Ovenheart.

  Even the name felt warm and ancient, like a forgotten recipe whispered across generations.

  Back at the Resistance base, silence hung thick as mosses. Rond the Rye stood over the scroll, his crusted fingers tracing the faded lines. Everyone waited.

  Louie broke the silence. “What is it? Why does the Empire want it?”

  Rond looked up, solemn. “Ovenheart is more than a bakery, Louie. It’s the first bakery. The birthpce of fvor. The forge of the First Loaf.”

  “The First Loaf?” Louie asked.

  Captain Pita nodded. “Legend says it was a bread so perfect, so full of love and yeast, it could feed hearts as well as stomachs. It wasn’t just made—it awakened.”

  Rond turned to the others. “Ovenheart was sealed centuries ago to protect its magic from greed. Its heat never faded. But if the Empire finds it… they’ll corrupt it. Mass-produce its power. Use it to erase all natural doughkind.”

  Loxley the Bagel gulped. “They could bake armies.”

  The room darkened at the thought.

  “We have to find it before they do,” Louie said, determination rising in his crumb.

  “But it’s hidden,” Pita said. “No one knows where it is.”

  “I think… I do,” whispered the cinnamon roll from the warehouse, now resting in a sugar bath nearby. “My name is Se. I was baked in the Outer Ovens, near the edge of the Starchnds. We heard stories—smuggled in on flour sacks. About a pce where the air smells like hope… and no dough ever hardens.”

  She pointed to a strange marking on the scroll—a spiral of grain.

  “That symbol… it matches the ancient recipe stone from my oven.”

  Rond’s eyes lit up. “The Stone of Leaven!”

  “The what?” Louie asked.

  “It’s a map,” Rond said. “A secret passed down by the oldest baker cns. There are five Stones. Each contains a piece of the path to Ovenheart.”

  “So we find the stones,” said Pita. “Then we find the oven.”

  Se nodded. “I know where one is. But it’s not unguarded…”

  “Let me guess,” Louie muttered. “Croissants?”

  “Worse,” Se said. “Croutons.”

  The room shuddered.

  Croutons—old, bitter, hard beyond belief. Bread twisted by time and fury, turned into cruel enforcers who served no master but crunch.

  “They were once like us,” Rond said. “But they dried out—forgot who they were. Now they guard ancient pces, punishing all who seek fvor.”

  “We’ll face them,” Louie said, rising. “Because we have to. Because the world deserves better than bnd.”

  He looked around the room. “I left home to matter. Now I know how. Let’s find the Stones. Let’s beat the Empire. Let’s bring back the oven.”

  The Resistance erupted in cheers.

  The Crumbkins pyed fanfare on tiny kazoo shells. Even Loxley flexed his poppy seeds with pride.

  And far away, atop a mountain of pastries, Armand du Croissant watched the same scroll appear in a holographic projection.

  “So,” he said, smoothing his buttery cape, “the Loaf awakens.”

  He sliced a brioche in half without blinking.

  “Let’s burn him down.”

  To be continued...