Fine dining

Klein silently withdrew his spirituality.

It was a little early for lunch, though not unreasonably so. Klein had been considering whether to go eat when this prayer arrived.

What costs ninety-eight? Is this meal made of gold?

Shocked as Klein was, he had no intention of watching live. For one thing, although he could glimpse some of the surroundings through a prayer, the view was neither clear enough nor long-lasting enough to see the meal through. For another, he could watch a replay.

"No," he declined. "You can show me a replay-hmm, you can see my memories, so can you send yours to me? If not, showing them in Sefirah Castle would work too-"

If I watch it now, I probably won't be able to eat anything afterward. Only when a chef in a white toque and white uniform wheeled a dining trolley into the room did Neph realize that this set meal might really be something special.

It wasn't as though Neph had never seen dishes prepared tableside. They didn't even have to be particularly fancy; Haidilao's hand-pulled noodles were made that way. Compared with food alone, dishes like these leaned more toward performance-not that the food tasted bad.

But Neph had only encountered a head chef personally serving food in novels-or perhaps he wasn't the head chef, just an assistant? She looked curiously at the trolley draped in deep blue velvet. Through the swirling mist, she spotted coarse salt and dry ice at its base.

The chef, whose eyes were the only visible part of his face, lit the candelabrum. The candlelight pierced the mist like a lighthouse at sea. Neph paused briefly, and he had already set down a little golden tower and a glass of sparkling wine with his white-gloved hands.

Then he raised a hand