The air outside the dorm is crisp and cold, a stark contrast to the warm, fragrant kitchen. Down on the pavement, the porters from Elysian Fields move with the silent, efficient reverence of morticians, stacking crate after identical crate.
The sight is genuinely intimidating. It's a tidal wave of clinical, corporate perfection, designed to drown them. Each crate is a tiny prison, holding ingredients bred and raised for a single, soulless purpose: to be a data point on a judge's scorecard.
Nyra stands beside Caelan, her arms crossed, a warrior surveying the enemy's battle lines. "Holt's not just taking away your palette," she mutters, her voice low. "He's weaponizing perfection. This stuff… it's been engineered to have no flaws. Uniform density, predictable water content, zero blemishes. It's food for machines, not people."
Lucien nods in agreement, his analytical gaze sweeping the stacks. "Elysian Fields is a subsidiary of a Marche Corp subsidiary. They supply the corporate dining rooms of half the world's biggest companies. Their motto is literally 'Predictable Excellence.' Every one of these apples will taste exactly like every other one. It's an army of clones."
An army of clones. The phrase hangs in the air.
That's when Caelan sees it. The subtle, insidious genius of Holt's plan. His gift, his Umami Threads and Story Notes, rely on the unique narrative of an ingredient—its struggles, its journey, its individuality. What happens when an ingredient has no individual story to tell? When its story is just a sterile, repeated line from a corporate mission statement?
"He's trying to deafen me," Caelan says softly.
The realization is a punch to the gut. Holt isn't just starving him of leftovers; he's trying to jam his senses, to flood his unique gift with a wave of monotonous, characterless static.
One of the porters opens a crate with a crowbar, and the three of them get their first look.
Apples. A hundred of them, at least. And they are… terrifyingly perfect. Each one is the exact same shade of ruby red. The exact same size. The exact same spherical shape, down to the millimeter. They are less like fruit and more like ball bearings that have been painted red.
Lucien picks one up. He taps it. Turns it over. He can find no flaw. No bruise. No sunspot. No quirky dimple.
"It feels… fake," he whispers.
"It is," Caelan replies, picking one up himself. He holds it in his palm, closes his eyes, and tries to listen. He searches for a Story Note. For an Umami Thread.
He finds… nothing.
There is no memory of the sun. No hint of the earth. No echo of the branch it grew on. It is a sensory void. A black hole of flavor. It tastes, in his mind's palate, of nothing but its own perfect, empty geometry.
It's the culinary equivalent of a blank page, written in invisible ink.
The head porter approaches them, clipboard in hand. "Provisional Guild 'The Leftover League'?" he asks, his tone bored and procedural. "First delivery for the Zero Remnant Audit. One hundred crates. Daily deliveries to follow. Sign here."
Lucien takes the stylus, his hand hesitating. Accepting this feels like signing a confession.
Before he can sign, Caelan speaks. "We need to see the manifest."
The porter sighs, tapping his screen. "It's all on the order. Elysian Grade-A produce and protein. The best."
"No," Caelan insists, his voice quiet but unyielding. "I want to see the discard manifest. The cull sheet."
The porter stares at him, baffled. "The what?"
"Every agricultural process has a cull," Caelan explains, his eyes locking with the man's. Nyra and Lucien watch, confused but intrigued. "The produce that doesn't meet the perfect aesthetic standard. The B-grade. The misshapen. The slightly bruised. The ones with character. The waste. Where does it go?"
The porter's face goes from bored to hostile in a heartbeat. "That's proprietary information. Elysian Fields has a hundred-percent utilization score. There is no waste."
It's a lie. Caelan can taste it on the air. Every system has leftovers.
This is the key. The first move in Holt's chess game.
"Then I'm afraid we have to refuse the delivery," Caelan says calmly.
Nyra's jaw drops. Lucien looks like he's about to have a stroke. Refuse the ingredients for a mandatory competition? It's suicide.
The porter sputters. "You can't refuse it! It's mandated by the academy!"
"The rules of the Zero Remnant Audit state that all guilds must be provided with ingredients," Caelan says, quoting a rule he didn't even know existed until this very second, pulled from some deep well of intuitive certainty. "It does not state that we must accept ingredients that fail to meet our guild's standards."
He holds up the perfect, soulless apple.
"Our standard," he declares, his voice ringing with a newfound authority, "is truth. And this… this is a lie. Tell Provost Holt that The Leftover League will source its own ingredients for the Audit. Ingredients with a soul. And we will still produce zero waste."
It's a declaration of open rebellion.
The porter, utterly flummoxed, can only stammer as Caelan, Nyra, and Lucien turn and walk back into the dorm, leaving a mountain of perfect, sterile food untouched on the pavement.
Once inside, Nyra grabs his arm, her eyes wide with a mix of terror and exhilaration. "What did you just do?! We have no ingredients! The Audit starts tomorrow morning!"
"Yes, we do," Caelan says. A slow, dangerous smile spreads across his face.
He pulls out his datapad and types in a name from the little-used student directory. He finds a contact number. He presses call.
After three rings, a calm, warm voice answers. "Hello?"
"Talia Verdurex?" Caelan asks. "My name is Caelan Veston. I lead The Leftover League. Chef Maillard told me that your family owns a small, independent farm just outside the city. I was wondering… would you happen to have any ugly vegetables you can't sell?"
A pause on the other end of the line. Then, a soft, musical laugh.
"Mister Veston," Talia's voice replies, full of earthy good humor. "You have no idea."