The Last Banquet of Aerenth

In the poisoned city of Aerenth, suspended between a jade-green sky and a blighted earth, magic isn't cast with wands and incantations, but with whisks and simmering cauldrons. Culinary sorcery is life itself, shielding the city from the creeping toxins below. But now, a necrotic famine whispers of decay, twisting life-giving magic into a slow-acting poison.
Juniper Thorne, a reclusive soup witch haunted by a tragic loss, finds her solitary world shattered when the Culinary Guild begs her to create the legendary Seven-Hour Stew, a mythical dish rumored to hold the key to Aerenth’s salvation.  Her only companion on this perilous quest is Kathryn Ramos, a pragmatic apprentice whose earth magic resonates with forgotten ingredients, a perfect counterpoint to Juniper's arcane culinary skills.
Their journey for the stew’s mythical ingredients leads them through Aerenth’s vibrant districts, from bustling sunlit markets to shadowed alleys, each ingredient a culinary riddle to solve.  But as the stew simmers, releasing an aroma that dances between hope and despair, Juniper uncovers a horrifying truth: the famine is no accident. A rot festers within the Guild itself, a conspiracy of culinary zealots who believe only a purging famine can cleanse Aerenth.
Guided by her grandmother’s cryptic cookbook, a hidden chronicle of the Guild's dark secrets, Juniper and Kathryn race against time.  With each passing hour, the city starves, its civility dissolving into desperate acts of self-preservation. As Juniper's magic entwines with Kathryn's earth magic, they discover the blight itself is a twisted consequence of the Guild’s corrupted culinary power.
Juniper’s stew becomes Aerenth’s last, fragile hope. But the conspirators, aware of her discovery, will stop at nothing to silence her, even threatening Kathryn’s life. Juniper must confront her deepest fear: that her magic, her obsession with the healing power of food, might not be enough to save her city, or herself.
Will the Seven-Hour Stew nourish a dying city or expose a truth that could tear it apart?  In a city poisoned from within, Juniper must choose her ingredients carefully, for the fate of Aerenth boils down to a single pot, a seven-hour stew that holds not just the promise of nourishment, but the bitter truth of a city devouring itself.