Lyra really wished she didn't know so much about Madame Dacquoise.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option when you were friends with Caramelle.

The young Texturist didn't talk about Madame Dacquoise as much as she name-dropped Master Chiffon, but that was only because Caramelle viewed Madame Dacquoise with a reverence bordering on awe. Still, Lyra had heard enough during first term in Pestle to form a fairly complete picture of Madame Dacquoise in her imagination.

And the picture was terrifying.

The daughter of a baker and a mathematics professor, Madame Dacquoise had viewed Texture as one giant equation. She structured her spells accordingly. For one thing, there were no 'magic words.' It was the equations themselves that were recited mentally by the baker. Most of the prep work was devoted to determining the ideal order for those equations to be recited.

And that wasn't even the most striking difference. While all other Texture magic was organized according to recipe categories, Dacquoise spells were sorted by individual ingredients.

Lyra vividly remembered her reaction the first time Caramelle explained this to her.

"Every ingredient?" she had repeated, certain she was hearing wrong. "So, for every recipe, you'd have to —"

"Do different equations for everything," Caramelle had explained, glowing with enthusiasm. "Brown sugar, white sugar, butter — salted or unsalted, that matters — and milk, and eggs, and all the different spices… The amount is a factor too, of course. And at what point in the recipe you incorporate that ingredient. So you can never just copy your 'sugar' equations from one recipe to another. No shortcuts with Madame Dacquoise!"

Now, as Professor Puff's floating chalk outlined the first round of equations on the board, Lyra found herself longing for the 'simple' days of Master Chiffon.

The man wrote one spell for cake, she thought glumly, watching the chalk's writing get smaller and smaller to fit everything onto the board. It's a hard spell, but it works for every cake. This is… madness.

"I know I need not explain the inimitable methods of Madame Dacquoise to royal academy students," Professor Puff was saying. "Not in the third term. This year, you have the unique advantage of having already witnessed Dacquoise's work in action. Aspiring Baker Meringue employed the Superior Sponge Spell for her second term final."

Caramelle kept her head high, but Lyra noted a slight slumping in her shoulders. "Not very well," Caramelle whispered.

Professor Puff shook her head. "I had no complaints with your technical execution of the spell. It lacked only a certain… spirit, shall we say. But you need not fear," she went on, turning to the rest of the class. "We will not be attempting anything so advanced for many weeks yet. For today, we shall seek to master the basics using a simple spell with only three ingredients: butter, flour, and sugar."

Mac's hand flew into the air. "Shortbread?"

"Correct, Aspiring Baker Fondant." Professor Puff smiled graciously at the students. "Our old friend shortbread. Let us begin with butter, shall we?"

The rest of the morning was a blur to Lyra. She couldn't remember ever focusing so hard for so long in her entire life.

First, Professor Puff took them through the equations for Madame Dacquoise's 'butter' spell. She spent several minutes factoring in the amount of unsalted butter required for a single batch of shortbread, then a double batch, and even a triple. Finally, she applied the equations to the spell and silently demonstrated its successful execution.

"As you can see, the magic manifests differently than other Texture spells. The blue light is so pale as to be nearly translucent." Professor Puff held up the bowl, displaying the faint shimmer still rippling over the butter. "That is the true genius of Madame Dacquoise. Once all the ingredients are combined, the various hues will layer on top of one another, resulting in a shade of blue more vibrant than you have ever seen in this classroom."

Setting down the bowl, she swept her keen eyes over the students.

"Now, who can tell me how this might compound the difficulty of a Dacquoise spell? Aspiring Baker Meringue?"

Caramelle answered immediately. "If you make a mistake, it's almost impossible to notice until it's too late."

"Exactly," Professor Puff confirmed. "With all other Texture spells, you can adjust in-process to achieve the required shade of blue. But with Madame Dacquoise, only once all the ingredients have been enchanted and combined can you discern success or failure. And with the latter…"

"You have to just start all over again," Boysen said slowly. "Because all the ingredients are mixed together. Even if you could tell which one was 'off', you couldn't just take that one out and replace it."

Professor Puff nodded in approval. "Well said, Aspiring Baker Berry."

Raising her hand, she gave a single wave. The board was instantly wiped clean. All the equations the professor had worked out for 'butter' vanished.

"Now it is your turn to try," she told the startled first-years. "Once you have all completed the spell for 'butter', single batch, we will move on to sugar."

The next half-hour was among the most grueling experiences Lyra had faced at the academy thus far. She covered several pages of parchment with notes and scribbled equations. Her first attempt at performing the spell herself produced no light at all, let alone a Dacquoise-esque translucent shimmer.

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Focus, Lyra told herself sternly. If you can't do it right, she won't let you set it to music.

And Madame Dacquoise's spells were MEANT to be sung. Lyra could feel it in her bones. Even the numbers in the equations seemed to be calling out to her, begging her to unleash the tune locked just beneath their surface.

Music was mostly math, after all.

Smiling to herself, Lyra told the numbers to wait just a little longer. Then she shook her head, lifted her hands, and began silently reciting the equation for 'butter', taking care to adjust the order based on her failed first attempt.

Butter: one cup. 16 tablespoons. 227 grams. At room temperature: 70 degrees. 227 divided by 70 is 3.243. Oven preheated to 300 degrees. 300 minus 70 is 230. 227 divided by 230 is 0.987. 3.243 minus 0.987 is…

It took her three more attempts to get the order right. But just as Professor Puff's calm voice reclaimed the class's attention, Lyra was rewarded by a faint, almost clear shimmer sliding from her fingers and into the bowl.

"Well done, all of you." Professor Puff gave them all a faint, rare smile. "We at least have something to work with. Moving on to white sugar, then."

Flour followed white sugar, then the all-important mixing, and finally the baking and taste-testing. By the time she dismissed them for lunch, all four of the first-years were glassy-eyed with exhaustion.

But they had done it. Every single one of them had managed to perform Madame Dacquoise's spells over butter, white sugar, and flour. Only Caramelle's final shortbread dough was anywhere close to the right shade of blue, but Professor Puff seemed pleased all the same.

"No student I have ever taught achieves more than a watered-down hue on the first day," the Texture headmistress assured them all. "Not without prior experience in Madame Dacquoise's methods."

Again, her eyes landed on Lyra. "I do look forward to this afternoon. It promises to be most… intriguing."

Conversation at the lunch table was almost nonexistent. Everyone was conserving their energy for the afternoon's ordeal. Even Caramelle, who found as much cozy joy in complicated Texture spells as most people drew from a cup of hot chocolate, was quiet.

Yet it was a peaceful quiet. Lyra kept expecting to feel anxious, but the closest she got was a hint of excitement amidst the haze of weariness.

She was about to get the chance to sing a Texture spell. In class.

That was something to look forward to, no matter what happened afterwards.

Professor Puff wasted no time when they returned from lunch. Before they could settle iton their seats, she beckoned them all to join her on the front platform.

"Normally, we would move right on to practicing Madame Dacquoise's spells for a double batch of shortbread," she said as they gathered around her work-station. "But we have an experiment to perform. Therefore, we shall do another round of the single-batch spell, with the additional variable of 'singing.' Aspiring Baker Treble, have you had a chance to devise some musical accompaniment? Even just a line, to get us started?"

Lyra nodded. "I have, Professor. I think I have music for the whole spell, actually."

"The whole spell?" Professor Puff raised a single eyebrow. "Butter, sugar, and flour?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Well, then." Professor Puff handed Lyra a bowl of butter. "Carry on, Aspiring Baker Treble."

Lyra raised her hands over the bowl. Fixing her eyes on the butter, she opened her mouth… and let the song come out.

That was the best way to describe it. She wasn't inventing, or composing, or forcing anything to happen. In fact, it had taken a great deal of effort to hold the music in through the morning's practice sessions. Letting the numbers express their own inner music felt like a release.

The effect wasn't instant. Lyra still had to make it all the way through the spell before anything happened. But something did happen. Just as the intricate, complicated melody line drew to its natural conclusion, streams of faint blue light erupted from Lyra's fingers and covered the butter with semi-translucent radiance.

Lyra was delighted. She had known it would work, of course, but she'd been prepared to make a few attempts before achieving the desired result.

If Lyra was surprised, Professor Puff was downright gobsmacked.

"That… is… extraordinary," the Texture headmistress murmured. Her gray eyes stared at the pale blue glow, utterly transfixed. "And on the first try…"

Without looking away from the butter, she grabbed the nearby bowl of white sugar and thrust it into Lyra's hands.

"Please do proceed, Aspiring Baker Treble."

So Lyra did. The spells for white sugar and flour proved slightly trickier than butter. The equations themselves were more complex, even breaking down individual grains of sugar and flour into exponentially compounding numbers. Even so, Lyra's 'white sugar' song produced a satisfactory blue shimmer on the third attempt, and 'flour' on only the second.

Professor Puff herself mixed the ingredients, folding carefully so as not to disturb the lingering magic. Lyra even thought the professor was holding her breath.

When the three layers of pale light combined to form a warm, royal blue shimmer, Professor Puff stepped back with a quiet sigh.

"Extraordinary," she said again, so softly that she might have been talking to herself. "Not a conclusive result, of course. More experimentation is certainly needed. But for a first foray…" Professor Puff looked up at Lyra. "Auspicious. A most auspicious beginning, Aspiring Baker Treble."

"Thank you, Professor." Lyra felt like she was glowing, as if the blue magic still tingling in her fingertips had spread to the rest of her skin.

"What about the rest of you?" Professor Puff looked at the other first-years. "Have you tried Treble's Texture music in the past?"

Caramelle flushed, as if remembering every awful thing she had ever said to Lyra on the subject. "Not for a while, I'm afraid."

"Of course. You wouldn't need it, Meringue," Professor Puff said kindly.

Mac raised his hand. "I — I used some of her songs first term," he stammered. "Not in class, but just to study. The tunes helped me learn the spells."

"Same here," Boysen affirmed. "Her Presentation stuff was always more helpful, for me at least. But Texture came in handy a few times too."

Professor Puff looked around at each of them thoughtfully. "Yes… yes, that makes sense…"

Suddenly, she gave a sharp nod, snapping back into full Puff efficiency.

"The experiment has only just begun. Next, we must ascertain how, if at all, this method works for a baker who does not possess Treble's particular musical abilities. Aspiring Baker Fondant can go first."

"Me?" Mac stammered.

"You, Fondant." Pulling a parchment and pen from her apron pocket, the professor began making rapid notes. "You must all try singing the songs. One at a time, I think, to ensure accurate data. Treble, would you care to run us all through that 'butter' tune once more? Then Fondant can begin our individual trials."

Lyra glanced around at her classmates. Boysen grinned back at her, obviously ecstatic. Caramelle's face was a perfectly precise mixture of nerves and excitement, in exactly equal amounts.

Mac just looked terrified. But when Lyra caught his eye and smiled, he swallowed hard and gave her a tiny nod.

We can do this, she thought as hard as she could, trying to send the message to him through the silent air. It's just baking.

And music.

Professor Puff looked up from her parchment, pen poised for more action. "Whenever you are ready, Treble."

Lyra took a deep breath.

"All right. Repeat after me…"

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