A Magical Meal

“This is the Upended Goblet, what can I do you for?” 

Wren—no noblehouse, no last name—stared soullessly into the eyes of the latest customer to grace the tavern before it closed for the night.

“I’ll have one of them plates of meat potatoes, lad, and a frothing pint of bear!”

The moon was high, the roar of the main room quieted to the embers of laughter and soft conversation, the fiddler scraping lazily for a last few coins, and at this point Wren was ready to kick out the last few patrons and take up his own pint. “Right away.”

“Already there,” Lucia, one of the serving girls, proclaimed, plating up the last edible bits of meat and crispy taters.

Looked like he’d draw the pint, then. Taking up a tankard, he twisted the tap....

And a bare trickle came out, even when he upended the cask. Lovely. And when he checked for the spare that should be there, behold, no spare. Even lovelier. “Going down to get a new cask. Back in a mo’.”

Must’ve been Ripley overfilling them again. Should have been enough for the last pint by his estimations, he grumbled to himself as he snatched the lantern and descended into the cellar. These new tavern hands and their slipshod ways....

The lantern’s light outlined the big barrels stored between oak pillars as he set it on a little table, taking a smaller cask and twisting the tap. Fiery flickers shone off the flowing beer. A part of him was tempted to take a taste while down here, just for the last little while. Strength for wiping down the tables and all. But it’d add extra time, and customers frothing for a good drink to go with their plate didn’t pay as well if the drink was late.

Such was the life....

“Halloo there, my friend!”

An unexpected voice made him leap ten feet and nearly knock over the cask. What in the hells?! He twisted around to find an old man with an extremely long beard and a pointy hat standing in the cellar he could have sworn was empty just a moment ago.

Oh, this old codger. “Mr. Flynn. Still entering spaces without knocking?”

“A magician has no need of knocking,” said the old man, who also happened to be the tavern’s owner and unfortunately his boss, a grin full of missing teeth glinting at him.

Wren sighed. “What’s the issue?”

“Oh I just need someone for an emergency. You’ll do nicely, I believe! Hold still, this might be a tad unpleasant.”

“Hold on.” Wren took a step back as the man raised his hands and opened his mouth. “I’m taking an order, can’t it wait?”

“Just a bit for the nerrit—”

Eh?

“And be turned to a ferret!”

The world popped like a soap bubble. Wren abruptly found himself drowned under a mountain of rough wool-spun blanket on hands and knees with the distinct impression he’d somehow shrunk. Were those his clothes?

He struggled into the wavering light again to the booming laugh of a giant and shook a fuzzy head that felt a bit off. Blimey, the bleedin’ magician had become the size of a bloody house, and those were his old clothes. And why’d he feel like he’d been strung out like a towel?

He discovered why when he looked down to find himself in the body of some kind of rodent.

“OI! What in the hells’ve you done you blighter?! I’M A BLOODY RAT!”

“No, not a rat! A ferret!” The old man’s smile descended from the heavens, sending him scuttling back from the foul wave of breath that chuckled down like the stench of a moat’s bog. “And a talking one, at that! After all, I do know my spells, hurr hurr.”

“You can’t just change a man into a noble-lady’s purse-rat! Turn me back! I’ve got an order waiting upstairs and that cask’s about to spill over— give me back my bloody hands!”

“Oh, don’t worry.” With the snap of a gnarled finger, the tap shut off, the cask disappeared, and a startled eep! drifted down from the babble upstairs. “There, taken care of. Now we can get down to business!”

“What about the tables? What about closing up the tavern?” Wren aggressively strung himself up on his furry hind legs. “What about my bloody pint?! I manage your bloody tavern you grimy bleeder—”

“Not an issue, come along now!”

Before he could squeak, a hand snatched him up and with another snap of fingers they were outside. Outside and miles from the tavern, in the middle of the Magic Forest, from the look of the giant, now mountain-sized mushrooms springing all about. Glowing spores twinkled past his nose, flourescent mooncaps lighting up a winding trail like lanterns.

Wren took about two moments to notice that before ignoring it in favour of cursing his boss black and blue. If it wasn’t for the glove on the hand squeezing him, Flynn the Floovy would’ve found rat’s teeth gnawing his bones.

“Now now, calm down my ferretacious friend,” the old codger chuckled, glinting eyes shining in his face despite his best squirming efforts. “Have you forgotten the ledger you signed? You agreed to work for me in exchange for your decent pay, and a lovely roof over your head.”

“This ain’t the work I signed for!”

“Ah, but you did!” A scroll appeared in front of his face, snapping neatly into a crisp sheet with the seal he’d planted at the bottom. “See here, ‘I, Flynn the Fantastic, owner of The Upended Goblet, have the authority to set Wren, the employee, to whatever work I choose’. It’s quite simple, really!”

If he’d known, he wouldn’t have signed that cursed scroll. Curse his inability to read. “It doesn’t say anything about turning me into a ferret!”

“But it does, right here.” Flynn pointed to some tiny incomprehensible scribbles at the bottom. “‘Addendum: I, Flynn the Fantastic, owner of The Upended Goblet, also possess the right to apply magic to employees as I see fit’.”

And double-curse his inability to read fine print.

“Now that we’ve cleared that up, I shall give you your assignment. It’s all a bit of a rush, but this is an emergency. Believe me, I will return you to your bland and rather unimpressive state in due time, but I need you to retrieve a document for me first.” He strode along the path as he spoke, brushing past dew-stalks. “There’s a witch, you see, a newcomer to town, who plans to open her own tavern. I found out just today that she purchased the deed to a place in town, and plans to open some floogmanimous chic restaúrãntę by the name of ‘The Magical Meal’.”

The man’s scoff nearly jostled Wren’s liver into his spleen. “As if she plans to have fauns and cervitaurs skipping up to her door for tea parties! In any case, you must retrieve the deed for me and put a stop to her plans before she ensorcells everyone with her mini morsels.”

He abruptly found himself dropped, a warmly-lit cottage—the size of a castle to him—shining up ahead in a clearing. “Hold on—”

“Be quick, my little manager! If I don’t receive those deeds by moonset you will, unfortunately, remain a fidgety ferret forever!”

“You can’t do that!”

“It’s all in the scroll, my friend.” With a wink and a finger tapped against more unintelligible scribbles, the magician faded away.

Wren cursed him to the nine hells with an enraged ferret war-dance that didn’t do much except make him feel like an idiot when he caught himself in the act. Damn the magician! How was he meant to know where the bloody deed was, or get inside, or bring it back?

Hurdle number two he solved by finding a gap in the window his slinky ferret body managed to slip through. Which left hurdle number one, and hurdle number three.

Slinking around in a living space filled with scrolls and clutter and no way to tell if any of them were the deed since one scribble looked the same as another, he hopped from desk to chair to floor. A sniff at the cauldron in the room’s middle didn’t give him anything, didn’t know why he’d done that either, and a lot of aimless wandering around trying to beat back the paranoia that he’d be stepped on at any moment only left him tracing despairing circles.

What he’d give for a pint of beer and a pair of hands to hold it with....

A faint glitter through a doorway caught his eye as he skulked in the shadow of a cabinet, and he perked up. Something magical? Something deed-related? Anything useful?

He skipped into the room with his tiny feet and scuttled up the leg of a table sitting beside an armchair in front of the simmering fireplace before he knew what he was doing.

A scroll with the town mayor’s ribbon on it met him, and his heart skipped for joy, his blasted ferret body skipping with it. There was the damn deed and soon he’d be out of here. “A pint and hands to hold it with here I come! Take that, you soddy witch.”

With a ferret-sized cackle, he clamped his teeth around the scroll and—

“Now what’s this?”

A jar clinked neatly down on top of him.

“Soddy witch?” With one flick, he tumbled around the glass, dizzy vision rattling back into focus on a pair of purple eyes set in a face that might’ve been pleasant rather than terrifying if it was a bit smaller and he more of a normal size. “What a rude little rodent you are.”

“I’m not—” He stumbled back into a more upright position, hanging onto the scroll possessively. “This isn’t— it ain’t like that.”

Eyebrows the size of his tiny legs raised. “It looks like that to me.”

“I’m not stealing anything because I want to,” he defended himself. “I was snatched and turned into a ferret by my bloody boss. You’re not half as soddy as he is. Unless you’re planning on killing me.”

“I had a feeling old Flynn would try something like this,” she sighed, swaying the jar back and forth contemplatively. “I don’t know. I don’t really like pests inside. They’re a health hazard, you understand.”

“No wait—” He scrabbled for purchase against the glass, starting to feel seasick. How much air was in this jar? Was it him or was it getting harder to breathe? “Hold on I’m innocent! If I don’t give him this deed before the moon sets I’ll be stuck this way forever! He forced me to do it! All I signed up for was to manage his bloody tavern, but then he appears on me and comes up with this contract telling me he can do what he likes and I have to go along with it— Please you have to believe me it’s not my fault, I didn’t want to do any of this I swear—!”

“I’m sorry, did you say you manage his tavern?”

He stopped mid-beg, tiny furry flanks heaving. “Yes?”

“Hm.” Her eyes peered at him with a glint that didn’t look promising. “The Upended Goblet, you manage it?”

“Yes. I’ve been... managing it for three years, now.”

Why did the glint sharpen at that? “And what’s your name, if I may ask?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Wren.”

Slowly, a smile curved at the corners of her mouth, and he found himself unceremoniously dumped into her hand. “Tell you what, Wren—”

With a squawk and an explosion of feathers, he also found himself smooshed like a popped egg into an even smaller body.

“—I’ll give you your freedom and the deed if you can pass a little gauntlet of mine.”

Where’d his arm-legs gone? Why were there feathers?? He felt one step up from an ant, now— “Did you turn me into a BIRD?!”

“A wren.” She smirked. “It feels more fitting.”

Alright. He’d had it up to here with people playing bandy on his body. “Turn me the bloody froozle back you flea-bitten bit—”

The scenery changed. With a yelp, he crashed backwards, thudding onto a familiar tailbone, surrounded by sacks of flour. Normal-sized sacks of flour. Normal-sized room.

Wait— He patted at his face: nose, eyes, eyebrows, hair, faint stubble; hand. “Oh thank god.”

“Hm, you don’t look old enough to be a manager.”

He looked up to find the critical eyes of his saviour watching him. And also realised his lack of covering—apart from a convenient flour sack in his lap—a moment later.

“Hells!” Scrambling to find something a bit more substantial, he was saved from complete humiliation by a set of clothing materialising on his skin with the snap of a slender finger. “...Thanks.”

“No trouble.” Her eyebrows rose. “How old are you, then?”

Passing a hand over his face, he levered himself to his feet, brushing down this new, surprisingly comfortable outfit and tugging at his collar with a frown. “Well I— used to work in my dad’s inn before I moved to town, and... why am I wearing an apron?”

“Well, my teenage prodigy, I promised you a gauntlet.”

“I am twenty-one summers.” He scowled. “Tavern policy is to shave to avoid beard hairs in soup. Mandated by her ladyship the Dragon-Duchess of Flurry after she visited an inn in Montgin, found a beard hair in her soup, and beheaded the owners and burned the place down as an example. I like my head where it damn well is.”

“Hm, I suppose a beard might help you.” She put a thoughtful hand to her chin. Damn her. He didn’t look that young. “But you’re right, we wouldn’t want anything unsavoury in the food.”

“’We’?”

She smirked faintly, and a gaggle of high voices in the distance caught his attention. Holding out the scroll, she adjusted a pair of spectacles. “Your first trial is approaching. Complete all three to my satisfaction, and you’ll have this deed.”

He turned, bracing himself for an army of goblins, or something else that would probably kill him before he could take a step. Whatever this gauntlet was, he just had to survive—

A group of chattering nymphs swanned through the doorway. They also happened to be very naked.

“Hello Mr. Manager! Your new tavern maids, at your service!” All three flourished curtsies with very imaginary skirts.

This had been a very weird day. All he wanted was just a pint. Just a simple pint, that was all he could ask for, he thought as he pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Maids?”

“Come, tavern manager, there are two-score patrons in the hall, all hungry and thirsty. One can’t get distracted, now. Or you’ll risk losing good coin,” the witch’s sly voice came in his burning red ear. “A good manager has to be focused at all times, no matter the situation.”

A group of giggling naked nymphs in his kitchen didn’t exactly count as a normal scenario. “You really are a wicked witch, damn woman.”

“Mr. Manager? What should we do?”

Taking a deep breath, he uncovered his eyes and cast around for something—maybe the flour sacks?—and landed on some aprons hanging neatly across the room. In an instant, he snatched them up and threw them at the nymphs. “These! Put these on. And you, more greenish one—”

He pointed at one of them, now... mostly covered, at least from the front. “You can take orders in the hall. And you, pink-red, if the wheeling dog’s not turning spits already then set it running. Can anyone tell me what dishes we’re serving?”

“These, sir!” The blue one he hadn’t set to a job whipped a sheet of papyrus from somewhere with unintelligible swooping lines that were probably mostly-understandable fancy letters in a noble’s world.

He squinted at it and tossed the paper away. “Tell me what they are and don’t bother giving those to the customers. Ain’t nobody know how to read unless he’s rich enough.”

Gilded sheets of beautifully-scribed paper in the hall mysteriously poofed in the face of the illiterate masses.

Wren sent a flat look over his shoulder at the witch. “Did you really think all your customers would know how to read?”

She shrugged. “The wizardly witch community is very literate. I may forget. Though you might find it useful if you could read.”

“I’ve managed things this long without your fancy scribbles driving me blind.” He snapped his fingers at the nymph. “Blue. What are we making here?”

“Uh, ah. Sapphire, actually.” She tapped her fingers together, big luminescent eyes blinking at him. Just had to forget she wasn’t really fully clothed. Come on, idiot, don’t let the long night get to you. “And, well, there’s the roasts. We have three chickens on the spit, two ducks, and two hogs. And there’s a pan of tatoes in the oven, a mushroom stew, and a pot of noodles—”

“That ain’t enough.” Peeling his mind up off the floor and to attention, Wren frowned. “Get more poultry on the spit, as many as they’ll hold. I’d prep another hog too with this crowd out there. How much bread do we have?”

It turned out that what they lacked in sufficient preparation, they made up for with nymph powers of speed and magical multitasking. Surprisingly efficient at their duties for temptation personified, too. With the exception of a couple “accidental” brushes and sultry looks he knew were deliberate, and dutifully ignored.

In barely a few moments he had his kitchen running as steadily as the little dog turning the spit over the roomy fireplace in the common hall, Emerald flirting with the entire male population as she flitted around, Coral taking care of the roast-carving, Sapphire on the soups and stew. As for himself, he churned out the ales and beers, along with some kind of spiced milk drink that was especially popular with the naiads and dryads.

No customers walked out the door. Once he got the alcohol flowing they didn’t care how long it took his naked-nymph army, and he could toss flagons out in the space of a few heartbeats as easy as breathing. He’d manned the drinks since he was a boy, a two-score crowd was nothing.

The chatter filled the room, the praise flowed, and he found a witch considering him thoughtfully from the doorway as he smirked at her, sliding over another pint to yet another patron along with his roast platter. “Not much of a trial.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Unfortunately, we’ve just run out of beer and ale.”

With a casual snap of her fingers, the taps immediately gave a dusty gasp and stopped flowing. His smile disappeared instantly with it.

“Dammit—” Of all the things— Throwing out a practiced smile, he waved down the sudden wave of clamouring customers and made for the cellar, calling to Emerald as he passed, “Keep the food coming, and an eye on that milk! If they ask for pints tell ‘em I’ll be back in a mo’!”

Practically dashing down the stairs, cursing witches, sadistic trials, and his own damned tongue, he snatched a replacement cask and wrung the tap on one of the big barrels.

Nothing came out.

“What in the hells—?” He knocked experimentally at the wood, only to find a tavern manager’s worst nightmare echoing emptily back at him. “Who the bloody hells runs completely out of drink?!”

“It could happen,” the witch’s voice floated from the doorway.

He glared at her, and she shrugged. Well dammitall. “Where’s the closest brewery?”

“Just down the street.”

Brushing past her, he took the steps back up two at a time, instructing the girls to hold down the fort as he ransacked the coinpurse and double-timed his way out. He practically sprinted down the cobblestone street, hunting for the familiar sign of a brewery in the lamp-lit dark.

Please still be open. By all things pure, please still be open.

There on the street, down at the end, Wren skidded to a stop in front of the familiar sign, just about beating down the heavy oak door in his haste.

A pair of startled eyes met him past the plethora of barrels as he stumbled in, panting raggedly. “I need... two barrels. Ale and beer. Urgently. Tavern’s run out.”

“Well do calm down,” the old lady said smoothly, sliding forwards and peering at him with beady eyes over a pair of tiny spectacles. “You look terribly overworked, dear.”

“It’s a busy night.” He straightened, still breathing heavily, and fished out his sack of coin. “‘Bout a score in there, should cover your trouble if you’ll give me a cart to take them out in—”

“Of course of course, deary, but why don’t you sit first?” She dragged him over to a chair before he knew what was going on, plonking him unceremoniously down. “You look like you need a pint yourself! I’m sure those drinkers have had plenty already. They can last for a moment while you catch your breath, hmmmm?”

“I—” He barely opened his mouth before she’d whipped a flagon through the golden waterfalls of beer, that’d somehow materialised between one blink and the next raining from the heavens and flowing in streams across a mossy floor he was pretty sure hadn’t been in a forest just a moment ago.

He stared dumbly at the perfectly frothy brew, as good a one as he’d ever seen. The birds twittered dreamily and mysterious sunshine slid like warm butter over his back, whispering of the taste of a perfect, crisp mouthful flowing over a parched tongue. Said tongue slipped over lips that hadn’t felt this cracked and dry just a moment ago.

“I need to get back,” he tried, unable to tear his eyes away. “I’ll take a pint after.”

“But this is the nectar of the gods. The kind of beer that only the mystics shall ever taste upon their tongues.” It inched invitingly closer with the soft sibilance of every word, and he could’ve sworn that in the corner of his magnetised eyes her skin had gone strangely scaly. “It would be a shame to miss out. Just one, to send you on your way.”

Just... one pint. He could down it in an instant, and then be off.

As if of its own accord, his hand rose, reaching out to curl around the sorely-missed shape of the flagon. After all, having served so many tonight without time for a single drop, didn’t he deserve this?

Hold on, twit, aren’t you forgetting something? He frowned into the gloriously frothy depths, hesitating. Just a mo’... he’d been dragged into a magical brewery that’d turned out to be a forest, after the witch had sent him off on a goose’s errand, and was now being tempted by a suspiciously kind old lady to drink a pint of the good stuff while this trial was going on....

He took a closer look, and a tiny little mouth with beady eyes and long fangs slithered up out of the froth.

“Damn frothing hells!” Snapping back, he dropped the pint, scrambling away as the flagon spilled golden snakes and liquid all over the floor, a pile of scales boiling past his feet into the ale river. “Are you trying to kill me, woman?!”

Woman might’ve been the wrong word to use, seeing how he found himself face to face with a giant snake. The only thing familiar were the tiny glasses.

He gave a very manly yelp and slugged it in the nose.

The snake of course didn’t really like that. Time to get the hells out of there, he decided. Promptly making like a rabbit, he hared into the forest, stumbling over mushrooms unfurling before his eyes ahead of fangs that missed him by a whisker and sank into a tree instead.

“Merry hells. Merry hells, merry hells and a derry bell—“ He slipped down a gully and scrambled up the other side, panting desperately as he dashed madly into the thick of brambles and mushroom trees until the light began to leach out of the sun and he stumbled through shadows instead. Where’d the bloody brewery gone? Where was he supposed to get the barrels from if the lady who ran the place had turned into a giant snake slithering after him?

Staggering out of the scratchy bushes and squelching an unfortunate fungus, he found the answer sitting in a clearing lit by a moonshaft. And a certain witch sitting on top of the barrels secured on a cart, leg crossed casually over knee.

A glinting purple-eyed smile met him, slender fingers pulling the brim of her pointy hat low. “It seems you made it after all. Well done.”

In lieu of answering, he gasped for breath, hands on knees.

“Unfortunately, it looks like we don’t have a horse.” She swung a lazy look to the empty harness. “And Mrs. Nagini is still after you.”

“Oh gods,” he wheezed, twisting to look over his shoulder and finding the beast’s beady eyes serpentining over all the brush he’d had to crash through, mouth open wide. “I’m about to die.”

“Not if you pull the cart fast enough.” Her hand lifted and he immediately felt existential dread draw curtains around his head. “I think this cart could do with a giant winged weasel, hm?”

He helplessly watched her fingers snap through taut eyes and braced himself. “It was a ferret—”

Unfortunately, giant weasel with clothes magicked away and wildly fluttering wings it was. And yes, growing instead of shrinking was a tad more unpleasant, for whatever reason.

“Oh, yes, sorry, ferret.” Her fingers snapped again just as he caught his choked breath.

RGghGH

“PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP CHANGING YOUR BLOODY MIND,” he cried, rippling his poor battered form forward for the harness instead of dwelling on minute changes that somehow felt obscenely worse to endure than being suddenly turned into an entirely different creature.

He slipped in just ahead of the snake, harness snapping magically around him as he dashed in a mad skip along the mossy trail, wings beating frantically.

Something caught at the cart for just a moment, sending them careening wildly. He chittered like an enraged teakettle, a whooping laugh spurring him on behind, and—with no idea what he was doing—launched into the air like the rattier cousin of a deranged pegasus.

“Well well! You can fly as well as pour drinks for a crowd!”

He snorted smoke, throwing a burning glare back at her as they undulated wildly above the trees away from the vengeful hiss of a giant serpent lady, heading for the lights of a town that had somehow moved a mile away.

“Oh don’t give me that look.” She tilted over, smiling at him. “Wasn’t it a rush?”

“Don’t tempt me,” he said, “to add murder to the list of things I can do.”

“Somehow I doubt you’d have the backbone for that....”

“Any man can have a backbone when you get between him, and his bloody pint.”

“Duly noted.” She nodded down to the lamplights flickering in the tiny streets below, the smell of woodsmoke and roasting food wafting up on the chilly breeze rushing over his fur. “If you’d like one that badly then we’d best land.”

He didn’t have a clue how to, but with a bump and a lot of wild fluttering he managed to get it down without crashing the cart and spilling his precious cargo everywhere.

Now he just needed hands to roll the barrels over and pour their contents down the pipes to the cellar holdings.

The witch graciously popped him back to his normal form while he was in the middle of attempting to figure out how to unharness himself, and he nearly fell flat on his face as he abruptly shrank. At least he found himself clothed this time.

“I hate every last one of you bloody magic-snapping folk,” he groaned as he staggered away the disorientation to unload the barrels and roll them over. His shoulderblades had decided to take up random twinges for wings that weren’t there anymore, now. “Damn every last one of you.”

“Hm, that’s not very kind. But understandable.”

The trial of setting up the casks and getting the drink flowing again wasn’t quite as bad as being chased through a nightmare by a snake, but by the time his hands found the rhythm of pouring it to the parched hordes he couldn’t help feeling just a bit dead inside. Maybe it was watching the golden beer pour into flagons only to be whisked away before he could even dream of tasting it.

When does this gauntlet end?

A cacophony in the hall dragged his weary eyes away from drinks-pouring for a trio of elm dryads and a faun. Only to find himself staring at shiny scales.

For half a moment his heart escaped his chest as his mind filled in a snake, until his eyes belatedly caught onto the three dragon heads and the scarf with the duchy’s crest emblazoned on it. Not the snake. Thank gods not the snake.

Oh hells the Dragon-Duchess of Flurry had just walked in the door.

The flagon he was pouring quietly spilled over as her massive scaly feet stalked up to the bar and his head craned ever upward to follow her three heads descending from the ceiling. Three sets of eyes peered at him judgementally.

“I would like a bowl of soup,” she pronounced with perfect, brutal diction.

And now his heart was palpitating in his ribcage, screaming at the bars of its cage. “Your Ladyship, we have mushroom soup topped with noodles and a crispy buttered loaf on the side. How— how does that sound.”

“Glorious. Now give it to me promptly.” She turned like the behemoth she was and made for the dragon-sized table in the middle of the room, eyes glowing ominously. “And without any hairs or other pollutants in it.”

This wasn’t a gauntlet, this was all his nightmares coming to life one after the other. Apart from the naked nymph girls, maybe.

“Sapphire,” he called, belatedly cleaning off the flagon and scowling at the golden puddle—of beer—on the floor, “order of soup. And make sure there are no hairs.”

“Coming right up!”

The blue nymph worked her magic, and Emerald skipped out of the kitchen a moment later, on her merry way to serve the Duchess, tray in hand, soup bowl steaming, butter melting on crunchy bread—

A single feather sticking up on the edge, small, brown; innocent. Damning.

Oh hells no. Wren’s life flashed before his eyes, the stream of beer flowing glacially slow, as if caught in time, like he was caught in helplessly watching each sashaying footfall carry that bowl to three pairs of smouldering mouths.

He dropped everything and vaulted over the bench, flagon in hand, spilling not a drop.

Intercepting just as the green nymph cheerfully and obliviously set down the soup bowl, he threw himself across the table, shielding it from view, flagon held up aggressively. “Your ladyship! Would you like some ale with that?”

Six eyes bore down on him, nostrils flaring hot steam. “What is the meaning of this, boy? I would like my soup, not some peasant’s foul drink. Move aside.”

“Maybe some spiced milk then, your ladyship?” He inched back, plucking the feather from the soup, hoping his waving of the flagon in her face was enough to distract her without getting his head bitten off.

“No. I. Want. My. Soup.” A dehydrating wind rolled over him with every word.

“Of course. Yes. So sorry.” Dropping the feather to the floor, he climbed fully back to his feet, throwing out what he hoped was a charming smile. “Enjoy your clean, creamy mushroom soup, your ladyship.”

“What was that.” Her eyes pinned him.

“What... was what, your ladyship?”

“You just dropped something.” One head wound around behind him, fixing on the floor. “Is that a feather?”

His foot stepped neatly back onto it. “Feather? Oh, uh, you see, my... boss has a bad habit of keeping birds around. Bound to be one or two on the floor, your ladyship.”

“It had soup residue on it.” All six eyes pinned him. “Was that feather in my soup?”

“No idea what you’re talking about, my ladyship. There are no feathers in our soups.”

“Then what,” she thundered, plucking another—how in the hells had that got there?!—from its depths, “is this? Your establishment is filthy! Do you plan to poison me?! For this I shall kill you and burn your nasty tavern down!”

“No please!” He got down on hands and knees, doom winding above him to snap down. “Please your ladyship! We can give you a new bowl! Two! Free!”

“I’m afraid that isn’t good enough.”

The middle head snapped down.

His world went black.

He snapped up from the floor clutching his thundering heart and slicked in sweat like a horse that’d galloped for a hundred miles. Oh gods.

No customers met him, the fireplace unlit, the room smelling like dust and old, spilled beer and ale. It was still there, he was still alive, unless this was one of the hells. It might be, if the witch standing next to him holding a bobbing wisp to light up the room was any indication.

“Unfortunately, although you gave it a very good effort, you failed.”

“That was rigged,” he panted. “Where the bloody hells did those damn feathers come from? A maid would’ve noticed. I could’ve pulled her up first.”

“You still failed.” The deed snapped into her hand. “And so, unfortunately, I can’t give you this.”

All of a sudden, his skin itched like a thousand lice had crawled into his clothing, and he began to shrink. Oh gods no. “Don’t! Don’t send me back! Please, I’ll do anything!”

“...Anything?”

He got on what remained of his knees and clasped his slowly-deflating hands. “Anything.”

“Hm.” She suddenly smiled, and the itching stopped, his body snapping back into its real form. “What about working for me, instead?”

He blinked dizzily. “What?”

“Unlike that old man, I offer employee protections, holiday pay, and free health benefits.” She snapped out a gilded scroll. “And should you sign it, no wanton magic applied to you unless you agree to it. No unexpected side jobs or anything other than the manager role, either.”

Wait.... “Was this a... a test of me as a manager?”

“Well, I do happen to need one. It seems you fell straight into my lap.”

Slowly, he climbed up from his knees, staring from her to the scroll in utter disbelief. “No wanton magic? Good pay?”

“It’s all here.” She tapped the scroll with an inked quill, and it immediately buffeted him over the head with the words he couldn’t read, beamed directly into his skull. Hot damn she wasn’t lying. “So—?”

He snatched the quill and signed the only word he knew how to spell, his name, right on the line. “This or turned into a ferret forever? Woman, you had me at employee protection.”

“Then it’s settled.” She smiled widely, snapping her fingers, and the room’s lanterns lit up all at once, a cask appearing on the table next to them. “Now, how would you feel about a celebratory pint on this fine eve of The Magical Meal’s opening?”

“Are you bloody joking?” He took a foaming flagon from her hand, no snakes in it this time, and tossed it down the hatch. A pint had never tasted better.

With a smile, Wren lifted it to her health. “You have my undying loyalty, witch.”