at you. You’re wearing clothes that fit you perfectly but aren’t new, so are Daniels and Devoss. You went back, probably while I was in the shower. You also raided your kitchen, which I deduced when I remembered I didn’t have three dozen eggs and four pounds of bacon when I went to sleep last night.”
“Lucky it was a chilly night,” Macropi said. “Everything in my fridge and freezer was still okay.”
“Glad you were able to stock up. So I’m betting I shouldn’t open my freezer, right? Unless I want to risk getting crushed beneath the weight of all the meat you stuffed into it?”
“I’d never tell you what to do in your own house, m’dear, but…that’s right.”
Sally had finished eating first and had wandered into the living room a couple of minutes earlier. Lila had shown her how to work the On Demand and she was watching classic Simpsons, which was why they were all listening to the citizens of Springfield singing about the coming monorail.
Oz took advantage of the little girl’s absence to lower his voice. “Did the firem—the firefighters have any updates this morning?”
“I hear those things are awfully loud.”
“No, just that it started upstairs, and they’re researching the accelerants,” Macropi replied.
“It glides as softly as a cloud!”
“Oh, excellent.” At their stares, Garsea elaborated. “Well, there were all those candles and matches lying around because Dev had to scrub out the cupboards…”
“I didn’t do it!” he yelped. “I’d never, jamais, nunca!”
“Not on purpose. C’mere.” Devoss got up like he was on springs and nearly lunged at Macropi, who hugged him while leveling a death glare at Garsea, who just stared with her mouth open until Lila kicked her under the table.
“Ouch!” Garsea recovered and added, “Dev, I’m sorry. I said that all wrong.”
“I just got here,” the boy practically shouted. “There, I mean. I’d never burn up a house I wanted to be in!”
“Of course you’d never do anything to hurt us or Mama’s home.” Garsea spread her hands. “I thought that with the house being so old and matches and candles and paper being all over the kitchen, that a spontaneous combustion of sorts may have been the culprit. Not that you were the spontaneous culprit—never you. I expressed myself poorly, and I’m very sorry.”
An elegant and sincere apology. Didn’t know she had it in her. “Hey.” Lila cleared her throat. “Devoss. Nobody who’s spent more than five minutes with you would think that. You’re so smart and sneaky, you could’ve killed everyone in that house ten times over by now. You wouldn’t need to set a fire.”
There was a muffled sniff and the kid’s head came up. “Really?”
“Oh, definitely. Ten times over…maybe fifteen times over. Macropi, Garsea, Oz… They’d all be long dead if you were bent that way. No question.”
“Okay.”
“Wait. That made you feel better?”
Devoss ignored Oz’s surprised squawk and pulled back from Macropi with the self-conscious air of a child embarrassed to be seen acting like a child. “Um. Sorry. I guess I didn’t sleep very well. And there’s all the stuff with Sally, so.”
“Speaking of Sally,” Lila said briskly, “is anyone wondering if the fire was an attempt to either harm her or shunt the rest of you away from her?”
Devoss, clearly relieved that Lila had deliberately moved the group’s focus away from his outburst, nodded. Garsea exchanged glances with Oz and Macropi, then replied, “The thought had crossed our minds.”
“Leaving us with the possibility that my house is now at risk. So what’s the plan? Does your IPA have some kind of protocol here that you have to follow?”
“Uh. Lila. It’s beyond decent of you to take us in—”
“I took Daniels, Macropi, Smalls, and Devoss in, but don’t let that get in the way of your revisionist history.”
“What’s ‘shunt’?” From Devoss, who then read the quick note Caro scribbled and nodded. “Oh. Thanks, Caro, I never heard that word before.”
“—but this really isn’t your problem.”
She just looked at him. Orphaned bear cubs who might not be orphaned. A dead father calling his kid. Spontaneous house fire, possibly to harm the aforementioned orphan who might not be an orphan. Devoss sound asleep in the guest room with a stranglehold on his stuffed bear. Macropi staring out the living room window and still there at 2:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. Oz on her couch for the foreseeable future, too tired and worried to take five minutes to unfold the thing into a vague approximation of a bed before lapsing into