Every swing of the door, every clank of the pan, every roar of the flame, and every barked order in the kitchen made Julienne jump. After a jerky early dinner service, he had his biggest jump of all when Mindy grabbed his forearm across the counter.

"The next half hour should be pretty slow. Why don't you go outside and take a breather?"

Julienne could think of no place more terrifying than the dark balcony that hung over the pond. Labruscella kept only a smattering of lights going to set the mood for diners. Someone wouldn't need to be invisible to sneak up on him.

He forced himself to drop his shoulders and rolled his neck around. "I'm okay."

Yarrow tapped his fingertips on the counter. "Three minutes on the steaks, then I'm free. What do you want me on next?"

Across the kitchen, one of Uncle Julienne's Chefs set a pan down hard enough to make Julienne jump but soft enough for no one else to even notice the noise. Julienne rubbed his neck. "Um, what else do we have?"

"I could get started on the choux dough. Mindy, is the pastry cream ready?"

"It needs to chill for another half hour or so."

Yarrow looked at Julienne. "That'd be good timing, right?"

Julienne realized just how pitiful he must have looked with the way Yarrow was setting him up to give orders. But self pity did his clarity of mind no good. "I, uh, what are we making again?"

"Eclairs," Yarrow answered.

Julienne rubbed the tense cable of muscle in his neck. "When did we decide on eclairs?"

Mindy cleared her throat. "Lady Ghivetch and her gaggle will be here for the late night service."

"Oh. Right. And they love their eclairs."

"One of the first things that got us on the menu." Mindy's smile took the edge off of Julienne's nerves.

"Right. Okay. Yes. I'll take over on the steaks, you get started on that dough."

"I can finish the steaks. It's fine."

"No, I want to keep busy. Don't want to lose my momentum."

Yarrow ran off to get ingredients while Julienne took over the stove. He tapped one of the steaks with a fork and assessed its essence. Perfect. And of course it was. Julienne tried to remember if Yarrow had made even a single mistake since they returned from Labrusca. He certainly hadn't stopped improving even without Head Chef Orzo's tutelage.

"So, Julienne." Mind brushed back a strand of blonde hair. "Got any plans for Winter's Blossom tomorrow?"

Head Chef Orzo. Insulated by the respect and admiration of the Labruscans, he still taught at Lyceum Labrusca, same as always. Nothing had been found that could have sufficiently implicated him in the incident in the Charmant Valley. But there was the vanilla mixture. And a feeling that Julienne couldn't shake. Had Neccio truly acted alone?

"Julienne?"

Julienne jumped. "Huh? Oh, I, uh…I…maybe."

A light snow danced in the breeze, never falling, just swirling around above the words of the priests and congregations that dotted Ambrosia City. The cold had done little to diminish the crowds of Winter's Blossom. Many of the students celebrated the cold and the opportunity to get cozy by a fire. But Julienne did not join them, and for as cold as it was outside, he sweated profusely beneath his layers as he walked through the royal keep.

"Alright," the guard said as he tapped a line on his ledger. He snapped for another guard. "These two down to the ninth."

The other guard leaned on his spear and sighed. "Shit."

"Just him," Uncle Julienne said while nodding at his nephew.

The chill of fear hit Julienne's sweat-soaked clothes. "What? You're not coming?"

"He doesn't talk when I'm around." Uncle Julienne scratched the side of his face with a single finger and stared at the ground. "Besides, the more I see him like this, the harder it is for me to remember how he was. You'll be fine. They'll escort you back out, and I have a couple of guards waiting outside the keep."

"Alright," the guard said. "Let's get on with it."

Uncle Julienne patted Julienne on the shoulder. "You'll be okay. Remember, we have morning service tomorrow."

"And I'm on egg duty."

Uncle Julienne nodded and looked Julienne up and down with a concerned frown. "You'll be okay."

The guard led Julienne to a locked gate that opened to an old elevator with a crank wheel. He set his spear down against the wire metal wall. Julienne looked up at the thick ropes that had been tied to the top of the cage.

"At the Academy, we have one that runs on noodles."

The guard shook his head. His lips were pursed as tightly as his knuckles that squeezed the crank wheel. They went down in rough spurts, two feet at a time. "Can't use essence here. Someone should have told you that."

"I know." Julienne studied the man's clothing. Wrinkly waves stuck out from beneath a leather exterior. Chainmail. "So you're not an Acorn Guard?"

"If you mean to ask whether or not I'm a Chef, I'm not. Chefs aren't allowed to work the cells. Someone told you about the doddergere, right?"

"Yeah. I get it. No essence."

They passed the first floor of the dungeon. The stone bricks between the first and second floors were slightly askew. The bricks between the second and third were worse.

"You ever been around doddergere?"

"No."

"You can't let your essence flare up. Not even for a second."

"They told me."

"Well, I'm not standing near you just in case."

The fourth and fifth floor passed by in jerky clanks. Julienne shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Have you ever seen it attack someone?"

The guard took a second to catch his breath. "Don't let your essence flare up."

The sixth and seventh passed. Julienne looked at the shortsword in the guard's scabbard. "A spear and a sword?"

"Spear is only good for poking through bars. No idiot would fight indoors with a spear. That's what the sword is for."

"Why would you need to fight? Do people escape often?"

"Never from this far down."

Thy reached the eighth. Each floor was darker than the last, and Julienne spotted a wiry growth that wormed its way along the corners of the ceiling. "So you know which cell it is?"

The guard chuckled. "Full of questions." He swallowed hard and took a breather before the final plunge. "Do you want to go back up?"

Julienne breathed in the dank, cold dungeon air. He could. Uncle Julienne wouldn't judge him. But then nothing would be solved. "No."

"We don't keep many this far down. It won't be hard to figure out." The elevator settled to a stop with one final clank. "End of the line."

Julienne stepped into the dungeon as the guard locked up the elevator. Another guard sat behind a desk facing the forked hallway. Julienne's eyes struggled to adjust to the dim dancing orange flames of the sconces. They must have burned unaltered whale oil to avoid triggering the doddergere. They burned half as bright as the lanterns Julienne was used to.

"Neccio Allard," the first guard told the second.

"To the left. Mind that you don't get close to the bars. You a Chef?"

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Julienne nodded.

"They told you about the doddergere, right?"

Julienne nodded again.

"If one of the prisoners grabs your arm, better to let them tear it off. Doddergere will do worse. Call out if you need anything."

Julienne looked around. "Where is the doddergere?"

"We keep it clear near the elevator. It'll get worse the farther along you go. Your guy has quite a bit of it. Take a lantern. It doesn't like fire."

"Right." Julienne grabbed the lantern and took a deep breath. "Which way?"

"The left."

"Right. Okay, then."

Julienne walked down the hallway, taking cursory glances at the sparse cells that he passed. A half-starved Kuutsan man watched him, his elbows twice as thick as the rest of his arms. Another man stood facing the corner of his cell. Black vines as thin as thread wove through the bars and stretched across the ceiling. They were always moving, following Julienne like a cloud. Little white buds turned and angled toward him.

Doddergere. A vine that mutated after Ambrosia spread her gift, turning into a plant that fed off of essence. As the tales went, there was a place not too far north of Ambrosia City where it started, and while the people eradicated most of the vine, they also found uses for it. Like keeping dangerous Chefs prisoner. If any of them used their essence, they'd be drained until dead. While Ambrosials bloomed up on the surface, Julienne feared the bloom of the doddergere.

Julienne walked past another cell and did a double take. He had not recognized the man sitting on the threadbare cot at first. He was too thin. Too pale. The bald top of his head turned yellow in the light of the fire. He had as much hair across his face as he did the sides of his head, a mixture of unkempt gray and black. His beard covered his mouth, his bulbous nose sticking out more than ever due to his sunken, starved cheeks. His eyes were cast in shadows, but Julienne saw the glint of recognition.

"Uncle Neccio."

Neccio tried to speak, but only managed a pained wheeze. He cleared his throat and tried again. Where once his voice had contained a melody, now it could only play a single, droning note. "Petit Julienne."

And then Julienne realized he didn't know what to say. He had thought for months that maybe he should talk to his imprisoned uncle, but the idea had been too terrifying to rehearse. He decided to serve his question with no dressing. "Did you try to kill me?"

Neccio chuckled, but it was not the chuckle of old. It did not come from the chest and fill Julienne with belonging. Instead, it barely came from the back of the mouth, thin and airy. He gestured to the walls around him. The cell was larger than Julienne would have guessed, probably long enough for three of Neccio's to lay down in any direction. He even had a little table and a chair. The nearest lantern was on the wall opposite the cell, but a touch of light came in from a fist-sized tunnel that a little dug out trough emptied into. They must have been close to the edge of the mesa. Hay had been scattered around the stone floor, doddergere's thin black tendrils weaving through it, always moving like a sluggish snake. Neccio had created a few little figurines out of hay, likely his only company.

"A lovely place, my new home, no?" Neccio faintly smiled. "Your accusation has made it mine. Now you tell me you are unsure?"

Julienne's jaw tensed. He should have never come down here, but he couldn't retreat now. "Answer the question."

"I have. I drank a drink drowned in the syrup of truth, and they asked me the question, and I answered."

"You confessed."

"A confession is a willing thing, no?" Neccio stretched his jaw. Each word came easier than the last. Julienne wondered when he had last had a visitor. "I answered under compulsion."

"Then this is your chance to confess."

Neccio chuckled thinly, coughed, and then managed a more hearty chuckle. "I choose not to."

Julienne took a step forward and remembered the guard's warning about getting too close to the bars. But he needed to step forward. He needed to do anything to defy his fear of this man. "Are you still trying to kill me?"

"Still?"

"There was an assassin. On my birthday. Just this month." Julienne leaned forward to decipher Neccio's expression, which showed perhaps the slightest bit of confusion. But mostly, it was curious.

"Tell me the story."

Julienne breathed heavily through his nose and waited for an answer.

"Please, petit Julienne, I hear nothing of the outside." Neccio gestured to the trough and tunnel. His voice picked up a tune. "The most I interact with the outside is when I flush my shit down or when the air comes up. Shame they both happen through the same tunnel, no?"

Julienne realized he would never get answers without cooperating. Neccio may have been behind bars, but he had all the power. "An assassin came to Labruscella. They killed a couple of Labruscellan guards and a high-profile arena fighter that was doubling as Waldorf's guard."

"Anyone else?"

"No."

"So was the fighter the target?"

"Unlikely. Did you send them?"

"Tch. No. This I tell you willingly."

Julienne hated that he believed him and hated even more that it didn't make him feel any better. "You know your assassins. They think this one could turn invisible. Sound familiar?"

Neccio chuckled. "I do not, and it does not. My guess would be a Kuutsan. Someone who figured out the magic that makes the Kuutsu invisible. What of Second Courses? What has become of my restaurant?"

"Are you still trying to kill me?"

"The fact that you are still standing here makes it obvious that I am not." Neccio adjusted and sat taller in his cot.

"I've been under guard for months."

"No, I don't refer to the time between then and now. I refer only to now. If I wanted you dead, I'd kill you right now."

Julienne took a step back. "But the doddergere."

"Yes, yes, the doddergere." Neccio chuckled and looked at the black vines that rested in the mortar of the stone wall. "That is how I would do it. Have you ever seen them work?"

Julienne shook his head.

"I have. It's not pleasant. Not something you forget. You see, I could do one little flick…" Neccio flicked his finger at Julienne to demonstrate. "...and cover you with essence. I'd be dead first, but you would join me just a moment later. You'd have one second to cover yourself in that flame. Burning to death would be better."

Julienne couldn't stop himself from glancing at the lantern. He clenched his teeth and vowed to show no more weakness. "You wouldn't sacrifice yourself."

"Wouldn't I? Do you think these lavish furnishings are worth living for?" Neccio looked around his cell and smiled. "No, no, I wouldn't. Eight years, that is my term. My dear brother has the weight to extend that, of course, but I think we both know that the grand king will not make it eight years. And when he dies, I believe our grand prince does not have the…stomach…to keep a talented Chef locked away from the kitchen."

Julienne looked back down the hall. The distant guard had abandoned his spear in favor of a second lantern that he set on the ground to keep the doddergere from slithering toward him. Julienne took a deep breath and stepped forward, grabbing the bars of the cell. "Do you still want me killed?"

Neccio frowned. "Second Courses?"

"Shuttered."

"I figured as much. The Chefs?"

"I don't know."

"Could you find out?"

A strand of doddergere wrapped its way down one of the bars toward Julienne's hand. He stepped back. "I don't think I'll be coming back here."

Neccio sighed and stared up at the ceiling. "That is a shame. I do like you, petit Julienne. As much as I would a son if I had one, I imagine. You must understand, that business in the valley was nothing personal. It was…opportunistic. Nothing more."

"So you're confessing?"

"If you'd like."

"I would."

"I was very impressed with your skills this summer. But I fear you are a man of aptitude, not appetite. The new world will require a man of both."

"What does that even mean?"

"I had heard of your behavior and confirmed it. Your mindset regarding Gluttons. Your stubbornness. It will not serve you well when it comes time to serve. That's the thing that all Julienne's share. They think they are the end product. Something more than the final dish. An inconceivable thing that cannot even be consumed. But we are all food. We can all be consumed. Your teammate understands that. The boy. Yarrow. We saw that in him. He'll do well in the new world. We thought maybe we could influence you through him. But it only became clearer that was not the case."

Neccio picked at a scab on his hand. "Brûlée understands it. The thought was that if he was a Julienne, he would open the way for Labruscan culture to survive. He would be our connection to the new administration. An amiable connection. Not like the one you would create."

Julienne scoffed. "So that's it? You'd kill me for a foot in the door?"

Neccio shrugged. "The door will be fast closing for many. A foot is more valuable than you'd think. You'd do well to get yours in the way before it's too late."

"But why me?"

"My relationship with my brother is complicated, but there is no hate there. I wouldn't kill him just to do it. I'm not a monster." Neccio chuckled. "Killing him would not serve our purpose. Which again, our purpose was the impetus. It was nothing personal, petit Julienne. And the moment has passed. You don't need to fear anymore."

"No. All of these things that you're saying, this new world that you're so afraid of. It all hinges on Waldorf. So why not kill him?"

Neccio finally achieved a chuckle of old, a great, heaving shake of his chest and a boom that filled the dungeon and made the guards look up. "I do hope you visit me again, petit Julienne. You have a brilliant mind. It is a shame you are so short-sighted with it."

Julienne clenched his fists and cast aside the thought of conjuring something. But even in that split second of thought, that subconscious draw of energy, the doddergere all around him slithered closer.

Neccio clicked his tongue and the doddergere diverted toward him, growing up the legs of his cot. They stopped before his straw mattress. "Waldorf is a symptom, not a cause. He is an embodiment. If you kill him, the cause will create another symptom."

"Then what is the cause?"

Neccio frowned. "Man. Our nature. Unchecked, it slithers and grows through the cracks of society. Power is accumulated by the undeserving over many years. Men who can only assess an idea by its effect on them, not others. And power begets power and grows on itself until everyone else must make a choice. Obey or suffer the consequences. You must be like them or you may not be able to be at all. Waldorf is the culmination of centuries of man's greed. The power structures that have made him who he is allow him to be who he is. And he profits greatly off of that, but if he were removed, those structures would remain."

Julienne closed his eyes and regained control of his breathing. In. In. In. Out. "Then we should tear down those structures."

Neccio chuckled, this one full of sadness. "To do so would require you to kill the very spirit of greed that inhabits our soul."

Julienne shook his head. The dank air made him queasy. He needed to leave. He needed to be back in the kitchen where his only concern was what to make next. "So am I safe?"

Neccio slid to a half-lying position. "From me, yes. But if you do not change your ways when the new world comes, you'll never be safe for a moment in your life."

Julienne swallowed hard. "Okay, then. Goodbye, uncle."

"How's your stomach?"

"Hurts all the time."

"Hm." Neccio shrank in his cot, his voice growing thin again and his demeanor returning to that of the imprisoned. "I'm sorry to hear that. Goodbye, petit Julienne."

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