A Cup of Cocoa and Chaos (A King Midas Retelling #9)

Chapter 1

In the classroom kitchen of the Royal Academy of Flouriers, the wee hours before dawn belonged to the desperate.

And Matthias was, indeed, desperate.

Not because his panade was at its most critical stage.

He'd boiled the butter and water and salt together, then dumped in his pre-sifted flour.

Now he beat the thick, gooey mixture over the low flame of the cast iron stove, waiting for the dough to turn into a paste that would pull cleanly off the sides of his copper pot.

That, he trusted himself to manage.

No. Tomorrow, the first-year students from the Royal Academy of Flouriers would present their finest work to King Leon of Lamera himself. After which, three Codex Masters would award them the rank of Codex Apprentice.

Nor was Matthias desperate about that. He had been baking for as long as he could walk, learning at his parents' side in the small bakery they ran in the neighboring kingdom of Kanask.

No. Matthias needed to become a Master Flourier himself.

Only a Master could own a bakery, and neither of his parents had ever earned that title.

They had spent their lives toiling over an oven, making breads and pastries that fed their entire town, while owing half their earnings to a stranger with a title only the rich could afford.

And Matthias was not rich. He was not proud of what he had done to earn his first year at the Academy, and he had no way to pay for a second.

Tomorrow, King Leon would also choose one of the newly named Codex Apprentices to live at the palace and work directly under the Royal Flourier—as an actual apprentice, not just a student.

It was a direct path to earning the title of Master, that did not involve payIng for three more years at the Academy.

That was why Matthias was desperate.

Still stirring his pot of panade, he counted thirty circular beats of his wooden spoon. And, like clockwork, the dough came together, clumping around the spoon and leaving only a pale film on the wall of the pot. Codex perfect.

He inhaled with pride. Of course it had.

The flour had reacted precisely as he'd intended because he had taken every precaution to make it so.

He had prepped the fire to burn evenly. Tested the temperature of the pot until it was perfect.

Used the freshest ground wheat in the kitchen.

Weighed every ingredient on the small scale at the edge of the counter.

Every step studied, tested, perfected, then written down in his journal. His own codex.

He lifted the pot from the stove and set it on a cooling stone on the counter, stirring lightly to keep the dough active while he waited for the steam to slow. The eggs went in next, and they would cook if he whisked them in too soon.

A slightly sweet smell of scorched flour had begun to fill the air. Matthias glanced to his right. The scent was not coming from his own pot.

"Your choux is flawless," Devrin said, beating his own dough with a wooden spoon at the counter beside him. "I don't see why you bother to get up so early to make it over and over." His voice fell.

"Flawless isn't good enough if I don't want to be heading home next week," Matthias said. He did want to go home—just not until he was a Master. He cracked the first egg into a small bowl, whisking it lightly with a fork to break the yolk before plopping it into the copper pot.

Picking up the wooden spoon, he beat the egg thoroughly into the dough before cracking in the next three eggs, one at a time.

Slowly the pasty dough took on a glossy sheen. The liquid of the eggs had softened it until it dripped off the spoon in thick ribbons that held their shape when they landed back in the pot.

Matthias counted the seconds it took the ribbon to meld back into the dough. Six seconds. Codex perfect.

"The Academy would be foolish to let you leave," Devrin said, still banging his spoon inside the copper pot where his overcooked dough would never properly form.

"The Academy requires tuition," Matthias replied.

Devrin turned to face him fully, finally abandoning his ruined choux. "Apprentice to the Royal Flourier? Surely you'll get it."

"Apprentice, then Master," Matthias replied. He spooned his warm dough into a thick linen pastry bag. "I'll help you with the next batch as soon as this is in the oven."

"No need," Devrin said, "I have to learn this myself somehow."

Matthias nodded, keeping his attention on the pastry bag as he piped the choux into a tight, continuous ring on a large baking tray.

Twelve inches across, double thick, so the walls could hold their own weight once they puffed in the heat.

He scored it, piped a second ring, and slid the tray into the oven, latching the door against the cold of the room.

"The king is delighted by everything," Devrin said, "as long as it celebrates the golden history of Lamera and tastes delicious. The only person you truly have to worry about tomorrow is her."

Matthias set a fresh pot of milk over the stove to scald. "But the king is the one who chooses the apprentice."

"Well, yes." Devrin conceded it over his crossed arms. "He'll point at whatever pleases his appetite the most, and everyone will agree with him. But, the king isn't the one who makes a Master."

Matthias watched for the first bubbles at the edge of the pot. "No. It's the Royal Flourier who'll put my name in the codex."

Devrin grimaced. "A small oversight you might have considered before you forged—"

"I get it," Matthias said, cutting him off before the word could land. "Renaud makes the Masters."

"I wasn't done." Devrin held up a hand. "Renaud is an honest man. He doesn't rely on his own judgment alone. He always, always listens to her."

"The daughter." Matthias had never met the famed daughter of the Royal Flourier, but every student at the Academy spoke of her—in whispers and in jabs.

Devrin carried his own pot to the waste bin.

"Every name in the back of that book, at least in recent years, was chosen by her tongue.

" He began to scrape it out. "So please the king, if you like.

But if you want to become a Master, there is only one person in Lamera you have to please.

A girl who, by every account, would sooner starve than swallow a bite of anything less than perfect. "

The milk danced toward a boil. Matthias pulled it from the flame before it could climb the sides of the pot. "Surely that can't be true. How can she judge the food if she never takes a bite?"

Devrin shrugged. "She ended Perrin's whole year last spring just by pinching his crust. Called it pasty, and walked on. He's apprenticed to a cheesemonger now. His parents wouldn't pay for him to repeat the first year here again."

Matthias nodded, understanding that predicament all too well. He poured the scalded milk into a clean bowl that held a mixture of egg yolk and sugar. "But tomorrow, all I have to worry about is the king," he said. "He's the one who chooses the apprentice."

"He is." Devrin set down his spoon. "And the morning after? And every morning after that?"

Matthias looked up.

"Say the king points his finger at you. Say you win.

" Devrin spread his hands. "Then you spend the next year in Renaud's kitchen, under the only man whose pen can write your name into the codex—the man who lifts that pen for no palate but his daughter's.

The king is a single afternoon, Matthias. She is every day that comes after it."

Matthias whisked the warm crème slowly into the pot. He had been thinking only as far as tomorrow. "Then I shouldn't wait for the door," he said.

"Wait for what?"

"To start on her." He set the pot over a low flame and stirred. "Every student in that hall tomorrow will be baking for the king. The buttery, golden, sweet delicious foods he is expecting. That is the easy part, like you said.” He shook his head. "Not one of them will bake a single thing for her."

"You still don’t get it. Everyone is baking for her, but no one can please her,” Devrin said.

"Maybe it’s because they are doing it wrong.

" The crème began to thicken against the spoon, slow at first, then all at once. Matthias drew the spoon through it and watched the trail hold its shape a moment before closing. Thick enough. "They all keep making the same thing. It makes sense that she doesn’t want to eat it, she’s had it all before.

" Matthias looked over at his friend, a new excitement picking at his brain.

Devrin went very still. "You wouldn't."

Matthias was already thinking of the small dark beans wrapped at the bottom of his trunk. He only had a few left.

"Cocoa." Devrin said the word as though it might curdle on the way out. "You mean to set cocoa in front of King Leon of Lamera himself. It isn't gold. It isn't sweet. It is nowhere in the codex."

"The king won't touch it. The king will have his crowns—gold and sweet and perfect, everything he came for." Matthias lifted the pot from the heat. "The cocoa isn't for the king."

He did not have to finish the thought. Devrin looked at him for a long moment, then raised both hands in surrender.

"Best of luck to you, then," he said. "Truly."