"Someone has to." I look around the table. Everyone's eating mechanically now. "Gray Streak, you're holding your knife wrong. It's going to cramp your hand."
He adjusts his grip, looking bewildered.
"I have to go," Arthur says eventually. "Being here too long breaks my cover."
"Your cover as my dead brother?"
"My cover as someone who doesn't care what happens to you." He stands, and my shadows immediately form a barrier again. "May I hug my sister?"
The shadows consider this. I pat them encouragingly. "Let me hug my stupid, lying, not-dead brother. But watch him. He might steal the silver."
"We don't have silver," Finn points out, his voice slightly muffled by food.
"He might steal the stainless steel then."
The shadows part reluctantly, staying close enough to intervene. One hovers right behind Arthur's head.
Arthur's hug feels exactly the same—protective, slightly too tight. He still smells like soap and something minty.
"I'll send word when I know more," he whispers. "Be careful. The Luminary himself is interested."
"The Luminary sounds pretentious."
"He's worse than pretentious. He's a true believer." He pulls back, glances at Ruvan. "Keep her safe."
"She's remarkably bad at being kept safe," Ruvan says. First words he's spoken since ordering everyone inside.
"She always was." Arthur looks at me one more time. "Remember when you tried to save that stray dog? It bit you and you still kept trying?"
"He was scared. Scared things bite." The exhaustion's hitting properly now. "Your boots still have holes."
"I know, Livvy. I know."
Then he's leaving with his Tide Runners, and I'm standing in my doorway watching my dead brother walk away again. My legs feel weak. The shadows wrap around me, warm and solid, practically holding me up.
"He's really alive," I say to no one in particular.
"And working with people who tried to kill us yesterday," Ruvan points out, because he's helpful like that.
"And now a religious death cult wants to purify me." I look at the dining room with its abandoned plates. The nervous Tide Runner did eat his vegetables though. Small victories. "Who's on washing duty?"
"You're worried about dishes?" Ruvan's studying my face.
"Someone has to wash them. We can't leave them overnight. The kitchen will smell. And we'll get ants. Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants and then we need ant traps and those never really work and—"
The shadows catch the first plate I drop. They gather the rest, though they keep mixing up the sorting.
"Your brother let you think he was dead for six years," Ruvan says, following me with plates the shadows handed him.
"Yes, well, he's always been dramatic." I start filling the sink with hot water. "Probably where I get it from."
"You're not dramatic."
"I just forced mortal enemies to have dinner together because my dead brother showed up alive." The water's too hot but the shadows adjust it before I can burn myself. "That's at least moderately dramatic."
"That's practical. Harder to kill people after you've shared potatoes."
The shadows swirl warm around us both. One's trying to dry dishes but keeps dropping them.
