đź’§ - How would your muse react to losing a best friend? How would they cope?
Cat is fiercely protective of her friends. She’ll risk her life to protect them, and if someone hurts one of her friends, someone’s getting hurt. So it depends on the circumstances, because if a friend dies because someone killed them, or there’s someone she views as directly responsible, someone who could have changed the outcome, she’ll go after them, and if there’s no one to talk her down (she’s been talked down before), she’ll kill them if she can.
If it’s any other circumstances, accident or illness or age, she’ll be angry, and she’ll deal with it badly. She’ll lash out. She’ll pick fights in bars. She’ll see if there’s any group or organization currently harassing or endangering mutants or any group of enhanced vigilantes that’s currently recruiting to find an outlet for her anger.
That won’t work but she’ll do it anyway.
Eventually, she’ll have seek peace. Peace, for Cat, means nature, sky, and being high up. She’ll climb buildings and lay on the roof and look at the stars. She’ll find the tallest tree she can, climb as high as she can until no one can see her, take off her sunglasses and feel the sun on her skin. That’s what grounds her. If she heals, that’s how she’ll do it. It’ll take her a while to get there.
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Crane: How do you tell someone you love them without saying the words
“God, have you been reading that damn love languages book? I don’t know...people I care about...I...I try to protect them, I suppose. I can’t always, but I try. People are sometimes...people aren’t always protected, when they should be. They don’t always have someone watching out for them when they need it. So I try to protect the people I love.”
Crane: If you had one chance to do something over, what would it be?
“Oh that’s easy. If you gave me, say, fifty chances, a life rewritten, I would make you a list. One thing, though, one thing...the answer is nothing. If I had to pick just one thing...then I’d have to leave the others, so I choose nothing.”
“I miss you.” That’s how it started. It was a text. They hadn’t spoken in two weeks. She looked at her phone, and sighed, and put it down, and picked it up, and put it down, and picked it up, and…
“I miss you, too,” she replied after two hours of picking up and putting down her phone.
Two hours after that they were back in bed. This had happened before. They would fight, and they wouldn’t speak, and then eventually one of them or the other would send a text, and Alex would tell her she was beautiful, and she would kiss him, and it would be like a dream, for a while, a dream of not so long ago, when there had been no fighting and no silence in between their nights together.
And now Alex was dreaming beside her, and April was still awake, and she was wondering. She didn’t understand him, didn’t understand why he was so secretive, why he thought it was perfectly fine to remove an unhappy memory, but wouldn’t accept the healing that her spells could provide. She didn’t understand. She wanted so much to understand. So, while he slept, she placed a hand over his heart…
His eyes snapped open, and his hand was around her wrist, hard, pulling her hand away. And then he looked back from her, to her hand, to her in surprise, like it wasn’t her hand he had expected to be holding when he’d reached out. That was only a moment, though, and then understanding came into his eyes, and he…he didn’t say anything, he just looked at her, and she looked back, wide-eyed, because however much she had been angry when he’d put her to sleep, she knew that this was worse.
Finally, he let go of her hand, and he spoke, sitting up. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” she said very softly. “You woke up.”
“Are you sure?” He stood up, turned the light on, started to gather his clothes. There was a controlled nothingness in the tone of his voice that showed his anger more than any amount of shouting could. “Are you certain? Because whatever you saw, I’m taking it back.”
She looked at him for a moment in shock, because she knew what he was capable of, and that it wasn’t an idle threat.
“I really didn’t have a chance to look. You were awake in a second. Alex I’m sorry, it was stupid—”
“Oh, it was more than stupid,” he walked back to the bed, bent down so that their eyes were just on level. “I think I’ll check, just to be certain.”
Her shield against Mind magic flared up almost automatically.
“Do you really think that will keep me out?” he gave a small, derisive laugh. “Do you think that little spell you pulled out of a borrowed codex was ever capable of keeping me out? Sure it reminds me that there’s a fence up, but I can jump that fence if I want to. And why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I, when you don’t play by your own rules?”
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know why it mattered if he looked. He’d only see that she was telling the truth, and anything in her short-term memory, well, he’d been there for that. She just watched him, waited to see what he would do.
“God,” he turned away. “I wouldn’t…don’t look at me like that.”
“How am I looking at you?” she asked. It wasn’t even meant as a retort. She wasn’t certain how she was looking at him, right then.
“Like you’re afraid of me.”
“Well, maybe I am, right now,” she said, and her eyes hardened. “That wasn’t okay, what I did. It was stupid. But when you act like this, when you just have to prove that you’re more powerful than me, that—”
“April, did it ever occur to you that I might be scared? That maybe I’m the one who should be scared right now? I know you want to know, I know you want to help, but casting spells on me in my sleep…I think I’m the one who should be scared. How many times, April? Since you set them, how many times have I crossed your boundaries?” She had seen him this angry, but not at her.
“Once.”
“Yes, once. So did you think I owed you one? Is that how it works? You got me back at the time, if I recall.” The cut wasn’t going to scar, but you could still see the pink line on his cheek. He hadn’t let her heal it, or gone to anyone else.
“Yes, and you’re wearing it, what, so I’m the one who feels guilty?”
“You’re not as wise as you think you are, April. You don’t have the answers you think you have. I’m not wearing this to make you feel guilty.”
“Why, then?”
“Message received, April. That’s what I’m saying, with this,” he pointed to the healing wound. “Message received. You want to see something, April?”
“What?”
He turned, walked back to the bed but didn’t sit down, didn’t try to touch her, just looked at her. “You want to see something, right? Anything. Some secret. Something not everyone knows, that’s what you want. So you know you’re special. Well, you want to see something? Fine, April, I’ll show you something.” And the world shifted.
She saw a woman’s face. April was looking down, the woman’s head was in her lap. The woman was perhaps fifty, with steel grey hair and bright blue eyes, and blood was trickling from the corner of her mouth.
“He’s dead, Scythe, Harrow’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead…” She recognized the voice, though it cracked and occasionally hitched as if holding off a sob. She was seeing through Alex’s eyes. A memory
“It’s okay, Crane,” the woman said, weakly, and then again, without words. It’s okay, Crane.
“No, there’s no one, no healer, I can’t, I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” the woman repeated. She seemed very calm.
“I could…there’s Wren. Or a mundane hospital, I could make a portal…”
“Crane…” and she coughed, and there was more blood, and she stopped trying to speak. “Listen carefully, Crane. I’m going to be dead in a minute, maybe two. Don’t worry about hospitals. Stay with me. It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not…you can’t, you can’t, I can’t, without…”
“You can. You will. It doesn’t hurt anymore. That means it won’t be long. It’s okay, Crane. It’s okay that this is happening. And you’re going to be okay. You’re a better person than you realize—”
The memory cut off without warning. April reeled for a moment, back in the present, seeing through her own eyes, in her apartment.
“Was that enough?” He asked. His voice was shaking. She couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness. Likely both.
“She was going to say your name.”
“No,” he shook his head, and then looked at her with an ugly smile. “Never enough, hmm?”
“Why…why does it matter so much? You know I won’t use it against you.”
“Haven’t you realized yet? I hate it, April. I hate it. I never want to hear it again, least of all from your mouth.”
“Why?”
“You see? You see?” he turned away from her. “Never enough. Not for you. You think you haven’t had your fair share of pain, hmm? So you want everybody else’s. That’s it, isn’t it? Nothing but that bear has really hurt you, you learn this spell and you see other people, and you feel, what? Guilt? How massively capricious, cruel and unfair the world is? Nothing has really hurt you, so you want somebody else’s pain.”
“Alex…” He turned back. And she saw that look. She’d been able to recognize it ever since the first time he’d looked at her that way, the first time they’d sat together in her back room. That moment when he realized he had gone too far, crossed a line. But what he’d said…
She wondered if he was right.
“April…April, April, April…” he came to her, and she let him come to her, let him put his arms around her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry…I don’t know how to say it…what you showed me…I’m sorry you lost her, Alex. It’s…it’s not okay, not okay that happened, not okay that the world is cruel, that that world has been cruel to you, in all the ways you don’t want me to see. None of it is okay. But…you’re here, now, with me. You survived, and now you’re here with me, huh?”
“No.” She felt him shake his head.
“No?”
“That’s how it’s supposed to go. She died, and I survived. But I’ll tell you the secret, April. I’m alive, but…I didn’t survive.” He held her tighter.
“You’re right here,” she reached up and stroked his hair.
He pulled away, took her hand in his, and it took her a moment to realize he was looking at her wrist, where he’d grabbed her. “Sometimes I think, nobody’s hurt you except for that bear, and me.”
At the beginning of the day, there were six of them. Five Adamantine Arrow mages, warriors, protecting the city from things it never saw, fighting for no reward save that it was right. And Crane. A Mastigos, a warlock, from the Mysterium, who had hoped to catalogue the magical wonders of the world when he joined that order, but now did his best to be a warrior, because of the other Mastigos in the cabal.
Because of Scythe.
At the beginning of the day, there were six of them. They were investigating a disturbance in the Upper East Side that was likely nothing. Then, an SUV hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk in broad daylight. Crane could still remember the tires screeching on the pavement. And he could remember Harrow running. He had never blamed Harrow. The man had been the first to die, after all.
Harrow was the youngest of them, a healer, and like many healers, he felt a certain responsibility. A certain obligation to use his abilities when they were needed. But Awakened magic had its risks. To reach the Supernal, you first had to cross the Abyss. That was why you never did obvious magic in broad daylight, in front of ordinary humans, “sleepers.” Obvious magic like healing the wounds of a woman who had sustained massive organ damage and was bleeding out on the pavement.
As soon as the woman stood, Crane could feel it was going to be bad. All of them could. He could see it in their faces. And that was when Harrow died. There was…it wasn’t an ordinary portal, a shortcut from one place to the other. It was as if something had ripped a hole in reality. And that something had impaled Harrow through the heart with…what? A claw? A great sword? He couldn’t tell. The woman died next, so recently saved from death. And the thing finished crawling into their world. It appeared to be made of nothing but legs, hundreds of legs, each with a wicked point at the end. It was metallic, dark grey, and light seemed to bend wrong around it. It was heavy enough, and its legs sharp enough, that they made neat puncture holes in the pavement as it walked.
At that moment, there were five of them, and they did what warriors did. They did battle with the monster, the Abyssal entity that had been unleashed by Harrow’s selfless act. They fought, and twenty minutes later, the thing was dead, gone from their reality, dust on the ground.
Twenty minutes later, the thing was dead, and there were two of them.
And one was dying.
Crane sat in an alley, and Scythe’s head lay in his lap. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth.
“He’s dead, Scythe, Harrow’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead…” and Crane knew no healing magic. His words broke off in a sob.
“It’s okay, Crane,” said Scythe, her voice so weak, airy, not the confident voice he had grown to know for the seven years she’d been his teacher. And then her voice came into his mind, and she sounded more like herself. “It’s okay, Crane.”
“No, there’s no one,” he was panicked, he was holding pressure on her wounds but she was losing too much blood, he knew it, and he could see in her face that she knew it as well, “no healer, I can’t, I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” she said, for the third time. She sounded so, so calm. The voice of an old warrior who had always known she wasn’t going to die an old woman in bed.
“I could…there’s Wren,” his mind spun, trying to think of some way to stop what was inevitable, “Or…a mundane hospital…I could make a portal…”
“Crane,” she said, and then she coughed, more blood on her lips, and she stopped speaking aloud. She was in his mind again, and he didn’t know if was for his comfort or because she had lost the ability to speak.
“Listen carefully, Crane. I’m going to be dead in a minute, maybe two. Don’t worry about hospitals. Stay with me. It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not…you can’t, you can’t, I can’t, without…” He couldn’t go on without Scythe. She was the only one. The only one who knew who he was. The only one who knew, and didn’t care, and believed in him anyway. The one who had taken him on as a student after he’d committed a terrible transgression, and had never stopped believing in him since then. He couldn’t, not without her.
She was the only one he had ever fully trusted.
“You can. You will. It doesn’t hurt anymore. That means it won’t be long. It’s okay, Crane. It’s okay that this is happening. And you’re going to be okay. You’re a better person than you realize, Eric. Everything is temporary, Eric, even me. Even you. But it’s not time for you to go yet.”
She was the only one who knew his real name.
“There has to be something, Scythe, something we can do.”
“It’s already going dark. There’s nothing to be done. But there’s something for you to do, Eric.”
“Don’t, don’t say there’s nothing, please!”
“You’re going to keep going, Eric, and you’re going to be okay. All these years and you still don’t believe me, but you’re a good man, Eric. I’ve seen your mind, after all. You’re going to keep going, and you’re going to do good. And you’re going to be okay.”
And then she was gone. She exhaled once, and didn’t inhale again. Her eyes stopped seeing. And when he looked for her mind, when he searched, desperately, for her mind, she wasn’t there any more. He held her limp form to his chest and sobbed.
At the beginning of the day, there were six of them. At three forty-three P.M., there was only one.
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April woke just in time to see Irrlicht throw a punch. Alex staggered backwards, blood at the corner of his mouth.
“How much of Fate’s favor did you need to pull to land that hit?” Alex said quietly while Poirot took Irrlicht by the shoulder.
“He was just trying to protect her. All of us,” said Poirot.
“He gave his word,” Irrlicht shot back.
“Would you rather she was dead?” Crane hissed. His face held both fury and fear, but he was still keeping his voice low. Letting her sleep, she thought.
“You gave your word,” said Irrlicht. “When we started this. You gave your word. You wouldn’t do something like what happened with Wren.”
“I didn’t. I just put her to sleep.”
“Splitting hairs. You gave your word.”
“You knew who I was.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, you should have had me bind an oath.” And the he stopped. The blood would remain, but he would be feeling it now, that the split in his lip was healing up. He turned and met April’s open eyes.
“You’re awake.” Alex and Irrlicht both tried to rush to her at the same time.
“Are you okay?” Irrlicht was asking.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I had to,” Alex was murmuring.
She stood and walked away from both of them. And then she looked at Alex. She looked hard, and the rest of the cabal who hadn’t yet noticed made noises of surprise. She knew what they were seeing. Her wound open. Spectral blood. Vulgar magic. She looked at Alex, and she didn’t speak, and instead, a cut opened on his cheek, a small cut, slowly drawing its way across his skin.
And then she walked out the door.
“April…”
She kept walking.
“If you could see…if you could see people, most people, sleepers, Awakened, it doesn’t matter, if you could see people…the banality and viciousness that they have in their heads, ordinary people…” He followed her.
“So, you think it’s okay to abandon them to a pack of angry werewolves?”
“No, that’s not…is that really something you could think of me? Believe about me? I’m…I’m one of those people, April, cowardly and petty and vicious. But I have power. And the people back in that house…they’re worth saving. And you…April, you’re brave, you believe in people, you hope, and this…this godforsaken world is going to break your heart, April, break it into pieces…” His eyes were wide, and wet, though tears hadn’t quite fallen.
“And you think you can stop that, pulling shit like this?”
“No…but I think I can keep you alive. And I wish…I wish I could stop it from happening, just for a little while.”
“What gives you the right?” she finally stopped, faced him. “What gives you the right to decide who is and isn’t worth saving?”
“Nothing. No one. I can’t save everyone. So I save who I can. Nothing gives me the right. I take it. And I’m not ashamed.”
“If you’re not ashamed,” her voice rose a bit, “why are you following me? Why are you trying to convince me? Why do you even care? You don’t care what anyone thinks. You say that all the time.”
“I care what you think. Let me…just let me protect you…”
“No,” she started walking again. “I’m taking mine back. My decision. About who lives or dies. I’m going back to New York and I’m going to help.”
“What do you even plan to do? We’re in New Jersey.”
“You do let yourself rely on magic too much, Alex, you really do. I’m going to rent a car.”
“April…”
“If you try to stop me Alex, I swear to god I will paralyze your legs and text Irrlicht where to find you once I’m on my way.”
He stopped. She was still walking.
“You mean it, don’t you?”
“If you’re not going to play by the rules, why should I?”
“I’m not…I’m not playing.”
“Neither am I.”
That was the last they spoke for forty-eight hours.
I’m in your living room. I need you to come upstairs. Now.
No matter how used to it she had become, Alex had never come into her mind without some token greeting, at least a “hello, it’s me.” And he’d never sounded quite like he did then. There was emotion creeping into the voice she heard in her mind. Not the certainty implied by that “now.” Fear.
I have a customer. What is it? She did indeed have a customer, a middle-aged man who looked liked he might actually buy something.
Never mind your customer. Now, April.
And suddenly the man turned, and without a word, walked out the door.
Alex, did you do that? She knew he could. She’d seen it, when people had been in danger, when it mattered. Not like this. Alex that was not okay—
Goddamnit there isn’t time! And she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, so fast it sounded like he was almost tripping over himself. He walked into the gallery, and his face was…
Determined.
Purposeful.
Terrified.
“Alex, what the Hell is going on?”
“Have you heard from Wren?”
“No…his phone’s been off.”
“Damnit. Come on.” He took her by the arm and started to walk to the back room. “Don’t want to make the portal in front of the windows.”
“Portal? Where are we going? Alex, stop,” she jerked her arm out of his grip halfway through the door. “What’s going on?”
“April,” he turned and took her by the shoulders, bending just that couple inches to look into her eyes. “Any day but today, April, please,” his eyes pleaded with her. “There isn’t time, April. Please. We’re going to New Jersey. To the safehouse there.”
“What’s happened?” She put her hands on top of his, and she wasn’t sure if she intended to comfort or to ready herself to shake off his hold.
“The Pure wolves. Wren must have told you about the Pure. The mortal enemies of the Uratha? Poirot and I fucked up, okay? We thought a connection with the local wolf packs could be beneficial. But they’ve gone to ground, the Pure wolves are out in force and they’re going for anyone who might draw them out. Wren knows the packs well…have you had them here? As clients?”
She nodded. “Yes. Healing and exorcism.”
“They’re probably already coming then. We have to go. I’ll pick up the rest of the cabal once you’re at the safehouse.” He let go of her, turned, and drew a portal to a room she didn’t recognize in between the two couches in her back room. “Come on.”
“What about Wren?”
“He has his own cabal to take care of.”
“If they’re coming for people connected to the local werewolves they’ll be coming for him. We can’t just leave him.”
“April, he has his cabal to take care of, and I have mine. I can’t bring everyone to New Jersey. The more people, the more change someone could follow the threads…” His look was changing. The determination was winning out over the fear. There was something hard in his eyes.
“I can’t leave him,” she said. “You go. Take the rest of the cabal. If something tries to attack me here, I have Mother—”
“You can’t rely on that…April if she manifests while the Predator Kings and the Fire-Touched are coming through the windows with their spirit protectors…the beings they consort with…you can’t imagine…she’ll make good on that threat of hers and consume your essence just to save herself.” He looked at her, and he didn’t look like a lover. He looked like the leader of her cabal. “We’re going.”
“Alex.” she looked him in the eye. Maybe everything he said made sense; it often did. But Wren was her teacher, and some of the local werewolves were her patients. She wasn’t going to abandon them. So she turned to him and said a word that held a great deal of meaning when you were speaking with a telepath. “Alex, look. Look here,” She gestured to her temple. And she showed him her resolve.
He sighed. The hardness was still there, in his eyes, and something she couldn’t quite figure out. “You’re going to stay.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She looked at him, almost in shock at his acquiescence, and then turned to walk back into the gallery.
“April?”
“Yeah?” She started to turn.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she saw it, in his eyes, deep sorrow, deep regret. She simply didn’t know what it was for. And then he said, “sleep.”
Crane caught April’s limp form as her eyes rolled back and her eyelids closed. This…he couldn’t let her stay. She was so young, strong, brave. She would get herself killed. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t bear that. But this…
He wasn’t sure she would forgive him for this.
Holding her in his arms, he walked through the portal, laid her on a sofa in the sparsely furnished house. He closed the portal, and took a breath before opening another. She wouldn’t sleep long, but it would be enough for him to get to the rest of the cabal. At least they’d be there when she woke up. Of course, some of them, at least Irrlicht, would be as furious with him as April was going to be. He had never used that kind of magic on any of them without permission. But at least they would be there. For now.
“Why don’t we ever go to your place?” Alex liked to cook, and he’d just arrived at her apartment with a pair of grocery bags. She thought it was strange that he’d go to the trouble rather than just inviting her over, but it seemed to fit him, the way no matter what he told her, it always seemed like his life was filled with secrets.
So it was a surprise when he answered her.
“Two reasons,” he said, setting the bags down on her counter. “First, you have a much nicer kitchen than mine, and I quite enjoy the opportunity to use it,” that was the sort of answer she expected from him, but he continued on. “Second, I’m a Mastigos and I do work for the Mysterium, including occasionally storing items for them. My apartment is a maze of pocket dimensions, doors that won’t let you out once you pass through them unless you know the right spell…there’s one that goes to New Jersey…it’s a small place, literally, physically, but it takes a bit of time to give the tour and safety briefing.”
“Oh,” she replied. “Huh.”
He stood in the kitchen for a moment, watching her, not unpacking the grocery bags. “Would you like to see my apartment?”
“Oh,” she said again, because the only thing more surprising than the honesty was the offer. “Um…yeah, actually I really would.”
He smirked, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. Sure. I’m not taking the subway with the groceries though. It’s going to have to be unnecessary magic.” He drew a portal in the kitchen, and then picked up the grocery bags. “Come on. It’s a bit cramped, I warn you.” Following behind, she felt the linoleum of her kitchen become a soft carpet beneath her feet. She looked around; he had been right, the living area was small, and crowded. There was a tiny kitchen, just a hallway with appliances, and a two-seater table that had been pushed into a corner between the wall and counter and the wall and had only one chair.
“There’s a second chair…I just have to remember where I put it…” said Crane, setting the bags down on the table and starting to unpack them. “You can look around; just…don’t open any doors. Especially if you’re not sure if they were there before.
The kitchen continued directly into a small living area. There was a television with three gaming consoles and one chair, and a desk with two computer, a desktop and a laptop. What wasn’t taken up by technology was filled with books. Some looked very old, like they might be codices of magic, or just antiques, and others, not the same things that he’d have in his office. A lot of mysteries and adventure stories. A surprising number of fantasy novels for a mage…she’s noticed those things often lost their shine when a person discovered real magic. She counted two boxed sets of the Lord of the Rings, one more worn that the other. In one corner was a stack of CDs taller than she was. He saw her looking at it. It looked very precarious.
“I’ve been saying I’m going to get everything uploaded to iTunes for…oh…ten years, I think. What do you think? Expecting something more mysterious?”
“Well,” she smiled. “You’ve said all the mysteries were hidden anyway. Like…” she pointed to a door, “what would happen if I opened that?”
“Nothing, that’s the bathroom. Actually, remember that. Hang on,” he set a pot of water on to boil and walked to where she stood. “Okay,” he opened the door, “that’s the bathroom.” He pointed to the door next to it, “that’s a terrible idea. This is the bedroom. None of the closets are real. Well, they’re real, but they don’t lead to closets. That’s the closet,” he turned and pointed to an old wooden door that didn’t match the others. “But it’s not actually here. It’s in New Jersey.”
She had no response except to turn around and kiss him. “You’re using someone else’s closet? In New Jersey?”
“No,” he kissed her back, then kissed her again. “It’s my closet. I own a property in New Jersey under a pseudonym. I use it for a number of things. It’s never been connected to me, so the cabal and I have used it as a safe house. You’ll see it eventually. And the closet has quite a bit more space than the ones here…that’s where the other chair is. Hang on just a moment. If you hear the water boiling, turn it to simmer?” He opened the door to reveal a neatly organized closet, the sorts of clothing he wore, several suits, a couple of pairs of jeans, a fairly large assortment of ties. Stepping through, he started to close the door behind him. “Sorry, it’s…well it’s the same door on both sides. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She heard footsteps, and then nothing. Out of curiosity, she opened the door. The closet was empty.
“Stay out of my closet,” she heard his voice as if…it was the second floor of a house and he was on the first. He was mirthful. “Seriously. The door will revert back to New Jersey and…well I haven’t cleaned.” April laughed. “Okay,” the voice was closer, “close the door now so I can open it from the other end?” She did as he asked, and he emerged a moment later, carrying a chair that did indeed match the other one in the kitchen.
“Did the water boil?” he asked, walking back towards the table.
“I…uh…”
“Distracted by the flashy space magic? I don’t know how anyone lives in the city with…a door to someplace not in the city, honestly. Come on,” he set the chair down and gestured her over. “I thought I might teach you how to cook something other than spaghetti, if you like?”
“Sure,” she smiled and followed. She had never really learned how to cook. She could follow instructions on a box…usually. “What?”
