She thought about the elderly woman in the bakery, with her simple cakes decorated with such care. She thought about her mother’s diner, where even the chipped plates had been scrubbed clean and the tables always had fresh flowers in old mason jars. That had been presentation too, hadn’t it? Just a different kind.
Maybe the issue wasn’t presentation itself. Maybe it was dishonest presentation. Beauty that promised sothing it couldn’t deliver.
But if the food was good—truly good—then making it beautiful wasn’t lying. It was translation. It was helping people see what was already there.
Marron closed the book and sat in the quiet library, watching dust motes drift through the lamplight. Around her, the city humd and glowed, relentless in its beauty.
She was starting to understand it now. Not to agree with all of it—she still found much of Luria’s food hollow and over-designed. But she was starting to see the value in caring about how things looked. In taking the extra ti. In saying, through presentation: This matters to . I want it to matter to you too.
On the fifth day, Mokko found her in one of the Guild’s courtyard gardens, surrounded by herbs she’d been harvesting for practice.
"You’re working too hard," he said, settling onto a stone bench.
"I’m trying to get better."
"You’re already better. You’re just scared to stop improving because then you’d have to actually compete."
Marron paused, a bunch of rosemary in her hand. "That’s not—" She stopped. "Okay, maybe that’s a little true."
"Final Trials are tomorrow," Mokko said. "And you can’t practice your way into confidence. At so point, you just gotta trust that you know what you’re doing."
"Do I, though?"
"Yeah. You do." He leaned back, looking up at the sky—or what passed for sky in Luria, a do of enchanted glass that mimicked clouds. "You’ve learned what they wanted you to learn. You haven’t forgotten who you are in the process. That’s the hard part. Now you just gotta show them."
Marron sat down beside him, setting the herbs aside. "What if I fail?"
"Then you fail. And you’ll still be a good chef. Just maybe not a Lurian one."
"You make it sound simple."
"It is simple. You’re the one making it complicated." He nudged her shoulder. "Rember when you thought you couldn’t feed those mimics? Rember how scared you were?"
"Yeah."
"And you did it anyway. This is the sa thing. Just with fewer teeth."
Marron laughed despite herself. "Fewer teeth, more judgnt."
"Eh, teeth are worse."
They sat together in comfortable silence, the garden peaceful around them. Lucy had joined them too, her jar propped against a flowerpot, her surface rippling contentedly in the dappled light.
"Thanks, Mokko," Marron said after a while.
"For what?"
"For sticking around. For... believing I could do this when I didn’t."
He shrugged, but she could see the pleasure in his face. "That’s what friends do."
Friends. The word settled warm in her chest. She’d been so focused on surviving, on not getting attached, that she’d forgotten what it felt like to have people in her corner. People who cared whether she succeeded or failed, not because of what she could do for them, but just because they liked her.
"Yeah," she said softly. "I guess it is."
That night—her last before the Final Trials—Marron didn’t practice. She didn’t sketch. She didn’t read technique manuals or plan elaborate dishes.
Instead, she went back to that small bakery in the quiet district, the one with the elderly woman who made simple cakes.
The woman recognized her. "Back again? You liked the lemon cake?"
"I did. I was wondering... could I watch you work for a while? If that’s not weird."
The woman smiled. "Not weird at all. Co on back."
Marron spent the evening in the bakery’s kitchen, which was nothing like the Guild’s gleaming facilities. The ovens were old, the counters scarred with use, the tools worn but well-maintained. And yet the woman moved through the space with absolute confidence, piping frosting and arranging flowers with the ease of long practice.
"You’re a professional," the woman said after a while. "I can tell by how you watch."
"I’m trying to be. Learning, anyway."
"What are you learning?"
Marron thought about it. "That caring about sothing doesn’t make you weak. That beauty can be honest. That good work deserves to be seen."
The woman nodded slowly. "Those are good lessons. Hard ones, but good." She finished a cake—white frosting with delicate pink roses—and set it aside. "You know what the secret is? To all of it?"
"What?"
"Love. Not the romantic kind. Just... love for the work. Love for the people you’re feeding. When you make sothing with love, people can taste it. They can see it. Everything else is just technique."
Marron felt sothing in her chest crack open—not painfully, but like an old shell finally breaking to let sothing new grow through.
"I think I’m rembering that," she said quietly. "How to love the work again."
"Then you’ll do just fine tomorrow."
Marron walked back to the Guild dormitory as the city shifted into its nightti colors—deep blues and purples, neon accents like stars. The streets were still busy, still performing, but she felt separate from it now. Peaceful.
In her room, she laid out her knives and checked her uniform. She didn’t sketch or plan. She just sat by the window and let herself feel ready.
Mokko was already snoring in his corner. Lucy’s jar glowed faintly with bioluminescence, her own form of contentnt.
Tomorrow would be the Final Trials. Tomorrow she would cook for the judges one last ti, and they would decide if she was Guild material.
But tonight, Marron Louvel felt sothing she hadn’t felt in years: she felt like a chef again. Not just soone who cooked for money or survival. But soone who cared about the work. Soone who wanted to make beautiful, honest food that ant sothing.
And whatever happened tomorrow, that was enough.
She smiled at her reflection in the dark window—at this new version of herself she was becoming. Or maybe it wasn’t new at all. Maybe it was just the old version, the one who’d loved cooking before life had taught her not to.
Either way, she was ready.
"Okay, Luria," she whispered to the glowing city. "Let’s see what you’ve got."
Outside, the Guild banners shimred with tomorrow’s promise: "Final Trials: Dawn."
Inside, Marron Louvel finally, peacefully, slept.
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