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On the screen, Nate stared at the drawing. His expression softened completely, losing every trace of snark. He exchanged another look with Lucy, but this time there was no panic in it—only a quiet, profound warmth that made his jaw work.

"A bookshop café," Nate murmured, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. "With bookshelves and a fireplace."

"Yeah," Emma said, feeling her cheeks warm slightly. "Is that ridiculous?"

"No, Em," Lucy said, her tone unusually quiet, her usual teasing sharpness replaced by something fierce and bright behind her eyes. "It’s not ridiculous at all. Actually... it sounds exactly like what this place is missing."

Nate cleared his throat, blinking rapidly before grinning into the camera. "We'll build it. Wherever you put it, I'll build the shelves myself, Luce can crowd every corner with flowers, and you can pay us in tarts."

"Deal," Emma whispered, her throat suddenly tight with affection. "I have to go. Camille is dragging me to dinner."

"Eat some real bread!" Lucy yelled, recovering her usual volume with a grin. "And don't worry about Rosebrook! Everything here is totally fine and normal!"

Emma tapped the red button, the screen cutting to black.

Totally fine and normal.

Emma let out a small laugh, shaking her head at the darkened phone. Nate was notoriously incapable of lying—the man couldn't hide a burnt crust, let alone whatever clumsy secret he and Lucy were currently stumbling over. The panicked eye contact, the shouting about corporate renovations, the sudden rush to change the subject... something was clearly brewing in Rosebrook.

Yet for the first time in her life, the mystery didn't send a jolt of anxiety into her stomach. The inn wasn't her emergency to fix. Whatever petty drama was unfolding wasn't her burden to bear.

Emma slid the phone into her coat pocket, feeling the solid, heavy square of her sketchbook pressed against her heart. Talking to her friends about her dream had left behind a warm feeling that settled comfortably into her chest.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Emma

Two weeks later, the academy held its first independent practical assessment.

Chef Laurent stood before the stainless steel benches, his ledger open in front of him. "Today is not about replication," he announced, his voice flat. "You have three hours. You will produce four identical individual entremets. I do not care about your grandmothers' recipes. I care about textural balance, acidity, and structure. If your glaze is dull, do not bother presenting the plate. Commencez."

The kitchen erupted into motion. Students dashed to the walk-in refrigerators, grabbing chocolate blocks, fruit purées, and gelatin sheets.

Emma stayed at her station for thirty seconds, eyes closed, drawing air into her lungs.

In the old days, she would have made a blackberry pie. A thick, rustic crust, bubbling fruit, and a dusting of sugar—comfort food, meant to be eaten with a spoon out of a bowl. Victoria had tasted those flavors during the festival: dark fruit, thyme, browned butter.

Emma opened her eyes. She was done making rustic pies.

She moved with absolute precision. She weighed almond flour, powdered sugar, and egg whites to the gram. She made a financier base, browning the butter until the milk solids turned the color of hazelnuts, folding in fresh thyme leaves before pouring the batter into silicone ring molds. While the bases baked, she moved to the induction burner.

She took fresh blackberries, simmered them with lemon zest and a pinch of sugar, and passed the mixture through a fine sieve until it was smooth as silk. She stabilized it into an insert using agar-agar, balancing the deep sweetness with a clean, sharp acidity that hit the back of the palate.

Around the insert, she built an airy goat-cheese mousse, lightened with pâte à bombe, subtle and creamy enough to round out the fruit without overpowering it.

She worked with mechanical precision. She chilled the molds in the blast freezer. While they set, she tempered dark chocolate to exactly thirty-one degrees Celsius, testing the temperature against her lower lip out of habit, then verifying it with the laser thermometer. It was exact.

With fifteen minutes left on the clock, she prepared the mirror glaze. A deep, shimmering purple, smooth as obsidian. She pulled the frozen entremets from the blast freezer, placed them on the glazing rack, and poured the glaze in one continuous, confident sweep.

The glaze draped over the mousse, coating the domes with a finish so reflective she could see the fluorescent lights of the ceiling mirrored in the surface.

She transferred the four pastries to white rectangular plates, garnishing each with a single candied thyme leaf and a fleck of edible gold.

"Time," Laurent called out.

The kitchen went dead silent, save for the hum of the compressors.

Laurent walked down the central aisle, testing each student's creation. He discarded one for a split mousse. He mocked another for a rubbery glaze.