Chapter 14
The flatbread's on fire again.
Just the edges, but smoke's filling the warehouse and Ridge has been coughing for twenty minutes even though he insists he's fine.
I poke at it with the bent fork I found earlier, trying to flip it on the salvaged metal sheet we're using as a cooking surface.
The whole setup wobbles—really need another brick for that corner.
"It's done," I tell Finn, who's watching with deep concern. "Very done. We're calling this done and moving on."
The warehouse doesn't have a kitchen, obviously.
What it has: a metal drum with holes punched in it, some wire mesh that might have been fence once, and my determination to feed forty people with two bowls and whatever optimism remains.
Earlier I saw rats working together to carry something.
They have better organizational skills than we do.
"Maybe we could—" Finn starts.
"Yes, we're eating it. Burnt bits and all." I flip the bread, discovering the other side is both raw and charred, which shouldn't be possible but here we are. "We need forty more. Maybe fifty if people are actually hungry, which they must be. When did everyone eat last?"
"I could find more flour?"
"That would be wonderful, except—" I look around at our new home.
Water drips from pipes that shouldn't exist. Black mold creeps up the corner wall.
The floor has textures—multiple concerning textures that change depending on where you step.
"Actually, could you find Gray Streak? I need to ask him something. "
Finn runs off immediately. He's been bringing me things all day—a turkey baster which is actually useful, half a candle we're rationing, and something with fur that might have been cheese once but has achieved independence. Sweet boy, trying so hard. Probably hasn't eaten either.
The flatbread catches properly on fire this time. Actual flames.
"Let it burn," Syl signs from her corner. She's been using complete sentences since everyone saw my magic. Progress, even if most sentences are complaints.
"It's food. People need food even if it's burnt." I beat at the flames with another piece of metal, wondering if we even have water that's safe to drink. Whatever's dripping from those pipes looks suspicious. Smells worse.
"Olivia." Gray Streak appears like they all do now. "Finn said you needed something?"
"My apartment. I need things from my apartment.
" The words tumble out fast. "Sheets and blankets—people can't sleep on nothing.
My good pot, the one without holes. That cheese I was saving.
Paint too, if there's time. Vegetables. We desperately need vegetables or everyone's getting scurvy. I don't know how to treat scurvy."
"I can't take you there."
"But you can shadow-travel. You did it this morning with the turnips. Are those turnips okay? Did anyone save them?"
He shifts uncomfortably. "Boss says no."
"He says no to blankets? People are sleeping on this floor tonight. This actual floor with its diseases."
Gray Streak disappears into shadow without another word.
Probably smart—I was about to list all the health hazards I've identified.
I manage to save one piece of flatbread that's only mostly carbon.
Give it to the teenager with broken ribs.
Healing makes you hungry. Should probably tell people that.
"Thanks," he mumbles through burnt crumbs.
"When did you last have vitamins? Any vitamins? Fruit, vegetables, anything that isn't bread?"
Gray Streak rematerializes before the kid can answer. "Boss says he'll take you."
"But you're not busy and he's probably—"
"Boss says he'll take you himself."
Oh. After everything today. After the attack where his hand was on my thigh before the door exploded. After I watched him kill six people without hesitating. Now he's personally taking me shopping for pillowcases.
He appears from nowhere, still wearing that blood-stained shirt. I want to ask if the blood itches when it dries.
"Five minutes."
"To pack my entire life?"
"Five minutes."
His hand is cold when I take it. Shadow travel is awful—my stomach goes somewhere else while the rest of me gets compressed through freezing darkness. Then we're in my apartment like none of today happened.
My studio looks impossibly normal. The half-finished landscape on my easel—those worried trees seem even more worried now. Probably me projecting.
"Five minutes," he repeats.
I'm already moving, ripping sheets off my bed. The good ones with barely any paint stains. "Hold these."
"I'm not a pack animal."
"You're transportation. Same thing right now." I pile sheets in his arms, then blankets, then my grandmother's quilt that weighs more than any blanket should but it's warm. "Grimm needs this. He's always cold, have you noticed? He shivers but tries to hide it."
"He's not—"
"Here, pillowcases. All of them." I dart to the windows, pulling down curtains. Those warehouse windows are just black squares staring at nothing. "We need these for basic human dignity."
"You can't take your curtains."
"Watch me. They're already down." The fabric tears free. I eye my rug. "This too. Someone could sleep on this instead of the diseased floor."
"It's attached to your floor."
"Rugs are meant to move. That's the entire point." I roll it up, adding it to his growing mountain. Can't see his face anymore but his exasperation radiates through the fabric barrier.
Kitchen next. I grab everything useful while talking—silence makes me nervous. "My good pot. These wooden spoons without splinters—splinters cause infections and we don't have antibiotics. Do we have antibiotics? When was the last time anyone had a tetanus shot?"
"This is excessive—"
"Shh. Carrying time, not commenting time." I grab paint supplies, then dash for my winter coat. "Someone small will need this."
"It's your coat."
"Was my coat. Things change quickly." I add decorative pillows to his pile. Even the one with embarrassing embroidery. "Don't judge the daisies."
The moldy bread on my counter stops me. "I was going to feed the shadows tomorrow. Your shadows. But there's no tomorrow now."
Something shifts in what I can see of his face above the blanket mountain. I'm already moving again, grabbing my good pillow.
"This is for you. Your neck's always tense. You get those headaches behind your eyes? Bad pillows cause that."
"Ready?" His voice comes out muffled.
I take one last look. Mrs. Harwicke's portrait glaring from the corner with her honest nose she never paid for. The worried trees waiting on their easel.
"Ready."
Shadow travel with forty pounds of bedding goes exactly as badly as expected. We explode into the warehouse trailing blankets and pillows. A decorative cushion bounces off his head with a little poof.
"Medical supplies," I announce to no one, already gathering things. If I stop moving I'll think about how bizarre this is.
I distribute immediately. Grimm gets the quilt even though he pretends he doesn't need it. Ridge gets good pillowcases—still shaking from earlier. Syl gets the wool blanket. She's been shivering for hours.
"Is that your rug?" Davis asks.
"Our rug now. Communal property."
I haul everything to my medical corner—a space between rust stains where the roof leaks less. Someone's already waiting, holding his arm wrong.
"Small scratch," he says. They all say that.
It needs seventeen stitches we don't have. Golden light pours from my hands instead, warm and obvious now that everyone knows. The wound knits closed while everyone watches.
"Yes, I glow. No, I can't turn it off. Yes, it's always warm. No, I don't take requests unless you're actually dying."
Ridge brings a blanket he definitely stole. Finn brings the turkey baster again, asking if it's useful. It is. I send him for soap.
Someone mentions Aldric—the maybe-traitor locked up somewhere.
"Has anyone fed him?"
"He might have betrayed us all."
"That's rude if true, but he still needs food. Can't interrogate someone who's fainted from hunger." I try to find him, get stopped by guards, end up leaving bread with promises to deliver it.
Back in my corner, hanging sheets for privacy, doing math that doesn't work—ten blankets for forty people.
"How many injured?" I ask Gray Streak when he appears.
"Walking wounded? Fifteen. Serious? Four."
"Bring the serious ones first."
"You've been healing all day."
"I'll rest when everyone's functional. Limping leads to compensation injuries."
The warehouse darkens. No electricity, just barrel fires creating wrong shadows. Finally alone, hanging my apartment curtains over depressing windows, it hits me.
Seventeen people died today.
Tomás liked his bread slightly burnt. Reminded him of his grandmother who couldn't cook but tried. His daughter's four, wearing yellow in the picture he showed everyone. She doesn't know yet.
Asha was allergic to nuts. Should have made a list. What if there are other allergies? She'd apologize for it like it was personal failing.
Benedikt said thank you for everything. Yesterday—was it only yesterday?—he thanked me for teaching him proper tea. His mother used to make it before she died. Years ago but he still missed her.
The crying starts all at once. Everything leaking while I'm folding sheets that smell like home.
"Don't."
Ruvan's there suddenly, still in that ruined shirt.
"I'm sorry, I just—" Can't get words out.
"Don't apologize."
"Seventeen people—"
"I know."
Shadows form walls around us. Complete darkness except my golden glow. Nobody can see or hear us in this bubble.
He sits awkwardly, puts an arm around me. I collapse immediately, getting his shirt wet and snotty.
"They were learning to be happy. Tomás had that picture. Asha's poetry was terrible but she was proud. Someone needs to tell families but I don't know who—"
"I know."
"How?"
"I pay attention."
I cry until there's nothing left. His hand moves awkwardly on my back at first—little pats like he's not sure how pressure works. Then longer strokes when I don't pull away. His other hand in my hair, fingers working through tangles.
"Your hair has paint in it."
"Always does."
His fingers keep moving, catching knots and working them free. Soothing in that way that makes you cry harder before less. I do both, sobbing into his ruined shirt while he does something with his thumb on my spine that shouldn't be comforting but is.
"Better?" he asks eventually.
"No. Maybe. Don't know." I wipe my face with my sleeve. "Your shirt's ruined."
"Already was."
"Now it's worse."
"Marginally."
That startles a small laugh out of me.
We sit in the shadow bubble. Somehow he knows how to fold fitted sheets. His hands steady where mine shake.
"You need sleep," he says finally.
"The floor has diseases. I saw something growing."
"Not on the floor."
Shadows shift and form something bed-shaped, raised and solid.
"Shadow furniture? You can make furniture? Have you always been able to do this?"
"Apparently."
We're still not talking about it—the crying, his arm around me, how we're hidden together.
"Thank you. For the apartment. For letting me get things."
He nods, starts to leave, stops.
"The pillow. You were right about my neck."
Then he's gone, but some shadows remain. Darker than regular dark.
"This is weird," I tell them. "Are you reporting back?"
They don't respond. Probably for the best.
I make a nest with sheets from home, curling on shadow furniture that's surprisingly solid for something that shouldn't exist. Something crashes elsewhere. Too tired to care.
"Tomorrow's problem," I whisper.
My last thought: Mrs. Harwicke's portrait alone in my abandoned studio, glaring at nothing with her honest nose. Good. Let her glare.
The shadows stay while I sleep. Somewhere in this disease-ridden warehouse, forty criminals try to survive in a place actively trying to kill us all.