Entering the kitchen, I immediately felt relaxed. Today had been crazy from the moment I woke up, and I needed a moment to just breathe. Pulling out the royal cookbook I had received, I remembered seeing a recipe for a buvul pie. However, I was sure it wouldn’t be an issue if I switched it with the Baelvryn, right?

  I found the page. It was a pie that was made in a dish using two separate cuts of meat: the short rib and the shin, and there was a diagram for where on the buvul this could be located.

  I pulled out the Baelvryn I had butchered. It was broken down a little, but it was still in very large cuts. The short rib was located right in the middle, while the shin was easy. The recipe called for large cubes of meat.

  It took a little bit of time, but I eventually separated it all, leaving myself with two piles of large, cubed Baelvryn meat. I couldn’t help but notice that during this time, Liane had pulled out a pastry, which Lily stole.

  This was the first time I had seen Lily steal food from anyone else, much to Liane’s horror and annoyance—although I noticed a new pastry back in her hand.

  Referring to the recipe, it explained why it wanted to use two different meats. However, the explanation didn’t make a lot of sense to me. One of the meat types apparently would thicken the sauce, while the other meat type was tougher, but had more flavour. I went to the fire and, pulling down one of the pans hanging along the wall, I placed it near the fire to start getting really hot.

  I started placing the meat into the pan. My goal was to get them all nice and brown. I also added salt and pepper to the Baelvryn.

  Once that was done, I took it all off the heat and put it to one side in a pot. Every piece was brown all over. I would need to use that same pan again without cleaning it for cooking off the onion, carrot, tomatoes, and herbs I would add, so I set it to the side.

  Pulling a far smaller pan from the wall, I placed it by the heat, and pulling out the red wine I had successfully infused prior, I poured it in, filling the pan up to around three quarters.

  “That meat already smells so good. Can we try it now?” Liane said from the side, where she was sitting next to Lily, both staring at me.

  “No, not yet. This will take a while to cook. That meat will be too tough to eat now,” I said.

  Lily just tilted her head at me.

  “Okay, not too tough for you, but no eating it yet,” I said, quickly looking at my inventory. I was sure I had some cooked food left to give them now, to keep them distracted.

  That’s when I spotted it. I still had a rack of honey-roasted skywolf ribs I had set aside for Lily when she was missing.

  Pulling it out, I was hit with the sweet smell of the charred honey coating, and deciding not to risk it by allowing them to split it themselves, I cut it into two pieces, giving Liane a third and Lily two-thirds.

  “There, have those while you wait, but nothing else. You won’t eat the pie if you do,” I said, getting back to the wine, which was now boiling.

  My next problem was the recipe called for buvul stock, or chicken stock.

  I didn’t have either of them. What I did have was a Grarok soup, which was basically a stock, right? Was there an issue with stacking too much strength into one dish? I’d need to check with Milo before I added it.

  “Liane, I don’t suppose you’d be able to find Milo when you’re done eating?” I asked.

  I got a nod before she squinted at me. “What have you done, or are you thinking of doing?” she said.

  I raised my hands in defence. “It’s not like that. If I use the Grarok soup for stock, there will be a lot of strength buffs in this dish, and I was curious if there was such a thing as too much in terms of strength.”

  “Yes, there is such a thing as too much. I’ll get him. He’ll explain it better,” she said, shaking her head but returning to the ribs.

  By this stage, the wine had almost reduced by half, but I used my ability to try to predict the buffs. The Grarok soup gave nine Strength, while Baelvryn itself gave two Strength. What I couldn’t see, however, was how second simmer would affect it, or if there were any combination buffs that would unlock with the two combined.

  Alternatively, I could just not infuse the pie. It would still hold the buffs of the soup alone, or maybe only infuse Lily’s portion, so I could see exactly what the buffs were without dishing it out to everyone.

  This seemed like the most reasonable decision.

  I didn’t even notice Liane leave as I started to pull out the tubers that I would be baking, then mashing, because putting it on top to finish it, the recipe stressed I needed to bake it on salt to ensure as much moisture as possible was pulled out.

  I noticed the wine had now reduced below half and was thickening up, giving an almost glossy appearance, so I took that from the heat, just as Milo entered the kitchen.

  “What have you done now?” he said immediately.

  “Nothing! Yet. I was just preparing some food, but I realised it’s stacking a lot of strength that I know of, and I was not sure if there was a limit, so I wanted to check,” I explained.

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  “Yes, there would be an upper limit, which would roughly be double a person’s base before some negative effects occur. Could be anything from discomfort to fatigue once it wears off, unless you go into the real extremes. How much strength are we talking about?” Milo asked.

  “Well, I was making a pie, and I don’t have buvul stock, so I was thinking of using some of the Grarok soup instead, which gives nine strength, then the pie itself is made out of Baelvryn, which gives two strength,” I explained.

  “So, eleven, then?” Milo asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, no, probably not. This will trigger second simmer, and manaflair crust as well, then any combinations they may have between them I don’t know about,” I explained.

  Milo shook his head. “It’s a bad idea, then.”

  “I had an idea around it. I thought maybe if I don’t infuse the whole pie, and just infuse Lily’s piece, I could at least see all the buffs for the future?” I asked hopefully.

  Milo seemed to think about this for a moment before nodding. “That would be smart. I would assume it’s me who has the lowest strength, so if it goes over fourteen, that would be dangerous.”

  Nodding, another thought came to me. “Couldn’t I use Balance, then, to reduce the potency for length and bring it down?”

  “Seems possible, but I would still infuse Lily’s part first, see what you’re dealing with, then check. It’s possible that Hari and the boys will love it, but for the others it could be too much,” he said, before pulling out a book and taking a seat nearby.

  “Where is Jen?” I asked.

  “She has discovered the archery range in the back and is currently training. You may need more targets before long,” he said with a chuckle.

  I somewhat remembered the training yard tour Kathrine gave us, and perhaps she mentioned an archery area, but I couldn’t remember that. I really wanted to explore this place soon. I suspected there were secrets about it I just didn’t know yet—how could there not be? It was so large.

  Turning back to the food, I pulled out a small amount of the Grarok soup. I made sure I only used the liquid. Again, this wasn’t ideal, but it would do for now, and I added it to the reduced wine. Due to the soup already being thickened, I didn’t reduce it again by half like the recipe said.

  Martin wouldn’t be happy with me making things up like this, but I suspected Geo would absolutely approve of trying something out there and different.

  Once it was all mixed, I added the soup and wine mixture with the meat to a small pot, adding a bit of water just so it was slightly covered, before placing on the lid and having Crisplet seal it.

  That would take a few hours to break down fully according to the book, so while I waited, I started the prep for the rest of it. In an hour, I would need to remove the tubers from being baked so I could cut them in half and let them cool. The soft flesh inside would be mashed and used on top.

  I then started to finely chop up the vegetables as the recipe instructed me to, getting the pan I used to brown the meat in. I started to cook down the vegetables, starting with the onions, ensuring I collected all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan as I did for maximum flavour, then deciding to use some mushrooms I had, before finishing with the carrots and tomato.

  I also tried my best to do this without Crisplet cooking everything by himself. Lately, I had noticed a reliance on Crisplet and had not actually cooked anything myself in a long while, so although I’m sure he was watching, Crisplet was letting me go by myself on some areas, others perhaps not, since I was seeing the heat change regularly for the wine when it was on.

  Finally, I was all ready to go. I could add some herbs to the vegetables, the recipe said, but it also said it was chef’s choice, and I figured I wouldn’t, just to be safe as I had stacked enough buffs, and it would just be dangerous to do more.

  So I patiently waited for everything to cook, reading more recipes in the book for ideas on what to do in the future.

  “It smells really good, Trev,” Liane said from the side.

  “I hope so! Some of the recipes in this book are crazy, but they also seem very wasteful?” I said curiously.

  “That’s often the case in royal cooking. It’s not about the meal, but the display of wealth that’s important. Other times, you’ll find that on a buvul, for example, there might be a tiny part that’s exceptional when the rest is average. Fancy cooking like that uses the exceptional,” Milo explained.

  I nodded. That made sense, but I also felt like there were extremes on both sides.

  “But surely something like a buvul’s tongue or a grovul tail is not an exceptionally good piece, right?” I asked.

  “You’re correct. However, the way to make average ingredients like that great, is to cook them exceptionally, so it’s a chef showing off their skills by cooking average ingredients to such a high standard they then sit on the same table as the best ingredients,” Milo explained.

  An hour passed, and I took the baked tubers out. Following the recipe, I cut them all in half, leaving them to sit for another few minutes as they dried out a little more.

  When that time had passed, I scooped out the inside. I stored the skins away, as I was sure I could use them somewhere. The soft tuber I had scooped out I then mashed, adding some salt and butter to it to make it creamy, but the recipe was very insistent not to make it too wet, and not to work it too much or it would work the starches out and cause it to go bad.

  I stored it away when I was satisfied that there were not too many lumps.

  As I continued to read the book, a couple of hours passed in a blur. I was surprised when Liane asked Lily to teach her some shadow techniques and how to improve, and I was even more surprised when Lily seemed to actually consider this an option as she studied Liane for a long while.

  Seeing Lily look back at me, though, I knew what was really stopping her. “You’re going to have to wait until after food, Liane,” I said with a laugh.

  When enough time had passed and Crisplet gave me the sign, I pulled the meat from the oven. Removing the lid, the smell was rich. There was a sweetness from the wine and an earthiness from the meat. The sauce looked incredibly smooth and was already surprisingly thick. Inside, the meat had two different textures, with one of the cuts broken down completely into strips, while the other had kept its chunky shape.

  I tasted the mixture for seasonings as the recipe instructed, adding a small amount of salt and pepper to it, really enhancing the flavour, again I contemplated adding other elements like fire salts, or pyrrhosite but, I didn’t want to risk ruining all this work.

  All I needed to do now was mix the meat and sauce with the vegetables, then add the mashed tuber on top, sealing the pot with it, before, for the last time, adding it back to the fire to get a nice golden crust over the top.

  I should have realised at the time, but all this cooking, cooling, and cooking again, I was triggering second simmer. I also got manaflair crust on the meat, and again on the mashed tubers.

  Once everyone had finally arrived in the afternoon, I was left with a perfectly golden-brown pie. I first scooped a piece for Lily, as it would be the test, giving her plenty on the plate. I used Infuse on it and Purify, just in case.

  Looking at the buffs, though, I nearly dropped the plate.