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T himble appeared before they opened the doors, another list clutched in his paws. It wasn’t particularly long.

“Currants, walnuts, oranges… cardamom?” Viv asked, with a puzzled expression.

Thimble nodded ardently.

“I don’t even know what that last one is. And the rolls are already perfect!”

The rattkin wrung his hands and looked aggrieved. “ Trust, ” he whispered.

Viv held in a sigh. “All right, I’ll take care of it. Tandri, you’re fine while I gather… whatever this is?”

“If it means Thimble bakes more things, then I’ll do almost anything you need,” said Tandri.

Thimble beamed.

* * *

The morning was chill and damp as Viv headed back to the market district, doing her best to remember which shops Thimble visited during their first excursion.

The currants, walnuts, and oranges didn’t give her too much trouble, even if the oranges were a little rare this time of year.

Viv asked about the last curious item at each stop, but the shopkeepers were as bewildered as she.

She eventually retraced Thimble’s steps to the elderly gentleman with the fragrant house.

After a few wrong turns, Viv relocated the place and rapped on the door. After some shuffling and muttering, the old man cracked it an inch and glared at her dubiously.

“Uh, you might remember me,” she said. “I was here with, um,” she held a hand at Thimble’s approximate height. “Little guy. Anyway, I’m looking for… cardamom?”

“Hmph. Running errands for Thimble, eh?” He opened the door a little wider.

“Guess so. I have to say he’s one hell of a baker.”

The old man glowered up at her through his spectacles.

“Lad’s a genius.” Then he snatched the parchment from her hand and shuffled into the shadows of his house.

Such a dense array of scents filtered out his door, it made Viv dizzy.

Individually, they might have been pleasant, but taken all together, they were too much.

She didn’t know how the old man could abide it.

After some distant muttering, some clatters and bumps, and a few sharp expletives, the old man returned with a brown paper packet. He thrust it at her, along with the list.

“Two silver, four bits,” he said.

“That much?”

“Somebody else offering you a better price?” His grin was wide and not entirely pleasant.

“Hm.”

Viv dug through her coin purse and paid the man.

The door snapped shut in her face.

* * *

Thimble received the groceries with a pleased squeak, carefully arranged them in the pantry, and returned to the rolls he had in progress.

Business was at least as heavy as the day before, and Tandri flashed a grateful smile as Viv joined her behind the counter to help manage the rush.

Viv couldn’t help her disappointment that Thimble didn’t seem to have an immediate use for the fruits of her shopping, but the morning press soon chased it from her mind.

Only later, when the demand for rolls was more manageable, did Thimble retrieve the items from the back.

Tandri gently elbowed Viv. “I am unbelievably excited to find out what he’s going to do.”

“The old man I bought the cardamom from said Thimble’s a genius,” murmured Viv.

“I don’t think I needed some old man to tell me that,” Tandri replied with a chuckle.

“I’d say that’s fair.”

* * *

The rattkin set to measuring and stirring and produced a thick, glutinous dough, to which he added chopped walnuts and currants.

He then grated the skin of the oranges over the bowl.

The cardamom, it turned out, were small, wizened-looking seeds.

He diced them incredibly fine, crushed them with the flat of his knife blade, delicately scraped some of the dust into the dough, and set the remainder aside in a twist of waxed paper.

Tandri and Viv grudgingly took turns making drinks for customers as Thimble kneaded and formed long, flat logs. He laid them out on two pans, sprinkled them with fistfuls of sugar, and popped them into the oven. Then he tidied things away, humming all the while in his delicate, tuneful way.

The smell was promising—nutty and sweet and subtle. It put Viv in mind of winter solstice celebrations. When he eventually withdrew the flat loaves from the oven, she and Tandri loomed close, but he shooed them away. Slicing them, he arranged rows on pans and returned them to the oven.

“Twice?” asked Viv.

He nodded vehemently.

When he judged them done and set them out to cool, Viv studied them dubiously. They smelled nice but resembled sad little slices of bread that hadn’t risen.

Thimble insisted they wait until the pastries cooled, and then, with nervous ceremony, he handed one to each of them.

Viv wrinkled her brow as she examined hers.

It was hard , like incredibly stale bread.

The old man had extolled Thimble’s brilliance, and it was difficult to argue with the success of the cinnamon rolls, but she shared a slightly worried look with Tandri.

As they went to take bites, he waved anxious paws at them and urgently whispered, “ With drink! ”

Tandri dutifully brewed two lattes. They took experimental nibbles. And… those hard little slices were good. They crumbled nicely, and the nuts and fruit were elevated by an exotic, creamy sweetness that had to be the cardamom. Maybe not as good as the cinnamon rolls, but… pleasing.

The rattkin made an urgent dipping motion.

Viv shrugged. She dunked one end into her latte and took another bite. Her eyes went wide. She chewed, swallowed, and allowed herself a moment to appreciate this subtle, elegant comingling of flavors. “Oh hells, Thimble. That old man was right. You are a genius.”

The real genius, however, wasn’t apparent to her until Tandri pointed it out. “These will keep, won’t they? Overnight, maybe for several days?”

He nodded and beamed at them both.

“We’re going to need something to store these in. And Tandri, I think we’re going to need to update the menu again. What do we even call these, though?”

“I think I might have an idea,” Tandri replied. With a smile tugging at her lips, she retrieved her chalk from under the counter.

~Legends & Lattes ~

~Menu~

Coffee ~ exotic aroma & rich, full-bodied roast—⒈／⒉ bit

Latte ~ a sophisticated and creamy variation—1 bit

Cinnamon Roll ~ heavenly frosted cinnamon pastry—4 bits

Thimblets ~ crunchy nut & fruit delicacies—2 bits

*

FINER TASTES FOR THE

~ WORKING GENT & LADY ~

The following morning, the Thimblets didn’t start as strong sellers, but in the occasional absence of rolls, diners took a chance on them. As the day progressed, they were sometimes even a first choice.

Every so often, Viv found herself absently munching one and humming to herself.

* * *

The kitchen seemed to grow more sweltering each day, and Viv and Tandri were both anxious for Cal’s return.

When he eventually appeared, the hob produced a big, folded sheet of parchment, which he spread out on the counter top in front of them.

It contained a few separate sketches with some measurements, but Viv had no idea what she was looking at.

“So, this is our solution to the heat problem back here?”

“Hm. It’s an auto-circulator. Like I said, saw one on a gnomish pleasure craft. Would take me a few hours to fix it in place. Maybe even a whole day. Have to cut into the stovepipe a bit, and we’ll need the ladder to hang it up there. Prob’ly need a hand from you. Heavy.” He pointed at the ceiling.

“I’m happy to close for a day if it means we don’t feel like we’re in the oven back here.”

Tandri blew out a breath of agreement.

“Ain’t cheap, though,” said the hob, looking apologetic. He tapped the diagram. “These I have to get from a gnomish artificer, and they come dear.”

“How much are we talking?”

“Three sovereigns.”

“Huh. That’s only two months of telling the Madrigal to take a swim.”

Cal’s glare was severe.

“Only joking!” said Viv mildly, although she wasn’t sure she was. “But yeah, let’s do it.”

She dug out four sovereigns and handed them over. “And for your time. No, don’t hand one back.”

“Hm. End of the week work for you?”

“Perfect.”

* * *

When Cal returned at the appointed time, Viv already had a sign out front.

CLOSED

Today Only for Renovation

She’d already seen several morning regulars reading it with various expressions of disappointment. An irrational fear that they’d never return again seized her, but she squashed it as best she could.

The hob pushed a handcart loaded with a big, brass-barreled mechanism, multiple large, wing-like blades, a smaller fan, like a windmill, and a long, leather band of some sort, resembling an enormous stropping belt.

Viv stared at the confusion of parts with hands on hips. “Huh. I had no idea how this was going to work from the drawings, and now I’m even more confused.”

“Oh, it’s clever,” said Cal, grunting as he maneuvered the handcart through the doors Viv held open. “Trust a gnome to surprise you.”

First Cal removed a section of the stovepipe, cutting it in half and installing the small windmill-like fan into a clever housing with a set of interlocking gears on the spindle. Viv helped him position and re-affix it into the primary stovepipe.

Viv retrieved the old ladder from the back alley and leaned it up against the wall.

With some careful maneuvering, Cal ascended, and she stepped up behind him, hauling the brass mechanism.

She managed to hold it in place against the ceiling with one hand, even her muscles straining at the awkward position and the weight held high above her head.

Cal installed it quickly with some gnomish screws, and Viv tugged on it to make sure it wasn’t going to come down on their heads.

Viv ended up holding Cal above her so he could slot the big wing-like blades into four arms that radiated from the barrel, making it resemble a much larger version of the contraption in the stovepipe.

Then they strung the enormous leather belt around the spindle of the brass barrel and across to the exposed wheel housing in the stovepipe.

“Well,” said Viv. “I still don’t know how this works, but stone me if I don’t want to see it in action.”

Cal chuckled wryly and tossed some wood into the stove before setting it alight.

At first, nothing much happened, but as the heat built and the hot air rose, the belt began to move, very slowly at first. It never achieved a particularly high speed, but the big fan on the ceiling began to stir the air in a steady, cooling breeze.

“I’ll be damned,” said Viv.

“Hm,” said Cal. “Maybe. Least you won’t burn alive ’til you get to the hells, though.”