"As you wish." Lucette summons her head maid, Rachel, by touching a glass and setting it to ring loudly enough to be heard outside her study. Rachel will then arrange for Haru to make his way to the guest house unobserved, and then help Lucette change into new clothing so Lucette can leave the study with none the wiser.

He sleeps. He has bad dreams and feels cold alone in bed but that can happen to even completely nonmagical people once in a while.

The next day he is invited to Miss Brynd's manor to try her cook's best attempt at a traditional Narnian stirfry.

He gets to have breakfast with Lucette first, right? Without any servants in the room so he can hold her hand a little more.

Of course.

Oh thank goodness.

Yes, the stirfry, he's happy to help.

It tastes like this!

"I don't like it but maybe that's just because Narnian food isn't very good?"

"I think the heat was too low and, and since we're without the soy sauce I'd want to have more sesame in here, but I think another run at it will have it passable. It's possible you just don't care for Narnian food even when it's done more closely to form, of course."

The cook can prepare another batch while he's here if he wouldn't mind waiting.

"Do Narnians vary what they eat depending on the time of year?"

"Some fruits are best at certain times of year even in Narnia, but I think less than the people here do in general."

"What about hot foods in the winter? We have clotted cream and honey heated up - it's delicious."

"I must again mention chocolate, it makes a lovely beverage with milk and sugar and warmed up till it's steaming."

"Oh, that sounds good! Warm sweet drinks when it's cold are delightful."

"Hot cider's nice too. - I wouldn't add the mushrooms quite yet," he adds to the cook.

"Oh, we have cider! Do you ever go outside when it's been snowing just so you can enjoy a hot drink more? I do sometimes, and my mother always scolds me. But she's not going to be allowed to when I'm married, so maybe I'll get to do it without being scolded this winter."

The cook puts the mushrooms aside.

"I'm more of a fan of coming in from the cold and then having the hot drink inside to warm up."

"But it's so hard to watch it snowing from inside!"

"That's never been a problem for me but I can see how it would be for someone as entranced by the snow as you."

"-oh you're not an empowered so I guess you can't see snowflakes properly. That's a shame, they're very pretty - I have some pictures I painted if you want to see?"

"I can see details on a snowflake if it holds still without melting for long enough, but I would love to see your paintings."

Sophie has a variety of extremely accurate oil paintings of individual snowflakes, as well as several others of cloudy skies with intricate, precise clouds and vague, almost abstract land below them.

"This one is from last June, and I really love it. Except in the corner I had to paint over a stain because I was trying to have lunch and paint at the same time because I hadn't seen such nice Cumulus humilis before and it was pretty windy so I didn't have much time."

"These are gorgeous!"

"The actual clouds were better."