Nyindnir stayed quiet for a long breath.

  He walked around the first wagon with his hands behind his back. Sometimes oaken boards, sometimes iron brackets, sometimes the wheels. He crouched, ran thick fingers along the axle, squinted at the gaps between wheel and frame. He did not hurry. The wind tugged at his beard while he thought.

  James tried not to hover. He failed. He hovered.

  Nyindnir finally straightened and patted the side of the wagon.

  “These could have been great designs,” he said, almost to himself. “The bones are good. The problem sits elsewhere.”

  James latched onto the one word that did not belong to carts or carpentry. “Problem?”

  “Low technology,” Nyindnir said. “That is the problem.”

  James nodded out of habit. “Right, if the tech were a little more developed we could… wait.” He blinked. “What did you just say?”

  Nyindnir gave him a look that mixed patience and pity. “Technology. Human technology. This wagon has no suspension worth the name, no proper cooling or heating. No way to keep tools from rattling loose. No one even built a decent water tank into the frame.” He flicked the underside with his knuckles. “Someone wanted a kitchen, they built a box that shakes cooks to pieces.”

  James stared at the wagon’s flank. Suspension. Cooling. Water tank. All the things any decent food truck back home would have built in, and he had forgotten every single one.

  “Ah, hell,” he said. “A water tank did not even cross my mind.”

  Nyindnir’s mouth twitched. He rubbed his beard with slow strokes, then smiled. The sound that came up from his chest was a deep ho ho ho that fit his size a little too well.

  “If you want,” he said, “leave the wagons with me. I will add what they should have had from the start.”

  “You would really do that?” James asked. Hope came up so fast it left him lightheaded.

  Nyindnir snorted. “What did you think I am. I cannot fry an egg to save my life. That does not matter. Hand me wood and iron and leather and I can make them behave. Give me time, leave me alone, I will give you wagons that do not try to kill your pots.”

  “How much time?” James asked.

  Nyindnir tipped his head, fingers moving in the air as if he counted invisible pebbles. “Two days,” he said. “Two nights, if I am honest. No one pulls me away, no silly errands.”

  Two days. James ran the numbers in his head. The Count’s daughter. Her birthday. The stupid quest that had popped into his vision right when he was about to say no.

  “Eight days from today is the party,” he muttered. “That leaves six days to get back. Should be fine.”

  “Is that how you plan?” a familiar dry voice asked.

  Villen leaned in the shadow of the second wagon. He had watched without interrupting. Now he stepped closer, eyes half lidded in a way that meant he saw far more than he said.

  “Eight days is not much,” Villen said. “How do you intend to cross that distance in time.”

  James shrugged. “Same way I got here. Service Door.”

  Villen moved faster than James thought someone that relaxed could move. A palm landed on the back of his head with a sharp smack. Pain flared, more insult than injury.

  “Hey,” James said, hand flying to the spot. “What was that for.”

  “For that idea.” Villen’s tone stayed calm, almost bored. “Last time you came through that Door, you collapsed. If we had not been close, you would have died on the floor of Ruune’s office.”

  “That is a bit dramatic,” James said. “I only blacked out for a second.”

  “You stopped breathing,” Villen said. “Your heart did not stop only because it struggled out of habit. Your mana pool fell into negative values. The Door eats fuel. You had none. You want to try that again without someone here to drag you back.”

  James opened his mouth. Closed it. Thought about doubling over on Ruune’s floor, stomach emptying itself while the world narrowed to a pinprick, and about how everything after that was a blank other people had to describe to him.

  “So you are telling me,” he said slowly, “that I need to go all the way back to Min City the normal way.”

  “No.” Villen shook his head once. “I am telling you that if you use that skill again with your mana in its current state, you will die. If you want to survive, you raise your mana first. Or you find a way to keep the Door from chewing through you.”

  James swallowed. “Villen,” he said, “this is not easy to ask, but can you take me back. Please. I know it is rude, I know I have no right, but I need to be in Min City in eight days.”

  Someone cleared a delicate throat. The sound came from the side, light, pointed. James turned.

  Rennalinda stood not far from the wagon. The breeze had shifted a lock of hair across her cheek. She did not push it aside. Her gaze rested on the valley below as if none of them mattered much.

  James looked at her. Looked back at Villen. “Villen, I know how this sounds,” he said. “I hate asking, but it is important.”

  Rennalinda cleared her throat again. The sound stayed quiet. Slightly sharper.

  James glanced at her a second time. She did not meet his eyes. He looked back at Villen, who suddenly seemed deeply interested in a spot above James’s head.

  “So that is a no,” James said. “All right. If I start running right now and never stop, maybe I reach Min City in eight days. If I do not sleep or eat or fall on my face.”

  The third throat clear cut through his muttering.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Villen is not leaving,” Rennalinda said. This time she did look at James. “I cannot spare him.”

  James’s shoulders sagged. He tried to picture the road back. Tried to picture doing it without wagons, without Service Door, without anyone who could punch a monster in the teeth for him.

  “Right,” he said. “So I am doomed.”

  “You are careless,” Rennalinda said, “not doomed. There is a difference.”

  James blinked. “I am open to that difference including solutions.”

  She considered him for a moment. “If you pay the price,” she said, “I can give you something. An item that will keep your mana from emptying completely when you use that Door. It will not make you wise. It will make you less likely to die.”

  James straightened. “What kind of item.”

  “A ring,” Rennalinda said. “It binds to your mana. When you put it on, your pool will feel twice as deep. Any spell you cast will draw only about half of what it takes from you now. It will not make you wise. It will only give you more room to be foolish without dying.”

  James tried to imagine that much space inside his chest. “So if I wear it, the Door stops trying to kill me.”

  “Not completely,” Rennalinda said. “The Door will always take what it is owed. The ring feeds you while it can. If you push past what even that can cover, you still die.”

  Villen’s eyes narrowed. “You simply have a ring like that lying around.”

  “I have items from cities that no longer exist,” Rennalinda said. “We are not discussing that now.”

  James did not care where it came from. His thoughts sat eight days ahead of him, in a noble’s house full of expectations and a girl who had asked him, very seriously, for food that could silence a room.

  “I will take it,” he said. “Name your price. I will pay it.”

  Rennalinda studied him. Her gaze did not soften. “Teach Maestcarěm,” she said. “Teach him and his kitchen how to make that strange rice and fish you served us. Sushi, you called it.”

  James blinked. “That is all.”

  “It is not a small request.” Her tone did not change. “You will teach him while Nyindnir works on your wagons. Only Nyindnir. Once he finishes, your time is up. If Maestcarěm cannot reproduce your dishes by then, our bargain dies. So might you.”

  Nyindnir gave a low whistle. “No pressure.”

  James did not let himself think for long. “I accept,” he said. “I will teach them. I will cram years of bad habits into two days if I have to.”

  Villen’s mouth curved. “In that case,” he said, “you should start now.”

  James looked at the wagons one more time. “You will take care of them.”

  Nyindnir stepped forward and clapped a hand on the nearest wheel. “I will treat them like grandchildren,” he said. “Stubborn, loud grandchildren that need better shoes. I will add proper springs, carve housings for your pots, build a tank that keeps water from sloshing out. I will run pipes beneath the floor so your heat goes where you need it. When I give them back, they will glide.”

  “Try not to make them explode,” James said.

  Nyindnir laughed again. “If something explodes, I will blame your human technology.”

  He held out a hand. James hesitated only a heartbeat before placing a small brass key in his palm.

  “You will need this for the locks,” James said. “They are a little strange.”

  Nyindnir rolled the key between his fingers. “I like strange.”

  Rennalinda turned to one of the guards. “Send runners to clear space in the lower yard,” she said. “Nyindnir will need room.”

  The guard bowed and ran. Nyindnir followed at an easy pace, already talking to himself about weight distribution.

  Villen gestured toward the gate. “The kitchen waits.”

  James’s stomach clenched. He was not sure if it was from nerves or the smell of seaweed still stuck in his memory. He gave the wagons a last look and walked beside Villen back through the archway.

  The dungeon city wrapped around them again. Stone underfoot, carved walls on either side, banners that shifted in the thin air. People glanced at them and looked away quickly. The queen with her uncle and her strange human guest, not a procession anyone wanted to stand in front of.

  James’s thoughts ran ahead of his feet. Two days. A kitchen that already hated him. A head chef who had watched him lose in front of the Queen. He had volunteered for this.

  “You are quiet,” Villen said.

  “Just planning,” James said. “I need enough fish, good rice, vinegar, sugar, salt. A flat surface for rolling.”

  “Those you will have.”

  “And I need Maestcarěm to stop trying to kill me with his eyes,” James said.

  Villen’s mouth twitched. “That may take longer.”

  They stepped into the heat and noise of the palace kitchen.

  It hit like a wall. Ovens glowed. Steam rolled up from covered pots. Voices layered at different pitches, orders and answers and the sharp sting of someone dropping a pan. The air carried stock, smoke, herbs, the faint metallic note of fresh cut meat.

  At the center of it stood Maestcarěm. He did not shout. He did not flail. He stood at his station with spine straight and hands precise, and the rest of the room bent around him. A boy brought him a tray of prepared vegetables. Maestcarěm glanced once, sent half back with a slight tilt of his head. The boy went pale and rushed to correct whatever sin he had committed.

  Rennalinda let the room see her, then spoke in a voice that did not need to rise.

  “Maestcarěm,” she said. “This human will teach you and your staff a new dish. I want it fit for my table before he leaves.”

  When Maestcarěm finally looked up and saw them, the motion of his hand stopped. The knife rested on the board. His eyes slid from Rennalinda, to Villen, to James.

  “No,” he said.

  The word came out flat and cold.

  “I am not doing anything yet,” James said. “At least let me get in trouble for something first.”

  “I am not learning from you,” Maestcarěm said. “You lost in this kitchen. That is enough.”

  “It was a narrow loss,” James said before he could stop himself.

  Villen’s look said that was not the line he should have picked.

  Rennalinda spoke. “Maestcarěm.”

  He bowed his head a fraction. “My queen.”

  “You will learn from him,” she said. “It is my will.”

  The muscles in Maestcarěm’s jaw tightened once. “As you command,” he said. “I will listen.”

  He did not add anything about wanting to.

  The rest of the staff had gone quiet without anyone telling them to. James felt two dozen eyes on his back. Some stared with curiosity, some with that particular mix of resentment and hope that kitchens always got when someone new walked in and management said the word change.

  James drew a breath.

  “I will not waste your time,” he said. “We have two days. I want to finish in one.”

  One of Maestcarěm’s assistants made a strangled sound.

  “You want to replace my menu in one day,” Maestcarěm said.

  “No,” James said. “I want to add one weapon to your arsenal in one day. You can decide what to do with it after that.”

  Villen folded his arms and leaned against a pillar where he could watch without blocking anyone’s path. Rennalinda stepped to the side, out of the way, but she did not leave. That did not help James’s nerves.

  Maestcarěm stepped closer until the gap between them held only the cutting board.

  “You have two days in my kitchen,” he said. “That is all.”

  “That is enough,” James said.

  He set his hands on the empty section of the counter. The wood felt worn under his palms. Too many years of knives and hot pots had polished it in odd patches.

  “Here is how we will do this,” he said. “First, rice. If you get the rice wrong, everything else falls apart in your hands. After that, knife work. If your cuts are lazy, people taste the mistake before they taste the fish. Only when those are decent will I let anyone roll.”

  A murmur went through the room. Someone at the back snorted quietly.

  Maestcarěm watched James with eyes that could have sliced vegetables without a blade. “You speak as if this is your kitchen.”

  “Right now,” James said, “it is our classroom. You can go back to terrorizing people once I am done.”

  For a heartbeat he thought he had gone too far. Then one of Maestcarěm’s thin brows rose by the slightest measure.

  “Very well,” Maestcarěm said. He turned his head. “You heard him. We start with rice.”

  Assistants scattered. Someone ran for sacks. Someone else cleared the nearest cauldron. Water sloshed, lids clanged, and the kitchen shifted around the new task.

  He glanced once at Rennalinda. She stood off to the side with her arms folded, just watching.

  If I pull this off, he thought, I walk out with wagons that do not rattle themselves apart and a ring that lets me bend space without falling over dead. If I fail, I run to Min City on sore feet and hope the Count likes bread.

  He pushed the thought away as a sack of rice thumped onto the counter in front of him.

  “Good,” he said. “Let us start by washing everyone’s pride out of these grains.”

  Maestcarěm’s eyes narrowed at the word pride. The nearest assistants leaned in, hands ready, waiting to see whether this strange human could back his mouth with skill.

  James picked up the first handful of rice.