The Trial Kitchen Below

Maplewick’s food festival is supposed to be a fresh start for the town. Then labels change, cold rooms fail, and vendors get blamed for glitches they did not cause. Quality lead Tessa Crowley is expected to smooth it over and keep the day moving. Instead, she finds a hidden kitchen under the market and a system built to test how people react under pressure. Every fix is being watched. Every mistake is being scored. With the festival spiraling and the truth getting harder to hide, Tessa has to decide whether to play the role she was handed or drag the whole trial into daylight.