Alfred Pennyworth stood at the pass of the Olive Garden kitchen and stared at a plate that would not be enough. He had spent three weeks building this dish for tonight's private table. The sauce was right. The pasta was right. But the center of the plate was missing the one thing that would make a guest set down their fork and go quiet. Alfred wanted that silence. He had wanted it since the night a master poured corked wine over his warning and served it anyway. A butler's word had to be worth something, and Alfred meant to earn that worth with a dish no one at the table could dismiss. He untied his apron and walked into the dining room to think. That was when the shouting started at table nine. A woman in a pink tracksuit was on her feet, phone raised like a weapon, sunglasses still on indoors. A basket of warm breadsticks sat in front of her. She jabbed a finger at one of the servers and shrieked that a breadstick had chipped her tooth. She demanded the manager, a refund, and the restaurant's closure. Other diners lowered their forks. A child began to cry. The server's hands shook around the pepper mill. Alfred crossed the room. He had promised himself, long ago, that he would not stand by while someone was being harmed if he could stop it. The server was being harmed. "Madam," Alfred said. "Open the basket, please." Karen turned on him. "Who the hell are you?" "The man solving your problem." He lifted two breadsticks from her basket. He lifted two more from the next table. Then, with the calm of a butler pouring tea, he pushed one breadstick into each of Karen's nostrils, two per side, until four golden ends jutted from her face like tusks. The room froze. "Behold," Alfred announced, loud enough to carry to the bar. "A walrus. Point, if you please." One table laughed. Then another. Then the whole dining room was pointing, phones up, howling. Karen swung her handbag, missed, and fled toward the door, breadsticks still lodged, honking as she went. Alfred watched her go. Then he saw it. On the tile where she had stamped her foot, a single breadstick lay split open. Inside the crust, curled tight, was a small green sprout, alive, breathing faintly, giving off a smell he had never met before in any kitchen. Warm bread. Green herb. Something older underneath. He knelt. He cupped the sprout in his palm. It was the anchor. It was the silence he had been chasing. The head chef stepped out of the kitchen, saw what Alfred was holding, and went pale. "Put that back," the chef whispered. "That one isn't ours. That one belongs to someone who will come looking." Alfred closed his hand around the sprout and stood up.