if you prefer.”

“Nope. You made breakfast, so you get to pick. And I know you want to end the day with Flavor.”

“I do, thanks.” Boysen wagged his finger in her direction. “But don’t think this lets you off the hook. I still expect you to sing for your scones at some point.”

The first step was to whip up five small batches of buttercream frosting. With two stand mixers going at once, they were able to do this in record time. Lyra monitored the consistency of the butter and sugar, trusting Boysen’s Flavor instincts to cover the dash of vanilla and heavy cream.

Then, spreading the five small bowls across the counter, it was time for the coloring.

“I’m actually a little excited about this,” Boysen confessed. “Working with food coloring is a pain, especially when we’re talking about frostings in five different colors.”

Lyra’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “The Flavor King is excited about Presentation? I thought you couldn’t wait to get this out of the way.”

“I can’t. Presentation is a pain too. But it’s less of a pain than synthetic food coloring. That stuff can seriously throw off Flavor and Texture.”

“Whatever you say,” Lyra crooned.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m excited, but I’m not gonna enjoy it. Got that?”

“Of course.” She gave him a huge wink. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Watch it, Treble.” He paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. “What about music? That would help me enjoy it.”

“Music?” she echoed.

“Of course!” His whole face lit up in his usual grin. “Each color’s charm is a little different, right?”

“Right…”

“That’s because each color has a different personality. So why not give them each a little theme song?”

She hesitated for a moment, staring at the bowls. Then, in a very quiet voice: “I did.”