Page 56 of Throwing Fire

I reach up and flick her on the ear. She breaks off with a giggle.

“My food,” I tell her, stripping the rest of the meat off the wing.

“I thought we shared everything,” she says, but she can’t even manage a pout. Not with that grin splitting her face.

“We do. My food is my food, and your food is my food.” I steal a shrimp ball off her plate. Shrimp is nothing if not plentiful on Kez’s table now that we run the biggest shrimp farm on the planet.

Kez taps a finger against her chin. “I’m pretty sure,” she says, pausing to clean off her sticky paws. “That we agreed sixty-forty, so technically, more than half of your food ismyfood.”

“In your dreams. ‘Sides, ain’t you supposed to be feedin’ me?”

She dries her hands hastily and wiggles on the bench. “I am. What do you want next?”

I nod at a dish of powdery pinkbrigadeiros. Kez’s is the one with a serious sweet tooth, but she’s gotten me hooked on these little sweets. She scoops up two between her chopsticks, offers one to me and pops the other in her mouth. Chews with her eyes rolled back so the whites show between her lashes. Culinary rapture.

The brigadeiros are pretty good. These are clyros and lime, azesty little edge playing along my palate. I like the silver plum ones Kez makes better, but only just.

I nudge her and open my mouth for another. This time I get one to her two, which is fine by me. I’m on sweetness-overload. “Good thing the Doc sealed your teeth,” I tell her. “I can hear the enamel fizzing.”

Kez giggles, chokes on her brigadeiros, and lolls against my side after I slap her on the back. Her move reminds me of the rabbits flopping. I hope it means the same thing. I want her to relax, now that we’re home. Now that we’re safe. She was much too tense on the Clouds.

After lunch, we take a bath, in part because I want to get naked with my kitten, even if I’m not up to sex yet, and in part because Kez spillsrinkasauce all down my arm while she’s clearing the table. From her grin, I think the maneuver is deliberate. Since that just gets us where I was going anyway, I don’t complain.

Climbing into the bath, looking into the mirrors that frame it a little too brightly on all sides, I see how bad the crash fucked me up. My back is a mass of pink newskin, still too fresh to have darkened to my skin tone. There are a few patches of dark gold in all that pink: all that’s left of my own hide. Strips of pink curl over the rest of my body like ribbons. A twisting strip down the back of my right leg from ass to calf. A banner down my right arm. A long, snaking ribbon that starts between my shoulders and curves all the way over the top of my skull to just above my left eye. There’s a faint black shadow where my eyebrow is just starting to grow back. I can’t see the internal repairs: head, shoulder, ribs, hip. But I can feel where they were from the most intense aches. Sinking into the hot water is sweet, sweet relief.

Kez climbs in after me, sits down in my lap, and rests her head on my shoulder. I curl my arms around her loosely, let my head loll back against the tub’s padded rim, and close my eyes. I don’t feel fatigued, particularly now that the hot water is washing away the worse of my aches, but if she’s quiet, I’ll probably fall asleep. Knowing my kitten,that won’t be a problem. I like spending time with Kez, but she does yap.

She surprises me, as she often does. She lies against me, quiet except for a soft tune she’s humming to herself. The vibration against my chest, the warm water, the sleek, wet weight of her conspire to take me down, faster than a sap to the temple.

When I wake,the skylight above the bath has darkened, and Kez is sitting on the lip of the tub, holding a steaming cup of tea. “Hale?”

“Yeah, kitten.” I sound groggy, even to my own ears. I’ve never slept in the bath before. Except for how groggy I am, and the inevitable pruniness of my skin, I like it. And I slept a long time. Over five hours by the chrono in my eye.

“Acker’s calling you,” she says, lifting her wrist to show me her viewie. Tiancha’s ratty face looks back at me from one of the little panels that’s normally a smoked mirror.

“Route it in here.”

Kez nods and disappears, probably into the control center to route the call. The flexypane wall next to me flickers and Acker’s black head and shoulders fill it. He leans in, sniffs like he’s smelled something bad, and leans back so I can see the cave behind him, with Tiancha standing a few feet away, wringing her paws.

“Forgive me,” Acker says. “I did not mean to disturb you.”

“S’okay.” I rub a wet hand over my face. Water’s still warm. Kez must have set it. Thoughtful kitten.

“I wanted to make sure you were still among the living. There are conflicting reports. But the most curious is from a Founder, who claims that you are very much alive and require me to admit her to the Deeps.”

“Payton.” I nod. That was quick work. She didn’t wait for me to make the intro. I like her initiative.

Acker spreads his paws. “Why?”

Kez returns and perches on the lip of the tub. She hands me a cup of tea, which I know is klee by the smell, before I take a sip. “Sorry, I forgot she was a Founder.” Kimpler was a Founder and she’s his clone, so of course she’s a Founder, too. “You ever met her before?”

Acker shakes his black-maned head.

“Think you’ll find her more open-minded than most. Smarter than most, too. She’s an asset. I don’t want to lose her if we don’t have to.”

“You know I hold nothing against the Crystal Snake’s people but allowing a Founder into the Deeps.” His nose twitches. “It will not be a popular decision.”

“You free to meet her somewhere else?” I take a sip of tea. “Thought you were pinned down there.”

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