Montgomery Plum stirred a giant pot of Brunswick stew with a wrench, sneering at the lumps of meat and beans as though they had offended him in some way.

As long as the wrench is clean, I don’t really care. Tobias sighed and deposited a stack of dirty plates on the kitchen window ledge. Since Monty started life as a mechanic, it only seemed fitting that some of his old life’s tools had made their way into his new life as head chef of the Emberstone Tavern.

Tobias leaned heavily on his cane and surveyed the bustling central hall of the tavern. Busier than normal today. Word from the ways told of a new trade festival in the Sixth World, which could be the draw.

The plates rattled as Monty gathered them from the window.

“Tobias.” He nodded gruffly.

“Monty.”

The gray-bearded mechanic-chef glanced into the central hall. “Still full?”

“Word has gotten out about your famous baba ghanoush.” Tobias smirked.

Monty rolled his eyes. “The only way those purple vegetables are edible is if you cover their taste up with—”

Tobias lifted his eyebrows, waiting for Monty to finish, but he didn’t. Tobias turned back to the window and scowled. Monty had vanished.

“Monty?” Tobias leaned against the window ledge. “Monty?”

“Shhhh!” Monty hissed from somewhere below the window ledge. “She’ll hear you!”

“Monty, what in the twelve worlds?”

Monty’s head popped up briefly. “I was never here. You don’t know me. And you wouldn’t know where to find me if you did.” He ducked below the window again.

Tobias scowled at his long-time friend. Then, a sudden hush fell over the boisterous crowds in the central hall. He glanced toward the tables surrounding the shimmering emberstone at the heart of the tavern.

A woman, regal as a queen, stood in the entryway. Her nose was lifted in the air, her hands clasped a folded parasol, and a velvet top hat sat pinned in place on her perfectly coiffed gray hair. A layer of lace trimmed her blue corset, and her long skirts rustled like a basket of angry rattlesnakes. She scanned the room with a severe frown, her eyes dark behind round golden lenses.

The whole room gawked at her.

She radiated class and sophistication—neither qualities the Emberstone Tavern saw often.

Her eyes fell on Tobias.

He gulped for air as the woman zeroed in on him and glided forward, swinging her parasol like a sword she would use to eviscerate him.

“Are you the owner of this establishment?” Her boots clicked stickily on the grimy floorboards. She lifted her nose a bit higher and wrinkled it in distaste.

“Yes, ma’am.” Tobias tipped his broad-brimmed hat. “Welcome to the Emberstone, How can I help you?”

The woman poked the sharp prong of her parasol into Tobias’s chest. “You can help me find someone.” Poke, poke, poke. “A scoundrel named Montgomery Plum.”

Tobias swallowed, his throat dry. He’d never been good at lying, which, until this moment, he’d always considered a point in his favor.

What could Monty have to do with a woman like this anyway? Tobias eyed the ivory broach at her throat collar and the silver filigree on the brim of her top hat.

“He’s a prevaricating, manipulative, virtueless rapscallion, and I’ll see him hanged for his indiscretions!” She dug the sharp end of her parasol into Tobias’s leather vest with every word.

She took a shuddering breath and released a pathetic whimper, covering her eyes with a hand gloved in lace. “He has used me ill, good sir!”

Monty? Tobias arched his eyebrows. Maybe there are two Montgomery Plums. There are many worlds, after all.

Tobias pulled his hat off and turned it in his hands. “Ma’am, I’m not sure how I can help you.” He offered her the handkerchief from his vest pocket.

She blinked at it and turned her nose up with a sneer. She pulled her own handkerchief out of her corset. “You can tell me where you’re hiding him.” She narrowed her eyes viciously. “I know he came to work here.”

Tobias stiffened.

“Every airship pilot and freighter captain who travels the Ways talks about the Emberstone in the Veil and its chef who makes exquisite baba ghanoush.”

“How does that prove your friend is here?”

“He’s not my friend.” The woman stomped her foot. “He’s my husband!”

Tobias clutched the brim of his hat. “Your husband?”

“He went to run errands and didn’t come back!” The woman’s voice became a high-pitched shriek. “That was ten months ago!”

I don’t quite blame him. Tobias twitched.

“And he stole my best Lebanese cookbook!”

The kitchen door burst open, and Montgomery Plum thundered into view like a hurricane, apron stained with tomato sauce and gloves smelling of garlic.

“Philomena!” He roared. “That’s enough!”

The woman—Philomena apparently—dropped her parasol and clutched her hands to her collar. “Montgomery.” She sighed. “I’m so happy to see you!” She flung herself at him and burst into loud tears.

Montgomery’s eye twitched, and he awkwardly patted the bawling woman’s back. He glanced around the hall slowly. Everyone in the tavern was staring at them.

“Let’s talk in the kitchen.” He released her, but she didn’t let go of him, still sobbing loudly into his tomato-stained apron.

He groaned and dragged her back into the kitchen.

Tobias opened and shut his mouth, trying to process what had just happened. The warmth of a giant cat wrapped around his ankles, and he bent down to scratch Bast’s huge head. The cat looked at him and then at the kitchen, where two raised voices had begun an impressive argument about baba ghanoush.

Bast snarled and hissed, and Tobias chuckled.

“My thoughts exactly, old friend.”