Page 270 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

I take the stairs down to the kitchen without making a sound, skipping the third step because it creaks. It's empty, the countertops clean, the lights out. I leave them off. My eyes are already adjusted to the dark.

I fill the tea kettle from the tap, set it on the stove, and turn the flame to low. Plague's private stash of loose-leaf is in the cabinet behind the protein powder, where he thinks nobody can find it.

I know where everything is in this house.

And then… footsteps.

Soft and small. Bare feet on hardwood, barely audible, and if I weren't me, I wouldn't have caught them at all.

Ivy rounds the corner in one of Thane's oversized shirts, the hem hitting her mid-thigh. It hangs off one shoulder, baring the cluster of three silver healed marks layered over the old burn scar. Her dark hair is a sleep-rumpled mess, her eyes are half-shut and partially glued by sleep.

She stops when she sees me.

"Hey," she says.

"It's four in the morning."

"I know." She pads to the counter and hoists herself up onto it, her bare feet dangling. She stretches her arms above her head with a squeaky yawn, the shirt pulling up over her pale stomach, and I force my eyes away. "Couldn't sleep."

I lean against the opposite counter and cross my arms. The kettle ticks softly behind me.

She wasn't tossing and turning up there. She was lying still and breathing evenly when I passed the loft ladder. I would have heard.

She heard me leave and followed.

I don't call her on it.

"Tea?" I ask instead.

"Please."

I pull a second mug from the cabinet. Her favorite is shaped like a moose head. It's Whiskey's, which is why it's glued together and chipped. She always reaches for it anyway.

The kitchen is quiet except for the low hiss of the flame and the faint settling sounds of the house. Ivy draws her knees up and wraps her arms around them, resting her chin on top.

"You mentioned a bad dream earlier," she says.

My jaw tightens. "Did I."

"You did."

"Hm."

She watches me. I can feel it without looking, the way she studies people. Studies me like I'm a strange, rare creature she has no idea what to make of.

"Must've been a rough one," she says.

"They usually are."

She nods and doesn't push. Just sits there on the counter with her knees pulled up and her cheek resting against them now, watching the blue flame under the kettle.

The silence between us is different than silence with other people. With most people, silence is a hostage negotiation. Someone will break first. Someone always wants something.

Ivy just exists next to me.

It used to be infuriating. Now, I draw a disconcerting comfort from it.

The kettle starts to whisper. I pull it off the flame before it screams and pour both mugs, dropping the loose-leaf strainer into hers and a bag of the cheap shit I bought for myself into mine.