Cardamom's approach to experimentation was every bit as methodical as Professor Puff could wish.

It took the entire morning and most of the afternoon to relate all the details of their efforts over the first two terms. Cardamom asked many questions, refusing to move on from any stage of the story until he had comprehended it to his satisfaction. He lamented more than once that none of the previously completed Enjoyment bakes were available for analysis.

"This whole time, no one thought to cast a single Preservation spell?" he asked just before lunch, his dark eyes wide with incredulity. "Not even the cake Lyra made, when the yellow light first manifested? That, at least, should have been preserved for posterity. What did you do with it?"

Lyra exchanged a look with Caramelle and Mac. "We… ate it," she confessed.

Cardamom's eyes widened further. "You ate it?"

"We did," Caramelle affirmed.

Lyra glanced over at Boysen automatically, expecting him to jump in with some crushing comment about Cardamom's inability to understand 'the true purpose of baking,' but the Flavor King remained silent. He kept his eyes on the mixing bowl in front of him, cut off from any other activity by his new wall of stony silence.

"You ate it all?" Cardamom demanded.

"Every last crumb." Mac smiled dreamily. "And it was incredible."

"The experience of eating is an important factor in Enjoyment," Caramelle explained. "The yellow light is just the outward manifestation. As with the other three disciplines, the final product must be tasted. That's the final test of the magic's efficacy."

Cardamom frowned. "That might be the case with Flavor and Texture, but not with Presentation. You don't have to taste something to know if it looks good. In fact, cutting into a Presentation master's final product often mars their work beyond repair."

"I disagree."

Cardamom lifted a delicately imperious eyebrow. "Do you indeed, Aspiring Baker Fondant?"

Mac swallowed nervously, but Lyra recognized the flash in his eyes behind his glasses. The Fondant had come a long way over the past year. He had a stylish new cravat around his neck, a Stellar Enchantment Pin sparkling on his chef's hat, and a gorgeous auburn-haired Texturist gazing at him with fervent admiration.

Macaron Fondant was done backing down.

"Presentation isn't just about how something looks," he said, his voice as quietly powerful as Madame Patisserie's. "It's about enhancing the entire sensory experience of a bake. It's about making the eater feel beautiful and luxurious by giving them something beautiful and luxurious to consume."

"But beauty is primarily a matter of appearance," Cardamom objected.

Mac shook his head vigorously. "That's where you're wrong. Beauty is felt more than seen. Something is beautiful when it makes you feel beautiful. When it brings you joy." He smiled at Lyra. "That's how I know Enjoyment is a real baking discipline. I knew it way before the yellow light appeared. Enjoyment is the culmination of everything we're trying to do as bakers. We work so hard to get the Flavor balanced, and the Texture just right, and the Presentation as beautiful as each bake deserves to be. But in all that, our ultimate goal is to bring joy."

"Well-seasoned, Mac."

Four heads whipped around towards Boysen's corner, from which the words had come. He appeared to be wholly focused on slicing garlic, but Lyra's heart leapt to see the ghost of a smile on the Flavor King's face.

So he IS paying attention…

She turned back to find Cardamom staring at Mac thoughtfully.

"A year ago, Fondant, I would have said that's a load of spun sugar." Cardamom smoothed out an invisible wrinkle in his purple Presentation apron. "But now… it all sounds rather too close to what Madame Patisserie keeps telling me."

Caramelle gave Mac a radiant smile. "Macaron knows what he's talking about. Especially regarding Presentation."

"So I see." Cardamom returned his attention to the notebook where he had been recording the pertinent points of their account. "Let us hope all that emphatic insight can translate meaningfully into our Enjoyment pursuits. Speaking of, where were we?"

Lyra was deeply grateful for both Mac and Caramelle that day. They spoke with clarity and passion, giving Cardamom a complete picture of the Enjoyment map thus far.

She tried to pitch in and to answer any questions put to her, but it was hard to think over the loud silence pulsing out from Boysen's corner of the room. The Flavor King did not speak again. Delicious smells wafted from his workstation, along with faint snatches of "The Joy Song" or Chef Flax's spell, but his affirmation of Mac was Boysen's only contribution to the Cardamom conversation.

Lyra's internal songs were all jumbled. The Berry tune in particular was a jagged mess, rivaling even the Enjoyment anxiety chorus in its frantic search for melodic resolution. Never had she appreciated the importance of Boysen's steady cheerfulness than now, when it was so tangibly absent.

Still, the day rolled on. Late in the afternoon, once the full story of Enjoyment had been told, Cardamom suggested ending their first session together with a performance from Lyra of her board meeting demonstration.

"I'd like to see this yellow light for myself," he said with a charming smile. "And, of course, to get at least one piece of this famous cake magically preserved."

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Lyra agreed hesitantly. She couldn't imagine her current inner discordance producing anything akin to joy. Yet when "The Joy Song" ended, yellow light pulsed brightly out of her chest and enveloped the decorated cake, shining almost as vividly as usual.

I guess Enjoyment magic IS getting stronger, she thought as Cardamom, Caramelle, and Mac applauded. It's not dependent on the baker's emotions. That's… good to know.

It seemed like an important observation about the discipline, but she kept it to herself. There had been quite enough 'scientific storytelling' for one day.

The session ran so long that they all had to rush out after Lyra's demonstration to avoid missing dinner. There was no time to hear Boysen's report on his own labors, or even to taste the new dishes he'd made from his brothers' recipes.

Thankfully, his friends' disappointment at this managed to poke a tiny hole in Boysen's determined silence.

"I didn't really get anywhere," he admitted as they hurried to the dining hall. "Not in terms of Enjoyment. Some little sparks of warmth, but nothing I haven't experienced before."

"Serves you right, abandoning us like that. We could have used your help," Caramelle told him.

"I'll say." Mac swatted at his friend with his chef's hat. "No more running away to your corner and leaving us alone with the Coulis. We're doing this Enjoyment thing together, by all the seasonings, or I'll season you."

"Yes sir," Boysen said meekly.

"But what about the recipes?" Caramelle pressed. "What were you making? It all smelled amazing."

"Nothing special," Boysen replied. "Just a bunch of variations on croque monsieur."

Lyra almost tripped on the stairs into the main hall. "That's my favorite sandwich," she squeaked, too focused on staying upright to moderate the wistfulness in her tone.

"So it is." Boysen pulled open the door and held it, bowing his fellow second-years through into the building. "Don't worry, Treble. I'll make them all again sometime. For now, Enjoyment is the priority. Right?"

The grin he gave her was so generic, so utterly removed from his menu of special Lyra-only grins, that she almost tripped again. She managed to stay on her feet and even flashed him a determined smile of her own.

"That's right," she said, trying not to shout over the dissonant wail of the Berry melody mixing with a sudden spike of anger in her gut. "Enjoyment is the priority."

—

The rest of the week passed in a flurry of lab days and new filo spells. When they returned to the practice kitchen on Friday, Cardamom insisted on devoting the whole day to a single baker's attempts at Enjoyment.

"We have to isolate the success factor," he explained. "You've all reported sensing some level of Enjoyment magic, but you've always been baking together. Lyra's always been in the room. Have you actually been tapping into Enjoyment individually, or have you just been feeling the ripple effects of her magic? Or is it the group dynamic? Only one way to find out."

Even Boysen grudgingly admitted that this was a sensible plan. Accordingly, they spent the first Friday of third term watching Caramelle make batch after batch of shortbread with lemon icing, one of her all-time favorite treats. She tried every known variation of Enjoyment magic: singing, speaking, and thinking both "The Joy Song" and Chef Flax's proto-spell.

To the chagrin of the other Puff Paragons, the auburn-haired Texturist reported only a faint flickering of Enjoyment warmth in her fingertips.

"It was there every time," she assured them, looking apologetically at Lyra. "The magic is in the air. I was definitely feeling something. But it never got as strong as it has before, when I'm baking with Lyra."

"And you only felt it in your fingers?" Lyra asked, frowning when Caramelle nodded. "That's strange. It always starts in my heart and then spreads out to my fingertips."

Cardamom was writing busily. "The magic's placement is certainly another factor to keep in mind. Thank you for pointing that out, Lyra. Now, Caramelle: you say the warmth was present every time. Was the level consistent?"

"Not at all," Caramelle replied. "It was much stronger when I was just thinking the songs. When I sang them out loud or spoke them, I could barely feel the warmth. But when I sang them silently in my head, the tingling was much more pronounced."

Cardamom nodded. "Excellent."

"Excellent?" Boysen echoed, raising an eyebrow. "How is that excellent?"

"We are drawing a map of unknown terrain, Berry," Cardamom said grandly. "At this stage of the process, any distinguishable contour in that terrain can serve as a helpful landmark."

Setting aside his notebook, he gave them all a dazzling smile. "And I call that excellent."

Mac's turn came the following Monday, and Boysen's on the Friday after that. Both reported experiences similar to Caramelle's. Boysen did claim that he felt the warmth spike a few times, but his fellow Puff Paragons pointed out that he was probably still bubbling from his successes in that week's lab days.

The Flavor King, who had never boasted of anything beyond 'solid competence' in shortcrust, choux, or puff pastry, was proving to be quite adept at filo.

This idea spun Cardamom into a whole new avenue of inquiry.

"The baking world has always tended to view the disciplines as mostly distinct," he muttered, almost to himself. "Has anyone ever studied the impact of success or failure in one discipline upon attempts in the others? Are they all fundamentally connected? Or is Enjoyment unique?"

He refocused just long enough to record that Mac had felt the warmth mostly as a tingling behind his eyes, while Boysen experienced Enjoyment in his gut.

"It's a lot like my Flavor instincts," Boysen said thoughtfully. "At least, it's in the same place. Maybe…"

Cardamom cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Yes, yes. We can continue investigating placement as we go. More pertinent, I believe, are these environmental factors. I'm assisting Madame Patisserie with a dessert soiree at the palace this weekend. If all goes well, I shall be simmering with my own success on Monday morning. Then we can see how my first attempt at Enjoyment compares with Berry's… elevated experience."

He was, indeed, as bright and bubbly as champagne for their third Monday session in the practice kitchen. The second-years endured several lengthy stories about the palace party, from Madame Patisserie's praise of Cardamom's 'inspired insight regarding entremets' to the king's compliments about the opera cake centerpiece, for which Cardamom had made the chocolate shaving decorations.

That day, Lyra was almost glad for the new wall around Boysen. If he'd been his normal open self, she was sure he would have been vibrating with enough snark to poison the air in the practice kitchen.

Even with the wall, Boysen's impatience was palpable as the Monday session dragged on. Cardamom baked several batches of his 'famous' entremets, speaking or thinking the two potential Enjoyment spells throughout.

"No singing for me," he'd declared at the start of the day, with a winsome self-deprecating grin. "That would be 'Enjoyable' for no one, I assure you."

Lyra didn't realize how much she had been hoping for a breakthrough until that hope was dashed. Cardamom did experience a surge of Enjoyment warmth, centered in his shoulders, but no yellow light appeared to illuminate the entremets.

The atmosphere in the practice kitchen that afternoon felt as layered as filo pastry. Caramelle and Mac were sharing Lyra's disappointment. Boysen, though… it was hard to tell with him these days, but Lyra could have sworn she detected a swirl of relief in the air around the Flavor King.

Cardamom, meanwhile, was blithely unconcerned.

"This is all part of the process," he reminded them. "These past two weeks have been about gathering data. Now that I have a firsthand sense of the desired effect, we can proceed into the next stage. This Friday…"

He paused for dramatic emphasis, looking around at them with a gleam in his eyes that reminded Lyra forcibly of Professor Genoise.

"We shall begin the real experiment!"

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