“I grew up on this—” Myste said, gesturing with her fork to her plate. “We had a loft in the back yard. I find I miss the taste at the Collegium.”

“Hmm. It is good,” he agreed. “Not common fare where I come from.”

“Well, here—in the city especially—you make up your pies with whatever you have to eat for supper in the morning, and drop them off at your neighborhood bake shop as you go off to work and pick them up when you return, along with your bread. Most people with small apartments or single rooms don’t have a bake oven; in fact, especially in the city, most people only have the hearth fire to stew over and not a proper kitchen at all.” Myste didn’t seem to want a response; she went back to her dinner, and he followed her example.