Preparations are underway for the society wedding of the year and Perrin gets the unenviable task of checking the kitchens for illegal magic.
In the midst of the frantic preparations, Frida, his most experienced magic sniffer, gets upset. If a magic sniffer is upset, there is magic.
No one appreciates Perrin’s discovery. Not his boss or the mayor—the wedding is a society event and can’t be delayed. Not those making money from it: the cooks in the kitchens, the seamstresses in the workshops, the bakeries making—wait, did anyone say fairy bread?
Behind the doors of the bakery lurks a secret too disturbing to be kept hidden.
Tamba, the town between the realms where magic is illegal, is itself dependent on suffering by magic creatures on an industrial scale.
Industrial relations scale, that is.
Snippet from the book:
Frida was upset.
She sat on the bench in the kitchen at Vasily’s eating house, in between the pans, and the whisks and forks and the bowls with beaten eggs and the cut vegetables.
Her tail was bushed up like the type of brush that one uses to clean bottles and she held it straight up in the air. She wriggled her pink nose at Perrin, making squeaking noises.
“Out of the way, Inspector!”
One of the kitchen hands walked around Perrin, carrying a stack of metal bowls, which he plonked on the table with an unnecessarily loud clang. Frida, who sat a mere arm’s length away, jumped.
The young man gave Perrin a sideways look to show that he was not happy, just as most of the people in the kitchen had not been happy to have Perrin there, prying into their business.
But being a magic inspector was his job, and figuring out why Frida was unhappy, well, that was another job.
To be honest, Frida had been upset for most of the day. She didn’t come to inspections so often any more, and might be upset at the rude fact that she had to do some work. She might be upset about having to leave her brood behind, even if they were old enough to look after themselves now.
She might be hungry. She might simply be unused to being in noisy kitchens, and might have encountered a mouse or a rat to scare her off. She was probably also unimpressed by the establishment owner’s dog that barked incessantly in the courtyard.
Or, alternatively, there might be magic in the kitchen. Because that was usually the reason magic sniffers were upset.
In any case, Perrin had to make a decision about it.
Normally, when the magic sniffer detected magic, it would sit on top of the offending item, and Perrin would confiscate the item to take back to the Bureau for testing.
He would request the documents that went with the import of this item, because magical items were always imported.
But Frida just sat on the table, looking very much upset, and everybody in the kitchen was upset about him being in the kitchen, and being in their way.
All the while playing the game that, because this was also one of the town’s most classy establishments, they didn’t import illegal magic, and should be above scrutiny.
“Are you done, Inspector?” asked a deep male voice behind Perrin.
It was the inn’s owner Vasily himself, a broad-shouldered man barely short enough to still fall outside the giant category and classify as human. He held his arms crossed over his chest. The arm that faced Perrin bore coloured tattoos depicting fat ears of grain, big carrots, grapes, pumpkins and various types of fruit. The other arm displayed an octopus with its head on his hand and tentacles reaching along his arm to disappear under the short sleeves of his shirt.
Perrin had to look up to him to meet his eyes.
“Almost finished,” he said. “Just checking my magic sniffer here… It seems she has picked up something unusual.”
“What’s… unusual?”
“I can’t pinpoint it. It could be—”
“We are a respected establishment.” The expression on his face hardened.
“Of course.” These inn owners all said that, especially businesses like this one. “But because my magic sniffer has picked up something unusual, I need to—”
“And we’re also extremely busy. We don’t have time to watch and give explanations while you scour through the entire pantry. We are the major kitchen contracted for organising the food for Lady Nitasana’s wedding to Som Pedoro’s son.”
Yes, Perrin knew that, and it was even why he was here. During these large society events, many people from the realms visited the city. And since there were no other realms outside Tamba where there was no magic, all those visitors and their trinkets, their luggage, their gifts and any animals or food—or wedding presents—they brought were likely to be magical.
On top of that, cooks working for the hosting party were always keen to show off their skills. That was precisely when they might be tempted to use magic ingredients or utensils to create something dazzling to impress their guests.
They would hope to get it past the inspectors, who had to hold up the council’s laws.
