Chapter 660: Omelet [Bonus Chapter]
In theory, an omelet was one of the simplest culinary undertakings known to mortal civilization.
It required three ingredients... Eggs, butter, and heat.
A child in the lower districts could toss two cracked shells into an iron pan over dry wood and produce a serviceable fold of yellow curds before the kettle boiled.
"Haah..."
Both Harper and Seraphina had eaten hundreds of them, delicate pale golden crescents stuffed with smoked trout, shaved white truffles, or aged sharp cheddar, delivered on heated porcelain by soft-footed estate staff while the morning sun warmed the marble terraces of House Bloom and House Whitmore.
...Eating an omelet was an effortless delight.
Making one, as it turned out, was a world crisis.
For Seraphina Bloom, the kitchen of the Silverleaf residence was an alien dimension running on hostile physics.
She had never chopped a scallion and she had never operated a stove either.
In the high sanctuaries of the Bloom matriarchy, stepping into the scullery was something one did only if an assassin had poisoned the pantry or if one wished to inspect the cold-storage wards.
Her hands were made for balancing curved crimson daggers, weaving high-tier combustion spells, and signing multi-million-credit trade pacts with her signature.
Harper, at least, had familiarity.
During the darkest months of her childhood, when her father Collin was playing the doting patriarch while quietly orchestrating the slow poisoning of her core, she had sometimes sneaked down to the manor’s secondary scullery late at night to scramble an egg when the household staff had been dismissed.
But "scrambling an egg" in Harper’s dictionary meant poking a rubbery yellow puck with a fork until it stopped looking raw, dousing it in coarse salt, and choking it down while studying manuals.
She had never made a proper rolled omelet in her life.
...Yet here they were.
The phone rested against a glass jar of pickled peppercorns on the marble island, and Auntie Mae’s gentle motherly voice echoed through the quiet kitchen.
"Now, darlings, the secret to a fluffy, cloud-like texture is whisking with love! Add just a splash of whole milk, and when cutting your vegetables, remember... uniformity is key! A sharp knife does all the work for you!"
Harper pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her nose, her violet eyes narrowing behind the lenses with analytical intensity.
"Uniformity," she whispered seriously, when she was very nervous... Harper had discovered that she had a knack for talking like a nerd. "She means a millimeter dimension... A deviation of more than zero-point-two millimeters in the diced shallots will result in uneven heat during the sauté."
"Obviously," Seraphina muttered, rolling the oversized sleeves of her white shirt past her elbows with grim determination. "Any novice knows variable surface area disrupts thermal transfer... Hand me the knife."
Fortunately for her, Harper didn’t judge.
Harper paused and cast a deeply skeptical sideways glance at the crimson-haired heiress.
"Do you even know which end to hold?"
"It has a blade and a handle, you condescending purple crow!" Seraphina snapped, snatching an eight-inch Damascus chef’s knife from the magnetic block on the wall.
She weighed it in her palm and the balance was completely wrong.
It lacked the rear-weighted pommel of her throwing daggers while the grip felt absurdly light.
"I shall handle the bell peppers and scallions," she declared haughtily, grabbing a glossy red pepper from the wire basket. "You prepare the poultry ova..."
"They are called eggs, Seraphina," Harper sighed, picking up a heavy ceramic mixing bowl and cracking her knuckles. "And try not to amputate your fingers, I have no desire to explain to Matriarch Etilga why her only daughter bled to death over a cutting board."
"Worry about your own limbs, Whitmore."
Seraphina slammed the red pepper onto the end-grain butcher block.
She raised the chef’s knife high above her shoulder with her red eyes locked on the vegetable with pure bloodlust.
SWISH-CHUNK!
The blade came down with enough force to cleave an armored goblin’s pauldron.
As for the vegetable... under the concussive pressure of a Purple Core who had completely forgotten how to hold back her strength, the vegetable detonated.
Watery red seeds and crushed pulp exploded across the counter and splattered the white tile backsplash.
Half the pepper ricocheted off the wall and landed in the sink with a wet thwack.
BANG!
The knife was buried three inches deep in the solid maple block, and the wood groaned in protest.
Seraphina froze.
Harper slowly turned her head as a single slimy red seed was stuck to the left lens of her glasses.
The only sound in the kitchen was Auntie Mae.
"—and remember to use a gentle rocking motion with your wrist—"
Harper reached up, pinched the seed off her spectacles, and flicked it onto the counter.
"Magnificent," she said, in a voice that could have dehydrated an ocean. "Truly exceptional technique... I believe the recipe called for diced peppers, not a spell bombardment."
"The cutting board had an uneven grain!" Seraphina hissed, her face burning crimson as she yanked at the handle, trying to wrench the steel out of the ruined wood. "The vegetable is obviously defective!"
"Of course it was," Harper muttered.
Refusing to be outdone by House Bloom’s catastrophic failure, the Head of House Whitmore turned to the carton of brown eggs.
She picked one up and cradled it in her slender pale fingers.
’Auntie Mae said tap firmly on a flat surface, then pry apart with the thumbs,’ she reviewed. ’It’s a bit simple.’
She brought the egg down on the marble counter.
Crack!
The shell gave with a crisp satisfying snap and Harper’s lips curved into a smug smirk as she held the egg over the bowl and pulled the halves apart.
Unfortunately, her idea of "minimum force" was still too much especially for a woman with over ten thousand mana points.
SQUELCH!
The egg was pulverized into a yellow-and-white slurry in her clenched fist.
Yolk squirted between her fingers, ran down her wrist, and soaked into the fine silk cuff of her violet pajama sleeve, while a dozen jagged brown shards rained into the bowl like gravel.
Harper’s smirk froze into a paralyzed grimace.
Across the island, Seraphina, who had finally wrenched the knife free of the butcher block with a loud creak, let out a sharp hysterical bark of laughter.
"Oh, brilliant!" she crowed, pointing the blade at Harper’s dripping hand. "Is that the legendary precision?! A calculation of eggshell extraction?! You look like you tried to strangle a canary!"
"I was testing the tensile strength of the shell!" Harper snarled, violet eyes flashing as static crackled along her pajama collar. "And at least my ingredient remained in the bowl, unlike your pepper, which is currently decorating the ceiling molding!"
"Shut up!"
"You shut up!"
Both girls glared at each other while breathing hard as their faces flushed with equal parts embarrassment and furious pride.
"Now, let’s get that skillet hot!" Auntie Mae chimed. "Add two tablespoons of butter and watch for that gentle sizzle!"
They looked down at the counter.
A cutting board covered in red mush, a bowl of pulverized yolk and jagged shell, a dripping silk sleeve and an oversized white shirt spattered with vegetable water.
Then they looked at the kitchen door.
On the other side, in the living room, Silas was chatting with Valerius, expecting two nobles to produce breakfast.
If they walked out with empty hands, or worse, if he walked in and found them standing in three hundred credits of ruined produce, they would never live it down.
Harper could never tease him about domestic hospitality again and Seraphina’s claim to be a worthy "prospective wife" would be laughed out of the hemisphere.
"Truce," Seraphina whispered with her voice sounding tight and trembling with desperate necessity.
"Agreed," Harper said through clenched teeth. "We do not speak of this."
"We’ll call it Operation Omelet," Seraphina said, she liked the name... after all, she had heard it in a movie.
"We are not naming it."
"It has a name now."
With unspoken coordination, they went to work.
Harper pulled a fine-mesh tea strainer out of a drawer and began sifting eggshell from the bowl with a silver spoon, like an archaeologist excavating fossils.
Seraphina abandoned the chef’s knife, drew her curved crimson throwing dagger from her belt and sliced the remaining scallions with the precision of an assassin carving an artery.
The green rings fell in perfect paper-thin sheets.
"Why does that look so terrifying?" Harper murmured.
"It’s an assassination technique... Not like you’d know."
"On a scallion, really? Isn’t that too much?"
Sera fell silent and grinned.
"...On a scallion that did not see me coming."
Next they got a fresh bowl and fresh eggs too.
’I’ll buy some more before I leave... so Martha won’t get suspicious.’
Harper took a breath and tapped a new one against the counter with the delicacy of a woman defusing a bomb and the shell split cleanly.
CRACK!
’Good...’
She opened it and it split into two halves as the yolk dropped into the bowl whole.
For three whole seconds she just stared at it.
"I did it..." she whispered.
"It’s an egg, you don’t need to look so happy."
"I’ve never cracked an egg before."
"..."
Sera wanted to insult her for it, but she too had never cracked an egg open before though she did know how to crack a skull.
"Auntie Mae says some people separate the yolks from the whites," Seraphina said, frowning at the screen. "Why would anyone separate them? They’re already together..."
"It’s for a different recipe."
"Then why is she telling us?"
"BECAUSE SHE IS TRYING TO RUIN US," Harper whispered fiercely.
Auntie Mae continued.
"—and don’t worry if you break the yolk! It happens to everyone!"
"Heh, we’re going to forget all about that..." Harper said as she looked down.
Her thumb had somehow found its way through the yolk and she put the egg down very slowly.
The video froze as a banner slid across the screen.
[This video is sponsored by Mothers’ Choice Cast Iron. Skip ad in 5...]
’Why isn’t this bitch using Lordtube Premium?!’
"Skip it," Seraphina said. "Skip! Skip!"
"I’m trying!"
"HOW DO YOU TURN THIS OFF?"
"It’s five seconds! You can’t turn off the five seconds!"
They stood motionless, staring at the screen, while a cheerful narrator described the many wonders of seasoned cast iron.
"...Mothers’ Choice," Seraphina muttered with dead eyes, she wanted to punch the phone. "Order yours today."
"Skip," Harper whispered, and at last the ad vanished.
"Whisk," Seraphina ordered, dumping the scallions into the bowl.
"I am whisking," Harper said with her arm moving in a mechanical blur as the balloon whisk whipped the eggs into a pale yellow vortex. "A splash of milk... Hand me the carton."
"Too much milk will cause the curds to separate during coagulation!"
"Auntie Mae said one tablespoon!"
"Auntie Mae is an unawakened human who cooks on regular stoves!"
"It is an induction stove, Seraphina," Harper said, lowering her voice in the tone of a woman explaining to a child why the sun does not go to sleep. "Do not touch the flame...? There is no flame..."
"I know what induction is!"
"Do you?"
Seraphina glared at the dial.
"...It’s like fire, but sneaky."
Harper rolled her eyes.
’Mind you, she’s a mage that uses fire... How bad does it have to be?’ Harper thought.
"Step away from the heat."
"I’m a Bloom! Heat is my domain!"
"Then stand there and judge the temperature with your hand, and do not touch the controls."
That, strangely enough, worked.
Seraphina held her palm an inch above the cold skillet and closed her eyes.
Her fire sense, honed since the age of six, hummed through her fingers as Harper turned the dial to the notch Auntie Mae called "medium-low."
...Nothing happened for a moment then the surface began to warm.
"Higher," Seraphina murmured.
Click!
"Not that high."
Click!
"...There."
She held out her hand like a conductor stopping an orchestra as Harper took her fingers off the dial.
"Next is the butter," Seraphina commanded. "We’re using half an ounce... Not a block, you savage..."
"I wasn’t going to use a block." Harper’s voice trailed off. "...Maybe I was."
"Bitch, you were looking at the block."
"I was admiring the block, you red haired bitch."
Harper cut a tidy knob of butter and slid it into the pan.
It melted at once, sighed into a pale golden pool, and began to foam softly at the edges, exactly like the video.
The two of them stared at the pan in reverent silence.
"It’s working," Seraphina whispered.
"Don’t say that... You’ll jinx it, don’t you watch movies?"
Harper poured in the beaten eggs.
They hissed, a gentle gorgeous sizzle, and began to set at the edges in soft ruffled curls.
Seraphina leaned over the pan with her red eyes tracking each bubble and her dagger held ready in her other hand as if she meant to parry an incoming thrust.
"Gently," Harper whispered, spectacles sliding down her nose with the knuckles white around the handle. "Auntie Mae said tilt the pan... tap the wrist..."
"The edges are firming so roll it."
"Not yet."
"Roll it now, Whitmore!"
Harper slid the spatula under the omelet and tried to fold it but the delicate sheet tore into three ragged chunks.
"IT’S BROKEN!"
"I SEE THAT!"
"FLIP IT!"
"HOW DO YOU FLIP A LIQUID?!"
Harper’s eyes went to the pan, then to her free hand and a thin purple thread of static crackled off her fingertips looking as sharp and bright as a drawn wire.
"Hold the handle," she said quietly.
"What are you doing?"
Harper spread her fingers as a fine web of lightning-mana spun beneath the omelet looking no thicker than a hair.
The egg shivered, rose half an inch off the pan, spun once in the air like a coin, and landed back on the skillet with a soft perfect smack.
The right side went up!
Both girls stared.
"...It flipped," Seraphina breathed.
"It flipped."
"You flipped an omelet with lightning."
"I did... Haah! Fuck yeah!
A thin curl of smoke rose from the edge of the egg, and the smell of electrified omelet drifted through the kitchen as they looked at each other.
"...It’s a little crisp," Seraphina said. "Roll it!"
Harper rolled it.
With agonizing care she folded the yellow blanket over itself, doing it once... then twice.
It wasn’t the silky seamless crescent from the high-class culinary journals as the surface was mottled, with two small patches of dark crispy gold along the fold where the static had been a bit enthusiastic and a stray scallion stuck out of the seam like a blade of grass.
But it was rolled, it was intact and it smelled shockingly edible.
"I think this one is good for our first time. Don’t you agree?"
"Mhm."
They made a second one after that... this one tore only slightly, and they declared it a masterpiece.
Somewhere in the middle of it a smoke detector chirped.
Both of them lunged for the ceiling vent, and Seraphina waved a dish towel at it in broad arcs while Harper sighed.
"Don’t do that, you’ll make it worse..."
The beep stopped on its own.
"EVERYTHING OKAY IN THERE?!" came Silas’s voice through the door.
"PERFECTLY!" they screamed in unison.
Out in the parlor, a muffled voice said. "Eight minutes. I told you eight."
Harper and Seraphina stood side by side with their chests heaving and their hair disheveled, staring down at the oval platter where two finished omelets now rested.
Seraphina lifted her chin and crossed her arms over her butter-stained white shirt.
"A flawless execution," she declared, her voice trembling slightly with exhausted pride. "The caramelized crust adds an intentional depth of flavor... I believe we should apply for jobs as chefs after this."
Harper wiped a smudge of soot from her cheek with the back of her violet silk sleeve and adjusted her glasses with unshakable dignity.
"Naturally," She agreed. "Silas will be very moved."