The next morning, Lyra entered the Texture classroom for lab day and groaned at the bewildering array of equations covering every inch of the chalkboard.

"I really, really, really hate layers."

"Don't be overdramatic," Caramelle replied briskly, arranging her notebook and pens on her spotless work-station with determined precision. "Studying filo pastry is a privilege. Especially here at the Royal Academy."

Lyra patted her friend on the head as she walked past. "You keep telling yourself that, Caramelle."

Caramelle's face was grim. "Oh, I will. I refuse to be beaten by pastry. No matter how impossibly thin each sheet of it demands to be."

Mac dragged his feet over to his stool and sat down. Taking off his glasses, he carefully set them aside before lowering his head to the counter.

"No more," he moaned, his voice muffled against the floury surface. "I can't face another lab day. When Professor Puff gets here, just tell her I'm dead."

"Then I'm dead, too." Lyra flopped onto her own stool with a sigh. "Or at least maimed. If the majestic Macaron Fondant, silencer of bullies and champion of beauty, has perished, there's no chance for a mere mortal like me."

Mac shook his head against the counter. "The majestic Macaron Fondant is no more. Filo ended him, as it ends all good things."

"Already?" Boysen laughed as he hopped onto his own stool. "We're only two weeks into the term. What were you saying about 'overdramatic', Meringue?"

Keeping his face on the counter, Mac lifted a hand and pointed accusingly at Boysen. "No. Not allowed. Only the maimed and dead are permitted to speak."

"I'm maimed," Boysen protested.

"Like spun sugar you are." Caramelle glared at him as she crossed to Mac's work-station and placed a comforting hand on her boyfriend's shoulder. "Who was the first to get the filo magic to manifest in all three disciplines last week?"

Boysen tried to shrug carelessly, but the glow of the previous week's lab days was still radiating from him. Lyra could almost imagine blue, green, and purple magic gathering around his head like a crown.

She forced a smile. "All hail the Flavor King. And Texture Lord, and Presentation Emperor… The baking world lies at your feet, Aspiring Baker Berry."

"But not Enjoyment," Boysen said, with a strained smile of his own. "That crown is still yours and yours alone, Aspiring Baker Treble."

"Don't remind me."

All four fell silent. Lyra wondered if they, too, were reflecting on the many hours spent in the practice kitchen already this term.

And still with nothing to show for it…

She briefly considered asking how they'd all felt after Monday's session and what they thought Friday might bring, but she held her tongue. It had already become an unspoken rule among the Puff Paragons to avoid any mention of Cardamom outside the practice kitchen. That meant Enjoyment itself was featuring much less prominently in their conversations than it had in the previous two terms.

Even though it's our 'priority', she thought bitterly.

Another spike of anger shot through her internal melodies. This was happening with increasing frequency these days. Every time she thought about the song-devouring silence now swirling perpetually around Boysen, or he gave her one of those stupid sour generic grins…

Lyra forced herself to look at the board, trying to muster up a defiant inner tune to carry her through the coming lab day.

If the Flavor King wanted to keep kneading his Berry obstinate grudge against all things Cardamom, that was his choice. So what if that choice kept the air around him vibrating at a frequency so dense and strained that she couldn't break through? So what if they hadn't spoken about anything unrelated to baking over the past two weeks? If he didn't mind going through the term in an atmosphere as fragile and brittle as overbaked meringue, then she wouldn't mind either.

He was 'fine.' She was 'fine.'

Fine as confectioner's sugar…

"Salts preserve us!" Rye Galette strolled into the classroom, sounding as cheerful as ever. "What a glum bunch of puddings you are today. Who died?"

"Me," Mac proclaimed into the countertop. "It's all filo's fault."

Rye nodded gravely. "I see. We'd best plan the funeral, then. Who wants to bring the baklava?"

Mac whimpered. "Not baklava. Not more filo."

"We're all struggling a bit with this term's pastry," Lyra explained. "Well, except Boysen."

"I don't understand it." Caramelle gazed at the equations on the board. "Pastry has been a Texturist's dream so far. And filo… every sheet has to be rolled out so thin, I assumed it would require even greater precision of skill. I thought third term this year would be the best yet. But the spells just won't click for me."

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Turning, she stared with utter bewilderment at the Flavor King. "How do you do it?"

Boysen shifted uncomfortably on his stool. "Filo's different than I thought it would be. Different from all the other pastry types. It's not just about the math, or the memorization. When I'm rolling out the dough, I can sense how many times I need to say the spell, and at what speed. I feel the amount of force I need to use to get the dough super thin without ripping. It's like when I'm listening for Flavors in other recipes. It's… instinct."

"Exactly," Rye affirmed. "Filo has historically been the favored pastry of Flavor masters. It taps into a similar set of skills."

Caramelle looked torn between feeling offended and relieved. "Did you struggle with filo too, Rye?"

"Did I ever." The Apprentice Baker grinned ruefully. "Third term was rough last year. For me and Florentine, anyway. Eclair did all right."

Mac lifted his head off the counter just far enough to stare pleadingly at Rye. "Then what did you do? How did you get through it?"

"I asked Eclair for help, of course," Rye replied. "That's the way to survive pastry year. And you lot have a Berry in your midst! You'll be just fine."

Boysen smiled warmly at all of them. "I'm happy to help however I can. We'll do some instinct coaching in every night's Puff Paragon Review. Promise."

It was such an authentic Boysen smile that the Berry melody flared painfully in Lyra's heart. She waited for an anger spike to cut through the sweet tune and send it spiraling again into comfortable discordance, but none came. The Berry melody played on, tapping relentlessly against the defensive shell she'd been trying to construct over the last two weeks.

He's still Boysen, she thought, watching the Flavor King pretend to resuscitate the still drooping Fondant until even Mac had to join in the laughter. He's been acting awfully thistle-ish, but that's not the real him. The real Boysen is…

"Berry wonderful," sang the persistent tune, refusing to relinquish its well-established prominent place in her mind.

And the words of its refrain were absolutely true. Boysen was wonderful. All the splendid ingredients that created his inimitable Flavor-song were still there.

Lyra Treble had just lost her special seat at the table somehow.

Ginger was right. I waited too long. The cake collapsed…

She laughed along with the others, but she couldn't drown out the Berry melody's sad, wistful beauty.

Sharps and flats, what a mess.

To her profound relief, Professor Puff entered at just that moment. The reality of Texture lab day brought on a deafening crescendo of the new "Filo Frenzy" tune in Lyra's mind, loud enough to conceal even the plaintive lament in her heart-kitchen.

"Yes, yes." Professor Puff waved away their chorus of greeting. "I trust you all have memorized the basic filo spell and practiced its equations. Today, we will be moving on to our first variation of the spell: spanakopita."

Mac gulped audibly.

"Moving on?" Caramelle remembered belatedly to raise her hand, then forgot to lower it as she rushed on, "But I haven't performed the basic spell effectively yet. None of us have, except Boysen."

Professor Puff arched an eyebrow. "I am aware, Aspiring Baker Meringue. Your point?"

"I… we…"

Caramelle glanced pleadingly at the other second-years.

"We didn't think we'd be moving on until we'd all achieved success with the basic spell," Lyra explained. "Won't all the variations just make it harder and harder to produce the blue light?"

"With the other three pastry types, yes. But filo is a special case." Turning to the board, Professor Puff pointed at the first line of equations. "As you can see, the differences between the spanakopita variation and the basic spell are quite subtle. Filo magic draws its power not from ever-increasing complexity in the equations, but from an accumulation of experience. The more you practice a filo spell, no matter the variation or added ingredients, the stronger and more effective the magic."

Boysen raised his hand. "Sort of like Flavor, right? It's based on instinct?"

"Experience, Aspiring Baker Berry," Professor Puff corrected him. "Experience born of practice."

"But…" Caramelle's perpetual poise was threatening to crack. With admirable force of will, she kept her tone even and polite. "Aspiring Baker Berry wasn't pulling from any such history of practice. He has the same lack of experience with filo as the rest of us. Yet he managed to achieve full manifestation of the magic in all three disciplines, while I…"

Caramelle trailed off and glared down at her hands, as if blaming them for failing to burst into blue sparkles right that second.

"I understand your frustration, Aspiring Baker Meringue," Professor Puff assured her. "Keenly. It is true that certain… unquantifiable ingredients are at work in this particular realm of baking magic. But do not fret. Though the filo process may seem distressingly different from the other pastries, it still abides by the rule of repetition. More practice leads to more growth. I am sure Apprentice Baker Galette can attest to that."

Rye nodded. "I was trying to tell them just now, Professor. Filo's rough at first, but it gets better as you go along. Just like every other tough baking assignment."

"Quite so, Apprentice Baker Galette. Things always balance out by the end of term."

The Texture headmistress glanced at Boysen, amusement gleaming briefly in her calm gray eyes.

"However unfair the advantage of some at the beginning."

Lyra almost turned around to smile at Boysen, but caught herself just in time. The close call left her with a hollow feeling in her stomach.

A few weeks ago, this would have been the perfect moment for a Lyra-only grin, she thought gloomily. Maybe even a wink. But not anymore. By all the seasonings, what is wrong with me?

Thankfully, the pace of lab day didn't allow for any further wallowing. Soon they were all engrossed in the tiny variations that distinguished spanakopita from the basic filo Texture spell. As Professor Puff had said, these differences were subtle, which made it all too easy to slip from one spell to the other without realizing it.

"That is what makes filo the most difficult of pastries," Professor Puff warned them. "Not the multiplicity of layers, or the thinness of the sheets. Far more than shortcrust or choux or puff, filo requires constant focus and intense concentration."

Lyra pretended to groan along with her fellow second-years, but she was secretly grateful. 'Intense concentration' on filo magic meant she had little time or attention left for any other songs or silences clamoring for space in her mind.

She did have to endure another woeful spike of the Berry melody that afternoon, when Professor Puff called on Boysen to demonstrate the spell. But the 'Filo Frenzy' song proved itself a robust distraction. The airy melody rose and fell at surprisingly pleasant intervals, carving a path in Lyra's gut for all future variations of the tune.

The opening notes were low and solemn as Boysen took the lumps of prepared dough and rolled them out into small circles. The melody took off and began to soar as he dusted each circle with cornstarch, stacked them, and rolled them with the slightest possible pressure.

By the time he had separated the circles, dusted them with more cornstarch, and restacked them for another rolling, she was so caught up in the lightness of the Filo Frenzy that she briefly forgot about the current complicated state of the 'Lyra-Boysen' recipe. She cheered as heartily as everyone else when blue light poured from Boysen's hands, then beamed at him to celebrate his successful performance of the Texture spell.

Even when the Flavor King met her congratulatory smile with yet another brittle, generic grin, the magic of filo was almost strong enough to muffle the resulting clamor in her heart-kitchen.

Almost.

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