didn’t make any move to scoop some out, I tossed some in his face. He sputtered and spit as though I’d just lobbed toxic waste at him.
I laughed. “Relax. It didn’t melt your skin off.”
He grumbled something as he wiped his forehead on his sleeve.
I grabbed a glass off a shelf and filled it, and then I gulped down the contents hungrily. I felt like laughing again. Simple pleasures. I filled up the glass and fit it into Remo’s hands. He reluctantly closed his fingers around the slick surface and then stared at it so long that I rolled my eyes. “I’m not dead.”
“Yet.”
My pulse quickened at that single word, and then my exhilaration waned. Would the water poison me? After what felt like an hour but was surely no more than a handful of seconds, Remo gave in and tipped the glass to his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he drained it.
Once empty, he set the glass down and wiped his lips on the back of his hand. “At least, if we die, we’ll die together.”
“How romantic.” I rolled my eyes and circled the island to reach the peach pie. I broke off a piece of crust and placed it inside my mouth. The flaky dough melted on my tongue and slid down my throat. I hummed in contentment, then broke off another piece, and another, thanking the Great Spirit for the offering. Maybe She hadn’t had a hand in it, but regardless, thanking Her couldn’t hurt.
“That good, huh?” Remo was watching me from across the island.
I pinched a gooey peach and laid it on my tongue. The explosion of flavors made my entire body quiver. “The best I’ve ever eaten.” I pushed the pan toward him, metal scraping against metal.
He crossed his arms, making no move to tear off a piece of the divine dessert. “And it doesn’t worry you that it was somehow baking when we walked in?”
My vertebrae jammed together as I swallowed the lump of peach. I raised my head higher, straining to hear any footfalls on the floor above before deciding that whoever could bake so well was not my enemy. Of course, this led me to a lightbulb moment.
“We aren’t alone,” I murmured in wonder.
Remo neither nodded nor shook his head. He watched the pie and then he watched the oven behind me. “Did you turn the oven off?”
The oven? Of course, the oven. That was the name of the box from which I’d taken the pie. I swung around. The glass no longer glowed. “Could it have turned off automatically?”
He sighed and came around my side of the island. He popped the door down. Neither hot air nor light drifted out of the cooking box this time. “Maybe. Some of these had built-in timers.”
“How do you know so much about ovens? Are antiquated electronics a prerequisite curriculum for becoming a lucionaga?”
A corner of his mouth curled. “Surprisingly, no. I learned about them through Mom. She used to run the bakery in this town.”
Right. “What was it called again?”
“Astra’s, but it’s not on this street. It’s by the harbor, and since these cells seem built on single streets, I don’t think Grandfather included it.”
I stretched and pulled the pan back toward me to snatch off another piece. Remo watched me eat. If he’d been a friend, I might’ve force-fed him, if only to prove how delectable it was, but he wasn’t a friend. For all I cared, he could starve himself. More pie for me. I hummed around the bite of food.
“I was thinking of something . . .” Remo said.
“You? Think?”
He squeezed one of his eyes a little shut.
“Lighten up. I was just teasing you. I might not like you, but I know you’re smart.”
Even though only a trickle of daylight streamed over Remo’s face, I caught his cheeks reddening. Was he not used to compliments? I was pretty sure he was praised every day of his life by his friends, family, and harem of women.
“So? What were you thinking?”
The big firefly’s chest rose and fell a few times before he finally managed to squeeze out his answer. “I was thinking about Karsyn’s dust.”
I narrowed my eyes, wondering where he was going with this.
He nodded to my hand, to the dark whorls that stained my left palm and wrapped around each one of my fingers. “It’s still on your hand.”
“It is,” I said slowly.
“Can you pull it out and use it like your mother?”