Marcus & Charlotte

"Huh?" Marcus asked. Charlotte analyzed Anmarie as if she were a particularly detailed painting. Anmarie took a step back, which only led to Charlotte taking a step forward, still dripping with the remains of the apparating soup. "Here," Salvatore grunted, throwing towels to Marcus and Charlotte. "Dry yourselves off! I don't need suspicious soup all over my kitchen." He turned to Dante. "What was that anyway?" he asked. Dante grinned. "Apparating soup. It lets you pluck anyone you want out of whatever space they happen to be in." "Without their permission?" Anmarie asked, horrified. "Do I look like I want to be here?" Marcus complained, rubbing his head with the towel. Dante shrugged. "You have to get the soup just right," he said. Anmarie furrowed her brow. Salvatore cleared his throat. "If you kids have gotten the soup off yourselves, I think you should take this little circus somewhere else." "Ah, not interested?" Dante asked him. "No, I'm not interested," Salvatore said. "First you make a soup out of a bunch of random ingredients, then you forcibly summon people with it? I don't even care if it's real magic. Whatever it is you've got going on, get it out of my restaurant!" The other cooks nodded in agreement behind him. "Let's go to my apartment," Anmarie said.

"How cute!" Charlotte said when the homunculus greeted them at the door. A shudder went down Anmarie's spine. That thing still creeped her out, waddling about on its gingerbread nubs. Charlotte had gotten it to chase her finger around. "By the way," Anmarie asked, "is this thing useful for something?" Dante chuckled. "Not really," he said, "but it's a good cure for loneliness!" "What would happen if I ate it?" Anmarie asked acerbically. "You probably shouldn't," Dante said quickly. "Anyway," he said to Marcus and Charlotte, "you should tell her about yourselves." Charlotte stopped leading the gingerbread homunculus and stood up. She cleared her throat. "My name is Charlotte de Beurre. I have been studying the magical culinary arts for three years at the behest of my father, one of Mr. Flambé's prior students." "And?" Anmarie prompted, taken aback by the seemingly memorized introduction. "I just like the cooking," Charlotte said. "My dad was pretty good at the magic part, but I don't really get the appeal." "The magic is the entire point!" Marcus exclaimed, clearly agitated. "And you," he said, accusingly pointing at Anmarie, "how dare you use these arts in such an irresponsible way!" "Oh? So how did you find out about it?" Anmarie retorted. Dante cleared his throat. "He's my grandnephew," he said. "My sister made sure Marcus's father enrolled in the school while it still stood and that's where he met Marcus's mother, so he's got pretty strong ties to the whole thing." "Let me speak for myself, old man!" Marcus huffed. "He is a bit of a brat, though," Dante mumbled to Anmarie. "While the school still stood?" Anmarie prompted. "Er," Dante said, "there was a bit of an incident. A few people died. None of my students, of course." He chuckled, then frowned. "A very complicated matter, that was."