"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 hazardsI'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."
