The Royal Academy board meetings were always held in the exam hall. Extra stools were brought in and gathered in a tight circle around two of the workstations. The twelve board members could see and hear each other clearly, and if any actual baking needed to occur, the space and tools were readily available.

Lyra didn't understand this arrangement. She could think of several other rooms on campus that would be more comfortable for a group discussion among twelve people. When she tried to voice these reasonable thoughts, though, Caramelle hushed her.

"It's tradition," the auburn-haired girl hissed in Lyra's ear, giving Rye an encouraging wave across the dining hall. "Board meetings have always been held in the exam hall."

Lyra gave her own wave as Rye rose from the third-year table and strode resolutely towards the door. "Isn't that exactly what we're fighting against this year? Just because things have 'always been done' a certain way doesn't make that way the best. Or even sensible."

"There's something special about the exam hall." Caramelle primly speared a strawberry on her fork and waved it in Lyra's face for emphasis. "Not all traditions are bad, you know."

Ginger smiled over her scrambled eggs. "She's got a point, Lyra. You already want to add an entire new baking discipline and change the world forever, so… maybe just let them have this one?"

The second-years (plus Ginger) had all determinedly gathered for breakfast, though no one was eating. The prospect of the board meeting about to begin any minute had effectively ruined five historically hearty appetites. Thanks to some mysterious spell of Bumble's, the food was all still at the appropriate temperature, but it was no use. Neither the gleaming, steaming plates of scrambled eggs, nor the warm, fragrant toast, nor the cold, fresh piles of berries had roused the students from their anxious lethargy.

Lyra doubted even Chef Flax's famous cinnamon rolls could tempt her now.

"Are you sure we can't just… hang around the exam hall?" she asked for the seventh time that morning. "Give Rye some moral support? Be there to meet him as soon as he comes out?"

Caramelle shook her head emphatically. "That would appear too much like desperation."

"Sounds about right," Lyra mumbled.

"And we have far too much homework to do," Caramelle went on, ignoring her. "We cannot give them any proof that Enjoyment is interfering with the traditional curriculum."

Mac looked up hopefully from his exquisitely buttered, yet untouched, array of toast slices. "At least we get to work on puff pastry all day. Doesn't sound so bad."

"That's the spirit!" Boysen deliberately picked up a piece of bacon, folded it in half, and stuffed it in his mouth. "Got to keep our strength up. Fondant inspiration strikes again. Mac gets a Puff Paragon Pin."

Lyra smiled in spite of herself. "A Puff Paragon Pin?"

"Much more prestigious than a Stellar Enchantment Pin," Boysen explained, swallowing the bacon and buttering a piece of toast. "Though Mac has one of those too. We are in the presence of greatness."

Lyra's smile grew. Her face muscles were officially out of her control. "Says the Flavor King, with a Stellar Enchantment Pin of his own."

"This certainly is an accomplished table," Ginger agreed. Getting into the spirit of things, she picked up her fork and began digging into her eggs. "If only Fortescue was here. That fox would bring us some style to accompany all this achievement."

"Fortescue's style isn't any better than Mac's," Caramelle said. "And Mac makes much better pastry."

Mac suddenly became very absorbed in choosing different colors of jam to decorate his toast display. In a bit of a delayed reaction to her own fervent compliments, Caramelle blushed and took a large gulp of tea.

"Fondant does wield the rolling pin with great flair," Boysen agreed solemnly. "Which merits another Puff Paragon Pin. A Puff Pastry Paragon Pin."

He chose a particularly shiny blackberry from the fruit tray and presented it to Mac. "Alas, due to bureaucratic squabbling over the design, the Puff Paragon Pin is on back order. Please accept this token in the meantime."

Mac accepted the blackberry with equal solemnity, placing it in the center of his beautifully arranged plate.

"As the reigning champion of Puff Paragon Pins…" Lyra paused dramatically, keeping her eyes fixed on Mac while spreading blueberry jam on her toast. "Which part of this weekend's homework assignments are you most looking forward to?"

"Hopefully some actual magic," Mac replied. "I still can't believe we went through three whole lab days without seeing any light."

Ginger paused with a steaming bite of scrambled eggs halfway to her mouth. "Seriously? No light from any of you, in any of the disciplines? Not even a few blue sparkles from the Texture Queen over here?"

Caramelle's shoulders sagged. "Professor Puff said it was normal."

"It is," Lyra insisted. She turned to Boysen. "Right? Puff pastry is next-level difficult."

Boysen nodded, speaking around yet another mouthful of bacon. "Absolutely. Professor Honeycomb told me Razz didn't see any green light until the end of the second week, when he was tackling puff pastry."

Stolen novel; please report.

Ginger whistled. "Sounds like all of you have a fun term ahead. As I say every time I come here… better you than me."

With a smug smile for each of them, she shoved the forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth and began chewing happily.

"Haven't you tried the puff pastry spells, Ginger?" Mac asked.

"Salts, no." She reached across the table to grab one of the many jam jars Mac had collected around his plate. "And I don't intend to. Not my preferred seasoning at all, thank you."

"But your parents own a pastry shop." Caramelle sounded utterly bewildered. "How can you expect to run that someday if you can't make puff pastry?"

"Easy. I won't be running the pastry shop." Ginger slathered a piece of toast with raspberry jam, took a huge bite, and grinned at Caramelle. "I have other plans."

Caramelle simply stared at her.

"Eat up, Meringue," Ginger urged. "Your eggs are getting cold."

"No they're not. Thanks to Bumble." Lyra swiped the piece of toast from Ginger and held it out of reach. "And this is big news! Since when are you not training to take over the pastry shop?"

"Since… I don't know. We've all been thinking it for a while now. My parents and me, I mean. Even before I went to the academy, they knew pastry wasn't my favorite spice in the rack."

Ginger gave up trying to reclaim her toast and stole a slice from Lyra's plate instead. "Then, when I got cut last year, it seemed like a good opportunity to reevaluate. We made a deal. I would train with them for one year. If I still wasn't feeling that special 'pastry pinch' at the end of that year, I could start exploring other options."

"It hasn't been a full year yet," Lyra pointed out, finally returning Ginger's toast and choosing another piece for herself. "Not until the end of this term."

Ginger shrugged. "Close enough. I'll keep training with them for another few months. And I'll probably keep working there for a while. I'll need the income if I want to get my own place."

"Sweet and savory, Crumble," Boysen exclaimed. "I'll have to add another Puff Paragon Pin to the order. Your own place, your own new plans… save some growing-up juice for the rest of us mere mortals, please."

Lyra held up her new piece of toast and took a moment to breathe in, caught out of herself by the delectably tart aroma of Sprinkle's raspberry jam. "And what are these new plans?"

Ginger held up a finger and bit into the toast she had stolen from Lyra. Only after taking her own moment to cherish the 'Sprinkle touch' did she answer.

"Nothing too definite yet. But I know I want it to be like the work I do with Professor Genoise. He's offered to help me apply to some other baking schools."

"Other baking schools?" Caramelle echoed.

"They do exist, you know." Ginger poured herself a fresh cup of tea to accompany her final slice of toast. "And some of them really emphasize experimentation. Genoise thinks I could get some kind of fellowship as a research assistant. Maybe even work in a lab eventually. Updating Flavor spells, exploring new applications for Presentation magic… can you imagine that? Getting to build the future of baking, every day?"

"I'd settle for making it through a single day in the present of baking," Mac said. Picking up two pieces of toast from his plate, he held one listlessly in either hand, as if too weary to decide which type of jam to try first. "Like today. So much homework. So, so much."

"Careful, Fondant," Boysen warned. "I'll have to take back your Puff Pastry Paragon Pin."

"Oh, I'm still glad it's puff pastry homework," Mac added hastily. "Puff pastry is fun. It's just… a lot of fun, for one weekend."

Lyra held her teacup out for Ginger to refill it. "I agree. Remember second term last year, when they let us work as teams? I wish that could be a thing for second-years, too. That was really nice."

"Oh, yes." Ginger's eyes sparkled as she poured the aromatic tea into Lyra's cup. "You and Berry worked together so well, didn't you? Like salt and sugar."

She turned to Boysen, her face the picture of innocence. "It's like you were made to be partners."

Boysen choked on his sixth piece of bacon. Thankfully, Caramelle was already speaking.

"I'm still so cross with myself for missing out on that," the budding Texturist said with a sigh. "Second term last year was the lowest point for me."

"Just don't think about it," Mac encouraged her. "Treat it like a really bad baking day. Focus on what you learned, then forget everything else."

Ginger passed Boysen a glass of water, then mercifully turned her attention away from the red-faced, coughing Flavor King. "I don't know if The Meringue is capable of 'forgetting everything else.' Are you, Meringue?"

Caramelle smiled ruefully. "I'm afraid not. My memory is a bit too exact. Which is helpful for Texture, of course, but can be difficult in other areas. For example… remember that one weekend last year, when we had to produce three different sets of entremets for each professor?"

She launched into a spirited account of that weekend's particular horrors, lamenting the self-imposed hardship of working alone in Pestle. Mac and Ginger listened dutifully. As did Boysen, who had finally finished his coughing fit.

Lyra, meanwhile, pretended to be engrossed in her tea. Adding plenty of honey and milk, she clutched the cup in both hands and inhaled the fragrant steam.

Ceylon… lavender… bergamot… touch of vanilla, sang her Flavor instincts.

Of course, anything to do with Flavor simply fed the Berry melody that was now on constant replay in her mind. It was getting louder and harder to push aside every day. Only the ever-present anxiety tune about Enjoyment could drown it out now, and never completely.

Especially not at this moment. Not when the inspiration for the melody was right there, sitting next to her, laughing at something Mac had said and shoveling a small mountain of fruit onto his plate. How was she supposed to focus when the air around him was always vibrating at that particularly pleasant frequency, like a delicious aroma concocted specifically for her soul-senses?

Tune your tone, Treble, she told herself grimly. Or cool your cakes. Whatever. Both. You have enough to be going on with this year. Get. It. TOGETHER.

"Right, Treble?" Boysen said.

Lyra spluttered into her tea, barely avoiding a coughing fit of her own. "What?"

"We were just saying that we don't need assigned partnerships to get us to work as a team," Boysen explained. "We're Whisk Paragons. Puff Whizzes. We'll conquer this weekend together, just like we always do. Right?"

She swallowed her unintentional gulp of tea and nodded. "Right."

"You'll conquer all of it," Ginger said stoutly. "Puff pastry and puffed-up board members. As Genoise would say, 'This will be a day of historic significance for the Royal Academy of Magical Baking!'"

Her impression of the Presentation headmaster's 'special occasion' voice was so spot-on that Lyra had to join in the general laughter. The merriment continued as they all rose from the breakfast table, bubbling inside Lyra's heart like a cheery kettle ready to make more tea.

Thank the seasonings for the old Whisk Whiz melody, she thought, waving goodbye to Ginger and continuing with the other second-years back to the dorms. Or Puff Paragon song, or whatever I should call it now. Good to remember it's still there.

The comfortable tune wasn't quite loud enough to drive out the Enjoyment anxiety. It certainly wasn't any help against the Berry melody. But it had seen Lyra and her friends through plenty of pounding, rolling, and turning over the past year and a half. Lyra was confident it could take a few more 'turns.'

As many, in fact, as puff pastry required.

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