"A death cult wants to burn the corruption out of me," I say conversationally, scrubbing a particularly stubborn bit of chicken. "Do you think they provide their own fuel or expect us to supply it?"
"They'll have to get through me first."
"That's very sweet, but you're not invincible. You get those headaches, remember? Behind your eyes? Have you been taking the willow bark tea I made?"
"This isn't about tea—"
"Everything's a little bit about tea." I hand him another plate carefully. The shadows catch it, pass it to him. "Maybe let Ruvan handle the plates, shadow friends."
We wash dishes in comfortable silence while shadows try to help and mostly just move things to wrong places. My legs wobble and I have to lean against the counter.
"Your brother has terrible boots," Ruvan observes, steadying me with a hand on my elbow.
"The worst boots. Someone should do something about that."
"Not us."
"Obviously not us. We're busy with dishes." I hand him the last plate with both hands. "And death cults. And teaching shadows about silverware organization."
"The important things."
The shadows wrap around us both, warm and protective, while outside my not-dead brother walks back to his guild that tried to kill us yesterday. Everything's different and exactly the same, which is how these things go.
Tomorrow I'll process the emotional trauma properly. Tonight, I have clean dishes and matching plates and my body won't stop shaking even though the danger's passed.
The nervous Tide Runner ate his vegetables though.
That's something.
Chapter 20
Felix Morrick calls me the Kitchen King.
This is what occupies my mind at four in the afternoon, having not slept since my dead brother-in-law served himself dinner in my new dining room last night. The ledger shows Morrick's protection payments down forty percent while I was learning about fabric samples.
The Radiant Court wants to burn Olivia from the inside out. Arthur let her think he was dead for six years. And Felix Morrick is taking bets on my downfall.
I can fix one of these today.
"He took bets yesterday," Gray Streak says, standing in my new study that reeks of lemon oil. My eyes won't focus—everything doubles at the edges. Twenty hours without sleep. "At the Crow's Nest. Fifty gold that you'd be dead or fled within the month."
"Fled?"
"He suggested a pottery collective." Gray Streak keeps his face neutral. "Or a vegetable farm."
My shadows ripple across the floor, then immediately drift toward the window Olivia cleaned this morning. They pool where she stood on the ladder. Supposed to be weapons. Instead they're following ghost warmth.
"Stop that." They lean harder toward her residual presence. One settles exactly where she dropped a cloth. "We have work to do."
"The Copper Hands have fourteen active operations," Joss says from her corner. She materializes with exactly what I need at exactly the right moment. Twenty years and she still makes my instincts twitch. "Warehouses on Dock Street, protection through the merchant quarter, gambling den near the courthouse."
"You've been watching them."
"I watch everyone who might be a problem." She examines her nails. "Felix keeps his best enforcers at the main warehouse. Eight of them. Plus another six at his residence."
She knows their shift changes, bad knees, who's fucking whose wife. Thorough to the point of suspicion.
"We take it all tonight." I stand. My shadows reluctantly pull away from their warm spots. "Every operation. Every contact. Every coin."
