Archie dreamt that he was sitting in a forest glade. The deer and rabbits and foxes and squirrels all came to eat from his palm. Soon, the grass was depleted of its acorns and flowers and wild carrots.
Something rustled in the bushes.
But Archie was never scared.
Nori walked out of the bushes holding Chandler’s hand, the little girl holding a basket of blueberries. Tog...
2025-01-27 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post[A/N: I think this chapter might have someone slipped under chapter 62? Just double check that you're reading in order.]
The Great Hall filled with applause as Julienne, Nori, Akando, and Oliver took the stage.
“The top of this year’s class,” Aubergine announced as he walked up to Julienne, holding a little brown bowl of yellow goop. “Julienne Allard.”
J...
2025-01-27 15:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostYou read that right.
I think I put the cart before the horse on the whole "I'll release chapters for every blah blah blah."
I'm just going to give you more chapters.
Book 2 chapter 1 goes up Saturday, February 1st. By the time March rolls around, we'll be 28 chapters into book 2 (almost exactly halfway—pending edits). Then we'll go back to 3/wk and stay 30 chapters ahead o...
2025-01-20 22:16:50 +0000 UTC View PostChrysanth splashed water and used a rag to roughly scratch the blood from Archie’s face.
“Too suspicious, too suspicious,” he muttered as Archie winced through the pain.
“I don’t know if it’s done,” Archie said. “I need to keep cooking.”
“It’s been two hours since he left. We have to go now.”
“Alright, alright. Just…” Archie shook the rest o...
2025-01-20 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostArchie measured time by how long he knew each meal to make. One meal, two meals, three meals, six. Or was it five? Everything had gotten muddled after he had burned some garlic and Prince Waldorf had thrown him around the room again as punishment. His head hummed and ached and he had trouble keeping things straight. The walls warped and molded around Archie, his body moving in strange ways, the...
2025-01-20 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Sit, Archie,” his mother said. “I made you spaghetti.”
Archie looked around in confusion. He wasn’t in Prince Waldorf’s kitchen. He was in some nebulous place without walls or even a floor. There was just him, Adelaide, and a plate of spaghetti sitting on a table. As he focused, the room built itself around him. A counter here. A spice rack there. A little refrigerator. Woode...
2025-01-20 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe shackle rubbed the scar on Archie’s leg.
As the guards left, one looked back with a moment of sympathy.
“Come on,” the other guard said as he tossed the keyring back in the drawer of Prince Waldorf’s table.
The sympathetic guard sighed. He spoke softly to Archie. The way you might speak to someone on their deathbed. “Do what he asks. And don’t let him get hungr...
2025-01-14 03:19:18 +0000 UTC View PostArchie looked at the bowl of kulkida risotto at the end of the table.
He looked back up at Prince Waldorf. Children swarmed around the prince, Gluttonous parents in tow. They kissed his hand and fawned over him.
Archie could run. He needed to run. It was his only option. Once Prince Waldorf saw the kulkida risotto, it was all over. Archie needed to get as far away as possible before...
2025-01-14 03:18:47 +0000 UTC View Post“So how does it work?”
Rowan offered Nori a bouquet of purple flowers. “Breathe in,” he said. “And back out onto the flowers.”
Nori did as commanded. Rowan took the bouquet and put it in front of Archie’s face.
“We’ll get the girl to do the same. And then we grind it up and put it in everything. But especially the risotto. It’ll carry our signatures with it...
2025-01-14 03:18:12 +0000 UTC View PostHello! Thank you everyone so much for your support! I was obviously hoping to create a story that earns this level of support, but now that it's here, I'm still having trouble believing it. I have a dream of this being my full-time job, and you bunch make me feel like maybe that could happen sooner rather than later.
It's also filled me with a burst of motivation, and I've set my g...
2025-01-08 19:34:02 +0000 UTC View Post[Author's Note: Just a reminder, we're doing 3ch/wk from here on out.]
“Okay, day two!” Aubergine yelled as he jogged in place with excitement. Next to him, Tarragon tilted his head back and waited for the Headmaster to finish. “Now while I’ve been told that the kitchens and greenhouses are too crowded for me to join the fun, our wonderful Head Chef Tarragon couldn’t tell...
2025-01-06 15:06:38 +0000 UTC View Post“Hooooooooooo-wee, y’all.” Quince looked around the greenhouse at the students. He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Buncha good looking folk ‘round here. I know y’all’re excited, so let’s get to it. For your cultivation score, y’all’ll be scored on two things.”
The gravity of the first exam still couldn’t hold down the floating giggles of the students as the...
2025-01-06 15:06:11 +0000 UTC View Post“I know what to do.”
Archie nearly broke into tears as he embraced Rowan. “Oh, thank you. Thank you.”
Rowan hugged back, knowing that Archie needed reassurance. But as Rowan peeled away, his face betrayed any sense of confidence.
“At least…I have an idea,” Rowan said. “Something I had planned for your grandfather.”
Rowan looked into some distant corner ...
2025-01-06 15:05:30 +0000 UTC View PostArchie and Nori returned to the Academy in silence and went into the attic. More than anything, they needed to get away from the cruel, cruel world. The dusty attic was their only sanctuary. Nori sat against the wall as Archie paced back and forth. The attic may have been silent, but in their minds, they were screaming.
Finally, Nori broke the silence, her voice flat and distant as if spe...
2025-01-02 15:56:24 +0000 UTC View Post“I want to stop,” Archie declared. “I mean, what even was that?”
“That was good business is what that was,” Nori said proudly.
“No, not that…It’s like he was possessed,” Archie said.
“It doesn’t matter. We cook for him three more times and we’re done.”
“It does matter!” Archie paced around the attic trying to understand how Nori wasn’t p...
2025-01-02 15:55:57 +0000 UTC View Post“They’re dead.” Archie rubbed his forehead as he grieved. “Maybe…maybe we can bring them back?”
“It’s too late, Archie,” Nori said. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“No. This one. What about this one? Maybe…” Archie ran his hand from his forehead through his hair. He fell onto the dirt in a heap.
“It’s too late, Archie. Look at the color. ...
2025-01-02 15:55:22 +0000 UTC View Post“Archie, we have a problem.”
“Did he not bring the rice? I told you I should have gone with you.”
“Oh, he did.”
“Where is it?”
“Second floor pantry.”
“You left it in the pantry?” Archie pushed past Nori, half-jogging to the pantry in the hopes that their contraband hadn’t been discovered. He nodded at other students as he passed them in a ...
2025-01-02 15:54:31 +0000 UTC View PostJulienne punched Archie with full force.
As the knuckles sunk into Archie’s arm, he heard a crack. Intense pain radiated from the point of impact, sending Archie stumbling away while clutching his bicep.
Julienne tried to shake away the pain in his hand.
Archie sucked air between his teeth as he tried to regroup. He walked back up to Julienne, squared up, and punched him in ...
2025-01-02 15:53:57 +0000 UTC View Post[Author's note: Putting y'all through chapter 52 now. After that, the schedule is going to be 3 chapters per week. I'll post all 3 on Mondays so that you can get a good chunk to read at your leisure throughout the week. Thanks so much for your support—it's been so motivating and I hope that'll show in my future work. I'm almost done with book 2 and so far the beta feedback has been that it's ...
2025-01-02 15:52:42 +0000 UTC View PostIf Archie and Nori were to learn about kulkida risotto without raising too much profile—something that seemed very important to Mr. Ackers—they only had one person they could turn to.
But when they asked, they didn’t get the answer they were expecting.
“That…that is something…that I don’t know,” Sutton said, more suggestion than fact.
Nori rubbed Sutton’s arm...
2024-12-31 18:49:21 +0000 UTC View Post“Forgot about me, did ya?”
Stop Him put his hand on Archie’s chest, stopping him.
“You better have something in there for me.”
Nori slapped Stop Him’s hand away. Being a foot smaller did nothing to deter her. “Why don’t you—”
Archie groaned and set down the handles of the cart.
“It’s fine, Nori. Really.” Archie shuffled around and lifted t...
2024-12-31 18:48:53 +0000 UTC View Post[Author's Note: Thanks Arun for the review! Here's a bonus chapter (and two more coming right after)]
“I have no clue.”
“Same.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Me neither.”
“Wow, there’s not a creative bone in you bunch. I know what I’m going to do. But it’s a secret until I master it.”
“Shut up, Oliver.”
“Yeah, shut up, Oliver...
2024-12-31 18:48:15 +0000 UTC View PostFor the entirety of the first semester, the students had fantasized about conjuration class.
After the first couple of weeks, the students would rather be in Colby’s kitchen.
In the mornings, they ran. “Know your body to know your essence,” Tarragon told them. Archie had a runner’s build, and by the second week, everyone struggled to keep up with him.
Then they’d get...
2024-12-30 17:55:24 +0000 UTC View Post“Do some magic!” Chip Sampson demanded.
Equipped only with a pocketful of blueberries and a handful of pasta, Archie stared down the horde of children as they ran up to him. They swarmed him, forcing him to step back onto the raised paved walkway that bordered the lawn. He looked over the thin wooden guardrails, figuring the ground to be a fatal forty feet away. He took a step away fr...
2024-12-30 17:54:20 +0000 UTC View Post“Archie…Archie…”
Archie rolled over and pulled the blankets up to his ears.
“Hey…wake…hey…Archie.”
Something shook Archie’s foot.
“Archie, wake up,” Nori whispered.
“Go away,” he groaned. It was still dark. “We agreed to meet at nine.”
“Things changed. Get up.”
The bed above Archie creaked. “Nori?” Oliver slurred,...
2024-12-30 17:53:52 +0000 UTC View Post“Let’s go Julienne!” Nori yelled while looking at Archie.
Archie wriggled back and forth as he tried to dispel the noodle that restrained him. He knew getting out would be more than a physical feat, but he couldn’t help but to squirm in his restraints.
Okay. Dispel. Essence. Out…my…elbow. Elbow. Elbow. Where’s my elbow?
The cheering crowd became backgrou...
2024-12-30 17:53:19 +0000 UTC View PostOn a cold, sunny winter morning, the first-years stood side-by-side in a line out in the fields. They only moved to fidget nervously as a man walked across their ranks, assessing their souls with a piercing gaze.
They had been buzzing with energy for the first two weeks of the semester in anticipation of conjuration class with the great Tarragon. Anise could hardly control them in her cla...
2024-12-30 17:52:53 +0000 UTC View Post[Quick author's note: Thank you so much for your support. I got so giddy when I got the notification that someone is subscribed. On RR, I'm doing an extra-chapter-per-review deal for up to 9 extra chapters—any extra chapters there are extra chapters here. So if you want to leave a review, you'll get more chapters!]
Book 1, Part III - The Forbidden Meal
“What...
2024-12-30 17:52:01 +0000 UTC View PostFor the next couple of weeks, Archie retreated within himself, his emotions too large for expression. He got quiet. Passive. He seemed to only have half-conversations with his friends—he was eager to be alone, and they were unsure how to handle the news of his heritage, particularly given the incident in Pomona’s kitchen. He spent his days in Pomona’s class and his nights in the great hal...
2024-12-26 15:43:21 +0000 UTC View PostThe Gift no longer looked quaint and homey. It looked like a lair. A den of secrets.
The vines covering the white stone walls were just things for lies to get tangled in. The messy array of chairs in the dining area was a distraction, the bees buzzing to cover up whispers. The open floor plan was a facade, the cluttered bedroom intentionally unsearchable.
Archie had fi...
2024-12-26 15:42:43 +0000 UTC View Post