"I'm standing on the stone steps outside Duke Malakoff's manor in Charmant Valley in Labrusca."

Julienne drank the vanilla elixir that had been given to him by Neccio. The mixture soothed his belly as it joined the previous night's medicine. The elixir had worked wonders for most of the day, but Julienne's acid reflux always came back with a vengeance by nightfall. He wasn't sure if it was worse than ever or if he had just gotten used to the brief reprieves. Either way, he didn't want to risk his stomach's vengeance out in the valley, so he doubled his regular dosage.

The bell rang, signaling the departure of the second group. Julienne jumped at the sound and watched a pair of truffle hunters lead their dog down into the morning fog of the valley. A breeze followed them, shaking dew from the branches of the birch trees. Julienne stared out into the bowl of the valley, trying to memorize its features.

Trees covered nearly everything between the mountains, rolling hills pushing lumps into the green carpet. Clearings of yellow grass popped up at the top of the highest hills, and a river cut the valley in half. Looking down from the manor, it seemed as if the valley could be cleared in hours. But Julienne knew how easy it would be to get lost for days. There was no insight to be found in the depths of the valley, so he studied the differences in the surrounding mountains so that he might keep his directions when he couldn't find the sun.

"You okay?" Yarrow asked. His hair caught the sunrise, glowing golden bronze.

"Nervous. Two sponsors outbid us."

"Your uncle is gonna raise his prices when he finds out some restaurant is making more gold than ours."

"It's not that. It's…why did they outbid us? Surely my uncle raised it to a price that it wouldn't be worth it."

"Things are worth as much as people are willing to pay for them."

"I get the feeling it's not about gold. Those first two sponsors wouldn't make up their losses. They did it to keep us from it."

"Maybe they just have something they need it for."

"Maybe we do. They never told me what our plan was for the truffle." Julienne sighed. "I just have the feeling that this is a bigger deal than we were led to believe."

"Don't be nervous." Figgal said. "They're truffle hunters. Their magic is a crutch. Me? I'm a Charmant truffle hunter. This is what I do. Just stick to the plan."

Moondrop laid at his feet, eyes locked onto the valley below. Even the dog knew it was time for business. He ducked his head away when Mindy tried to cope with her nervousness by petting him.

"Is walking in a triangle really a plan?" Yarrow asked.

"Yes. Mindy walks in front. I'll whistle when we change direction. Julienne back left, Yarrow back right. As far away as you can while maintaining sightlines on me and Moondrop in the middle."

"We'll all be isolated. How is that safe?"

"It's not your safety you need to be concerned with. It's Moondrop's. A hunter hasn't killed another hunter in almost ten years, but there have been thirty dead dogs in as much time. We lose Moondrop, we lose. That's it."

Julienne looked at the little dog and couldn't imagine what kind of monster would hurt him. They had already avoided one scare. Three of the dogs had been poisoned their first night. Luckily, none had died, but one hadn't recovered enough in time for the hunt. Figgal had slept in the servant's quarters to keep an eye on Moondrop.

They waited in nervous silence for their turn. Julienne fidgeted with the rolled up blanket strapped around his back and filled his waterskin to the very, very top.

"Figgal," the guard announced. "You may enter the valley. Good luck."

"Don't need it," Figgal said with sincerity.

They walked as a group down the stone steps until it became a dirt path then walked until the dirt path became nothing but wilderness. The bell sounded overhead.

"Keep sightlines," Figgal commanded. "Yell if you see something."

Mindy walked ahead as Julienne and Yarrow walked to either side. They didn't need to walk far to lose sight of each other. The fog still lingered below the branches of birches and beeches, and the sun hid behind a mountain, leaving them in the dim of early morning.

Julienne stayed an extra step closer to Figgal than he needed to. They needed to worry more about getting separated than they did someone sneaking up on them. Once the rest of the hunters entered the valley, that would change. He pushed the sheathed knife against his leg to remind himself it was there. He hoped he wouldn't have to use it.

Moondrop was let off his leash but stayed focused, stopping to sniff every once in a while but mostly just heading deeper into the valley. Julienne wondered what the record was for the fastest hunt. It would have been great to have found the truffle just down the steps. But if that were the case, one of the other two hunters would have found it first. He peered downhill to try to spot them, but couldn't even see far enough to track Mindy.

Most of the lower branches had been trimmed away, making it easy for the group to cover ground. But while the fog couldn't escape the leafy canopy, the heat managed to find its way down through it, mixing in with the humidity. The next bell rang around the time Julienne had to wipe the sweat off his brow with his sleeve. They had opted for more camouflaged colors of green and brown and tan. Their yellow and orange jackets would have let even the duke track them from high up in his manor.

Just the thought of the duke made Julienne clench his jaw. The man had worn Julienne down over their three nights together. Julienne must have heard the term "sole ownership" a hundred times. He had never met such a self-serving man. Fortunately, outside of the nightly feasts, there was little socializing at the duke's manor. A few hunters were friendly with each other but never to Figgal. The duke offered tours each day of his extravagant manor, but Julienne's team spent most of their days in an isolated lounge reading old recipe books from the duke's expansive collection. Yarrow tore a few pages out of some when he thought no one was looking.

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Figgal's whistle brought Julienne's focus back to the task at hand. He watched Figgal and waited for a change of direction, but the truffle hunter had stopped moving entirely, looking around. He gave Julienne an unenthusiastic thumbs up. Julienne looked around, confirmed no one was around, and shot a thumbs up back.

Figgal did the same in the direction of the other two, then bent down and pulled the sack off his back. He pointed at a spot in the dirt for Moondrop to dig up, put something from his bag into the hole, and covered it back up. He whistled, pointed, and started moving again. Julienne laughed. Decoy truffles. He hung back until he was back on the flank of the triangle. The fog had lifted, but the heat continued to beat them down.

They kept hiking, the bell kept tolling, Julienne kept sweating, and Figgal kept planting truffles. He seemed less preoccupied with finding the truffle than he did with distracting the other teams. Julienne remembered the layout of the valley well enough to know that they were sticking to the outside. Julienne counted time by the bells. They marched for three hours before Figgal whistled and ushered them in for a break.

"Everyone doing okay?" Figgal asked as he poured water in a shallow bowl and set it down for Moondrop.

"I'm good," Yarrow said.

"Yeah," Mindy breathed out. The humidity and sweat had curled her errant hairs. Her disheveled look somehow enhanced her beauty rather than diminishing it. "Haven't walked this much…ever?"

Figgal laughed. "Well, we'll probably be at it until dark and then some. Sit. Rest your legs. How about you, Julienne?"

"I'm good. Moondrop need a break?"

"Nah, it's all of you that need the break. If we catch a scent, we'll move fast. Need you guys fresh and ready. Moondrop's fine. I haven't even been working him, really."

"So we're just going around to distract people? What if someone finds the truffle?"

"This early?" Figgal shrugged. "You can't beat luck. And I'll let you in on a little secret. Moondrop here isn't any better at sniffing out truffles than the rest of them."

"Then how have you won three years in a row?"

Figgal scratched Moondrop's ear, producing a little moan from the dog. "He smells dogs better than truffles. He got all of their scents back at the manor. We let them roam around for a few hours. Moondrop knows where they've been, and we know that anywhere they've been is somewhere that doesn't have a truffle. We move through the gaps while everyone else runs around in someone else's shadow."

"Smart." Julienne took a swig from his waterskin.

"You gotta be in this world if you're not a Chef." Figgal grinned. "If I had manifested, I probably woulda stayed stupid and amounted to nothing. Only little Olive can manage with such deficiencies."

Julienne nearly spat out his drink. He coughed and laughed as the water went down the wrong hole. The bell tolled again as everyone caught their breath.

"That's almost all of them," Figgal said. "Time to cut in. Stay sharp. Listen for whistles."

They moved with the sun at their back. Before, their changes of direction had been sharp and infrequent, but now they pivoted at the call of a sharp whistle nearly every minute, barely changing their direction each time. Moondrop's nose swept back and forth across the ground, stopping at the roots of some trees for a closer inspection.

The further they went into the valley, the denser the trees grew. Julienne had to move in closer to keep an eye on Figgal, and even then, he lost him for seconds at a time. Eventually, the bell stopped ringing. Everyone was in play. Everyone was a threat.

A branch snapped from somewhere behind Julienne.

He spun around to look. Nothing. At least, that's what he thought. He couldn't be sure. The foliage had grown too thick. Someone could have been within fifty feet and he wouldn't know it. A cold chill went up his spine to meet the sweat on the back of his neck.

Figgal whispered something, and Julienne turned back, but the truffle hunter was nowhere to be seen. Another branch cracked behind Julienne. Too afraid to turn around, he charged forward toward where he had heard the whistle, finding Figgal before even reaching a sprint. Julienne laughed at himself and wiped his sweaty forearms against his waist. The heat was cooking him as well as his nerves. He wanted a break, but let Figgal lead the pace.

The next break came when the sweat from Julienne's neck started to connect to the sweat from his armpits. He never knew he could sweat so much. His shirt was plastered to his back, his socks were damp, and his throat was dry no matter how much he drank.

Mindy was hanging in there, but Yarrow was running on fumes. Exhaustion colored his face red and his eyes sank with fatigue.

"You good?" Julienne asked him.

"I grew up in the cold. I can't…" Yarrow took a heaving breath and sat against a tree, covering his face from the little bits of sun that managed to slip through the canopy.

Figgal pulled a loaf of bread and a white disk of brie from his bag. "Eat up. We'll take another break when it gets dark."

"And then what?"

"And then we keep looking. As long as Moondrop is good, we're going. If you can't handle that, go back up to the manor."

"I'm good," Julienne said.

"Me too," Yarrow and Mindy said in unison.

"Good. These truffles tend to grow in the same spots over the years. We're coming up on some spots from decades ago. The truffle might've regrown by now."

Figgal tore off a piece of bread and tossed it to Julienne. But eating made Julienne thirsty, and he was down to his last of three waterskins. "I'm running out of water. Can we find that river?"

Figgal grimaced. "Don't spend much time in the wild, do you?"

Julienne would have laughed if he had the energy. "No."

"Everything's gotta drink. Predator's gotta eat. Easiest place for a hunt to start is near water. We go there, we get tracked."

"I can manage with what I have. What about you guys?" Julienne asked Yarrow and Mindy. They looked back with concern.

"Eh, we'll stop," Figgal said. "We can get to the river by dark. Better to do it now. Don't want to have to double back later."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. There are some spots we can check out by the river, anyway. Now stop talking. Too much noise. Not enough catching your breath."

Julienne was running out of surfaces to wipe his sweat on. He unrolled the blanket he had packed and dabbed at his forehead. The sun dipped halfway down the sky, torching the valley. They rested just long enough for the sweat covering Julienne to crust.

When they moved again, his calves burned and his hip tensed up as if it needed to pop. A summer in the kitchen had done nothing to prepare him for the physical demands of hiking. He wished he had spent less time cooking and more time training. He thought back to Tarragon's class. He missed his old life. Classes and Cafe Julienne. For all of its stresses, that was the life for him.

They zigzagged their way through the valley, following the whimsies of Moondrop's nose while steering him toward the river. The sun played the artist with the sky, painting it in reds and oranges that shifted to purples and pinks as the group arrived at the river. Figgal whistled them in one at a time to refill their water.

Julienne looked through the trees with increased scrutiny. Every shake of the wind made him turn. Every squirrel made him jump. But no one was watching them.

No one that he could see.

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