I finished Fate! On final judgment I can't call it good but I do like it. The worldbuilding is so just strange, and then it goes into the whole everyone's-lying-about-everything so much that I kind of lost interest in learning what the truth actually was. But so many of the characters are interesting and the actors do a really great job and Ireland is amazingly beautiful. Really I like the three Alfea adults, they're the most interesting characters.

And as the fandom has noticed, Silva is indeed a good lookin' dude! :)

8 156 Vera ~The Master Chef~

It's evening and I'm doing homework while Shimmergloom reads the internet and interrupts my sketching to share random factoids she finds. The door is open and Monique pokes her head in and looks at us for invitation. Shimmergloom greets her with, "Did you know there be deep sea fish that glow?"

Monique has to take a second, "...yes?"

"I haven't been down that deep."

"...nobody has. We know from TV." Monique gives me a look that says she thinks Shimmergloom is weird.

Catherine comes in too, she's carrying a pillowcase that clinks, and she closes the door behind her. "Since we're neighbors, we thought we'd share." She whips the pillowcase off with a flourish.

"Rum!"

It's not rum, it's beer. Cheap beer, I discover when we open a bottle and fill some cups. Awful beer, I discover when I try it. Monique and Catherine are happily drinking theirs so they must have different taste buds, and Shimmergloom sips hers curiously. I pass her my cup,

"How did you get beer in here?"

The answer is a long story involving Monique's older brother who lives in Paris, a cake box, and a rope out the window. Our roommates are clearly out to get as plastered as possible on four bottles of cheap beer and Shimmergloom seems happy to go along. I'm not going to turn them in, but maybe I should provide glasses of water and headache medicine.

Pretty soon Catherine has decided she wants to try drunk-gaming and gets her goggles on and Shimmergloom is singing a song with lots of yo-ho-ho-ing.

The next morning I roll over and look at my clock and see—joy!-there's another fifteen minutes before I really have to get up.

I don't hate classes here, but snuggling in bed is soooo nice, especially since I was up late last night playing video games with our neighbors as they acted drunker and drunker. Mostly acting, I think. Since the patch came out the game isn't quite so addictive but it's still a lot of fun. Monique and Catherine have declared rivalry with me and Shimmergloom—and immediately regretted it since we've done actual sword fighting and it does carry over into virtual sword fighting and we can go for a long time without getting tired. I think Monique is convinced of the value of studying martial arts. I smile into my pillow.

My phone bings and Catherine's voice comes from my bedside table. "Vera! Shirley! Are you up yet?"

From the other bed Shimmergloom, groans, "Noooo we aren't."

I say, "We're awake-ish. What's up?"

"The TV people are here for the cooking show! If you get over here and help out you can skip morning classes!"

I consider the merits of an entertaining but awake morning versus ten more minutes to snooze.

Shimmergloom pops up to vertical. "I want to be on TV!"

I look over at her and giggle. "You could be on TV with your hair like that." It's standing out in a puff of black curls. She pats her head and dashes to the bathroom for a speedy beginning to the day.

I get up more slowly. I'd forgotten it was today, but I remember seeing posters up in the hall where the cooking classes are held. The show Kitchen Judge is coming here to make a special episode judging the "best up and coming French chefs" at the school. I am not one of them, but Shimmergloom thinks it would be fun to try out.

Catherine calls back as I'm getting dressed. "Pleeeeease come help translate for me! You know English!"

"Ok, we're coming."

Dressed and ready for the day, I head towards the cooking classrooms, but there's a barricade TV people blocking the way. The actual cooking students are filling out participation forms, doing each other's makeup, and milling around in a state of great enthusiasm for their fifteen minutes of fame. I think I'll have to go to morning classes anyway; I can't just hang around and watch. Catherine's filling out her application and covering for her bad English with volume. From somewhere else I hear Shimmergloom's cheerful, "I be very practiced at cooking in a galley!"

Monique beckons to me from a door to outside, "We can watch through the window!"

I slip out into the 'backyard' of the school. The ground floor windows are open to the cook spring morning, and we grab a windowsill and pull ourselves up. We get a full view under the curtains of the TV people setting up lights and putting together microphones with those fuzzy covers. In the middle of the room a tall skinny guy in a chef's hat and white coat is directing the action—loudly. He's got a funny accent that glitches my brain since I'm used to hearing French accents all day. I think he's Italian. And opinionated. "These curtains will 'ave to go! They color the light and will make my food look orange!"

The curtains open and Monique and I duck fast. I hear Madame say, "I suppose we can replace them."

"Yes, you can! You must! I must have perfection! And this is a fashion school so you must have extra fabric."

"Indeed we do. I'll arrange it."

"And this mess must be cleaned up! It will ruin the background."

I pull myself up again to look. The kitchen classroom isn't messy, there's some stuff like the projector for putting the recipe up on a big screen and some random bowls and stuff. Barely anything that could be called clutter. I see Madame look around and her eyebrows draw together. In class this would be a signal to all of us to shut up and look busy. The chef doesn't notice and keeps pointing out everything that he wants changed in the room as if it's perfectly natural for every single thing to be changed for his show.

Monique gives me a nervous look. We've seen Madame Sophie lose her temper; she gets very biting and honestly pretty mean. It takes a lot to push her there, but this guy is going in that direction.

The chef suddenly turns to the window again—and Madame sees us. She frowns for a moment and then… "Mademoiselle Hume! Come in here s'il vous plait."

I am suddenly worried. "Oui, Madame."

Monique gives one look at Madame's face, says, "Well, I'm late for class!" and flees.

"Monique!" But she's gone. I make my way inside and slip past the students and TV crew into the classroom.

Madame is saying, "Signor Vincenzo, my student speaks fluent English and can help you arrange the room to your satisfaction. Mademoiselle Hume, please recruit any of your classmates you need to help. Mademoiselle Vadianne seems not to have accompanied you."

It's true, Monique has escaped. I give Madame a look, then turn my best polite smile on the chef. "I'm Vera. Why don't we make a list of everything we need to do, and then we'll get started."

Signor Vincenzo looks at me like I'm a small yappy dog. I get a notebook and pen from my backpack and smile more as Madame makes her escape.

Signor Vincenzo wants a lot of things. First we clean out the classroom, moving all extraneous stuff and put out some different extraneous stuff to make it look lived in for TV. I recruit Shimmergloom, catch Monique and rope in Catherine and Liza too. We have to unload the cabinets and replace the pots and pans with Signor Vincenzo's favorite brand. He's definitely doing product placement, but he's donating new pans to the school, which is nice of him. We scrub the counters and shine all the faucets and everything. Monique gets roped into helping the video guys set up, mostly plugging things in so all the gear can have power. There's a whole lot of electronics. I know a couple of girls here girls here who have youtube channels and they do it all with just their phone! Real TV is more complicated. Liza and Catherine go off to sew new curtains real quick. Signor Vincenzo really does demand new curtains but he's fine with them being made out of the cheap muslin, and there's plenty of that around for people to fit with before they cut out their expensive fabric. So the girls take down the orange curtains and vanish to make replacements. Signor orders me out to his bus to carry stuff in and I haul boxes of ingredients back and forth. On my third trip I catch Shimmergloom shining a faucet with one pass. She's using magic. I twitch a bit, but as long as nobody notices I guess it's all right.

"Student helper!"

"Yes, Signor?" I ask, and get dictated another list of tasks. I see why Madame dumped this on me; her temper never would've lasted this long. I check the floor just in case, but the master chef has his shadow. He just is kind of a jerk.

Once the kitchens are set up and stocked and the cameras are placed so the camera guys can see everything except each other, it's time to record. I try to sneak away but the master chef demands I hang around to hold his cue cards for him. I'm ok with this. I'm not going to be on TV but I'll get to see how it's made. I get out my phone and send a picture to Twig, Helping Master Chef Vincenzo on his show! He uses cue cards! Well I guess he is a chef not a professional TV presenter so he hasn't had lessons in how to talk on TV.

Twig responds, Whaaaaat? We've been watching that! Phe loves his show! Also he's one of the finalists on WoW like Mr. Ishida and your teacher. Watch out for the Shadow Thief!

Shadow Thief? Did you just make that up?

Gotta call him something!

Shadow Thief. Sounds like a villain in one of Twig's anime shows. Which my life now resembles, whether I like it or not.

Someone calls, "Ten minutes! Bathroom breaks now, everybody!" And the crew scatters. I take off for the same thing, and find the restroom full of girls doing their makeup for being on TV.

"Vera! Do my makeup!" Liza pleads, and is joined by everyone else in there.

"I don't have time… use your reddest lipstick and double on the mascara; the lights really wash you out." But not everyone here is a fashion student so not everyone knows how to do makeup so I find myself correcting a few terrible color choices and we do not get back within ten minutes. I'm afraid Signor Vincenzo will be angry at us for delaying filming, but when we all come trooping back it turns out there was some delay with the sound checks so we're in time. So there's a lot more fiddling with technology and putting people in their places and instructing them to speak English, enunciate, and not swear under any circumstances in either English or French. There are six mini kitchen units in the classroom so only six students can compete at a time—two batches of six. Shimmergloom has gotten into the first batch, despite not being a dedicated cooking student. This is reality TV so maybe the director thought she's cute, or would produce drama.

Or… oh no. I've gotten so used to her pirate talk I barely hear it, but to the viewing public she's going to look like a total fool. I can't warn her; the show is starting.

"I'm Master Chef Vincenzo with a special Kitchen War—student edition! These talented young chefs from Madame Sophie's School for the Arts are here to compete for the grand prize of a full set of fine copper pans and bakeware donated by our sponsor!" Vincenzo introduces each contestant with a one sentence bio. Catherine's hobby of cooking for her brothers is mentioned. Shimmergloom's is, "Shirley enjoys flying the Jolly Roger!" I cringe, but Shimmergloom doesn't seem to notice she's being made of. Or she doesn't care.

"For your first challenge each of you must cook breakfast for two! It can be any sort of breakfast but it must include several elements all prepared perfectly! Three, two, one, cook!"

Everyone leaps into action. There's a mass dive into fridges to pull out eggs and bacon and fruit. Shimmergloom produces three oranges and juggles them for a minute before going for a juicer and a grater.

Liza's making a biscuit sandwich, and Catherine's going for some kind of cheese omelet.

Master Chef Vincenzo walks up and down, looming over the contestants and watching them. Once the first rush has passed he starts peppering them with questions about what they're making and where they learned to cook and stuff. Liza says her grandma taught her to cook and inspired her to take cooking classes here. He asks Shimmergloom if she's cramped in this mini kitchen.

"I be used to cooking in a galley smaller than this!"

"And what are you making for our breakfast?"

"Bacon, and orange pancakes!" She's grating peel from the oranges after juicing them, mixing the zest and some spices into the batter. Then she pulls out another frying pan so she can cook the bacon and pancakes together, one spatula in each hand.

Watching six people frantically cooking actually gets a little boring after a while and I mostly watch the cameramen. They dance back and forth, capturing the cooks without recording each other. Master Chef Vincenzo bops around checking on the contestants, offering tips ad talking about the fancy breakfast dishes at his restaurant in Gardenia. He's… kind of got a giant ego. I guess he is a great chef; his restaurant's website is covered with good reviews and photos of amazing looking food. But he's being awfully judgy of a bunch of teenagers.

Eventually time runs out and everyone brings their breakfasts forward for judging. I watch from where I'm crammed behind a desk.

Catherine's omelet gets a good review and the next few entries: fried eggs, two kinds of pastries, and a fruit cup, get mixed reviews. Signor gives them grief about how their food looks instead of how it tastes, which seems wrong to me but I'm not a chef.

Shimmergloom presents her orange pancakes and bacon fried with pepper. It smells delicious but Signor just says, "Overcooked, overspiced, cut too thick." Shimmergloom's face falls but she doesn't argue. Signor almost looks disappointed. I bet he was hoping for a pirate meltdown for the show. Shimmergloom just smiles and nods and goes back to her stool. Liza's breakfast sandwich gets called, "Just a copy of a fast food product. No imagination."

I think poor Liza's going to cry, but she manages not to. Good for her!

The winner is Catherine's omelet, declared, "Delicioso! And beautifully presented. You are the winner of today's Kitchen War!"

Everyone smiles and claps and Catherine jumps up and down—for a few minutes since they have to get video from several angles. Then the cameras turn off and everybody droops. Shimmergloom goes back to her kitchen and pours more batter into the frying pan. How much did she make? The other girls gather to complain about not winning. I extricate myself from the desk I've been hiding behind and go over to Shimmergloom, who offers me pancakes and bacon. By now it's lunchtime but I missed breakfast so I dig in. It's really good, the pancakes soft and sweet, the bacon super crispy and peppery. "This is really good. You should've won."

"It be fine. I'm tired and everyone else still has to cook lunch and dinner! Mateys, do ye'all want any?"

Nobody else has eaten either, and they descend upon us to share whatever leftovers they have, though Shimmergloom is the only one who purposefully made a bunch extra. She's still flipping pancakes—right onto plates, with some serious talent.

Liza whispers, "Master Chef Vincenzo—I watch his show but he's kind of..."

"A mechant." Catherine says.

"A bilgerat." Shimmergloom glances over at Signor, flicks her spatula—and lands a pancake right on Vincenzo's head from across the room.

"Shim—Shirley!" I stutter. Our classmates gape.

Signor Vincenzo draws himself up, unpancakes his head, and comes over to give us a piece of his mind. We take our lecture and flee.

"And he still be having his shadow!" Shimmergloom is draped across her bed, her tangled black hair hanging down one side and her legs off the other. It's been a long day. Shimmergloom was eliminated from the cooking show and went back to class, but Signor Vincenzo kept me busy stocking ingredients and cleaning the kitchen units between competitions. There's a lunch, dinner and dessert cookoff, and then after actual dinnertime has passed, the final. I feel sorry for the camera crew who have been scurrying around filming all day. They must be as tired as I am by the time we're all released to go to bed.

My phone chimes and a green hologram of my sister's face pops up. But since my phone's on the floor all she can see on her end is… "Hi Shimmergloom. Why are you upside-down"

"I'm tired. Vera be working harder than me though."

I move the phone to a better location and Shimmergloom sits up so we can talk like civilized people.

"What's up?" I ask.

Twig looks down, "I'm sending you a file Tecna gave me, all about the kids the Talent Thief went after back then. How's Vincenzo?"

"He still has his shadow, he's just naturally kind of an egotistical mechant. That's a meanie. French word of the day." I reply.

"You still need to keep an eye on him! The Shadow Thief will probably go after him! I wish I could help from over here. Oh Vera, we went on a date to the ballet, Mom gave us tickets so Tetsuo and I could go and then we all got to go backstage after since Mom knows the lead ballerina. The costumes were so cool, you'd have loved it!" Twig's going into stories again, all the cool stuff she's doing in Magix. She's so excited about it and I… don't really want to hear endless stories and unsubtle hints that I should move to Magix.

"You know Twig, I'd better go keep and eye on Signor—the Shadow Thief might come after him at night when there aren't as many witnesses around."

Twig's face falls but she recovers in a second. "Yeah you should. Call me back if something happens ok?"

We hang up, and of course I feel bad about shutting her down but I can't take another hour of how great the magic dimension is. I'm sure it is great, but my dream is here.

I guess since I said that we really should look around and see if the Shadow Thief tries to get Signor's shadow. I'm not sure what we'd do if we caught him.

Shimmergloom holds out my folded spy suit and phantoblade sword.

"This is the real world! I can't just stab someone with my lightsaber!"

"It won't hurt them."

"People will see it. Phantoblades don't exist here, Star Wars is just a movie." But I stick it in a pocket of my suit anyway. I do carry it with me sometimes; my friends think it's some kind of lipstick case. Of course my spy suit looks pretty weird too…

"Just say ye sewed it, if anyone sees us."

"They're not my style at all!"

Shimmergloom giggles and ok, design style isn't the most important thing if we get caught sneaking around school in weird clothes, but seriously, nobody who'd seen my sketchbook would believe I designed these skintight catsuits.

We still have a little time before curfew so I look over the file Twig sent about the 'WoW Talents.' I only vaguely knew the Winx Band was on some reality show once, but I've never seen the show. Now I have a text file with a list of names and notes about what they're doing now. Most of them turned out pretty successful. Madame and Miss Nadine run a school, Mr. Ishida runs a game company and Signor has his own restaurant and a TV show. there's also a ballerina, a martial artist in some kind of touring circus, and an engineer who's doing wildlife research in the French Alps. And Louise and Annabelle are still recording cds and having their songs in movies. Madame knows them; she makes a lot of their stage clothes. She also makes clothes for the rock star Madder—whose real name, according to the file, is Madeline. She probably chose the stagename the same time she dyed her hair into red spikes and started lighting her guitars on fire.

I hope this whole Shadow Thief thing isn't really a thing since there's no way I could get close to most of these famous people, even if Madame and Miss know them.

Twig also sent a video of the WoW show post judging party so I get to see all these people chatting and goofing around and hanging out with the Winx. Annabelle is carrying a bouquet and wearing a crown as the show's winner. There's a little girl kneeling surrounded by a couple of pugs and a yorkie. The ballerina and the martial artist (whose name the list is Yu Mori) are teaching each other moves. It looks like a lot of fun. And there's Madame and Miss Nadine, they're so young and adorable! Madame looks just as sharp eyed and grumpy as she is now and Miss Nadine looks just as calm and graceful.

"Is that Madame?" Shimmergloom hangs over my shoulder and laughs.

"She didn't win, Annabelle won. Want to hear her song? It's on myvideo."

So we end up spending longer than I planned, watching videos on the internet like normal people. Then, entirely unlike normal people, we put on the accessories to our spy suits and sneak out to check on Signor.

He's staying in a spare teacher room near the kitchen classrooms. There are a lot of empty teacher rooms since most of them have families and live at their own houses instead of boarding here like the students.

The lights in the hallways are off but to my surprise light spills out of the cooking classroom. I duck down and peek around the doorway. There's Signor cooking up something in a frying pan. I smell eggs and onions.

Shimmergloom mouths, "Midnight snack?" I guess so.

I whisper, "We have to stand guard I guess."

The hallway is empty of things to hide behind, but there are other doorways going up and down, some to other classrooms and some to empty teacher rooms.

Shimmergloom crosses the hall and tries the doorknob on a classroom door. It doesn't open. She frowns and tries again, and this time the door is unlocked. My brain is briefly distracted wondering if she can always do that, if I could learn it, and why more magical beings don't rob banks.

We creep into the empty classroom really slowly so we don't bang into anything. there's no way to get comfortable and watch the hall so we crouch awkwardly by the door.

I have no idea what we'll do if the Shadow Thief actually turns up. We don't know what he or she looks like and with the TV crew around we can't even count on the fact that the school is supposed to be girls-only at night. Of course anybody wandering around so late at night is a little out of place…

While my brain sputters around in circles I pull a rubber band from my pocket and twist my long hair into a bun on my head. When I finish Shimmergloom silently scoots in front of me so I can do the same for hers. Shimmergloom's hair is all loose messy black curls, the opposite of my straight red hair. I give her a bun that immediately starts falling apart.

Across the hall Signor is still clinking around the classroom, eating his snack and tapping away on a phone. He's probably talking to whoever's running his restaurant in Gardenia; it's daytime there.

There's a faint sound in the hall and we both tense. Shimmergloom drops to hands and knees to peer into the hallway. She looks up and down, sits back, and shrugs, a movement I feel rather than see in the dark. I resist the urge to look for myself.

We sit straining our ears and slowly I begin to feel like there's someone there, close, in the dark. Lurking. Is it my imagination or something real? I am a witch so maybe I can sense people. I listen hard, telling myself I could hear breathing if someone really is standing just outside the classroom.

And I do hear breathing, soft and fast.

Then something clatters off down the hall. Signor Vincenzo opens his door all the way, light streaming into the hall around him as he looks for the source of the sound.

Something flashes down by his feet and Shimmergloom's bell peals a thin high note.

I have an instant to realize Signor's shadow has vanished then I hear footsteps running away.

"Come on!" and Shimmergloom's off after—what? Can she see anybody? I leap after her, following—show me the truth, show me—there is someone running. Short, shorter than me. Shorter than Shimmergloom as she makes a grab for the fleeing figure. Is it one of our classmates? All I see is sort of a ghostly outline of a light colored jacket and hood running away, moving so I can't see it clearly. I can't even tell if the body under the coat is male or female. The person careens across the hall and Shimmergloom misses a grab and bangs into a wall. Not hard, but she's out of the chase for a second.

The ghost turns, still just a faceless shape. Its arm moves. I see the gleam of a knife.

Suddenly that's all I can see. A hook-shaped knife with a funny double point. That's—

The knife flashes down and I lurch out of my paralysis. "Shimmergloom!" I make another halfhearted grab for the Shadow Thief but they're getting away and I have to make sure Shimmergloom's all right.

She's sitting leaning against the wall, her face blank. She stares at nothing for a minute then blinks up at me. "I be fine."

"Are you sure?"

She stands up and groans, squirming like she aches from hitting the wall. "It got away! Did ye see who it was?"

"I couldn't even tell if… oh no, we gotta go." I hear the sounds of people. We must've woken up the whole school. We're near the front door, there's nowhere to hide and Madame's rooms are right over there.

Shimmergloom lifts her silver bell but it makes no sound. She frowns. "It didn't work."

"Shim-"

The lights go on and we both flinch and raise our hands to shield our eyes. Shimmergloom groans and cringes.

Her shadow is gone.

I have time to jump in shock and look again. "Shim-!" And then there's Madame and Miss Nadine, tying their bathrobes as they bear down on us.

"Mademoiselle Hume! Mademoiselle Barrie! Is this a habit for you two?"

Miss Nadine takes in our strange clothes and my brain kicks in enough to say, "Shirley wasn't feeling well, we were going to the nurse and we heard someone in here."

Madame nods and turns to the front door, which is slightly open. She gets out her phone and speaks rapidly in French, calling some kind of security I guess.

Miss Nadine gives us a long look and offers Shimmergloom a hand. "Let me go with you to the nurse's office."

So we go, with Shimmergloom squinting and stumbling and checking her feet to see if her shadow has come back. She looks unhealthy, which is good for our cover I guess but with miss here I can't ask her how I can help. This magic is from Shimmergloom's realm so she should be able to just fix herself, right?

But everything keeps on being very mundane. The poor nurse is awake too, and she takes Shimmergloom's temperature, asks her what she ate today, prescribes some Tylenol and another visit in the morning. Shimmergloom's quickly bored with this and just wants to go back to bed. The nurse gives permission and Miss Nadine goes to join the search for the intruder. We walk back to our room. The hall lights are off again and my eyes, that had adjusted to the light, can barely see.

"Oh good, it was so bright."

"You can see?" I ask, blinking and remembering a story about pirates using eyepatches to keep one eye adjusted for darkness.

"Aye..."

There's a pause. We turn into the hall where our room is. Lots of doors are open, everyone wants to see what's going on.

"Vera! Shirley! Did you see the burglar?" Monique calls to us.

I answer, "Not really. Whoever it was ran away, we only saw their back for a second. All the teachers are up and I think the police are coming, you guys might as well go back to sleep."

That has pretty much the opposite effect; everyone starts getting dressed in case the police have to check their rooms, but we escape into ours. Shimmergloom goes right to bed still in her spy suit. They're comfortable, but as pajamas?

I poke her. "Shimmergloom."

"Leave me alone."

"We have to get your shadow back on—and Signor's. He might start poisoning people or something."

Shimmergloom's face emerges. Her amber eyes have gone a flat orange. She sounds dull and gloomy and totally unlike herself when she says, "I don't know how I'll get my shadow back. I don't think I have a dream."