016— FRENCH TOAST.

I slept properly for the first time in weeks.

I wasn't going to think about why. I got up, splashed water on my face, pulled my hair into a bun and went downstairs.

The kitchen maid looked up from the counter and immediately looked like she needed a moment to process my existence.

"Miss Morrison," she said carefully. "Can I help you?"

"Just seeing what's cooking," I said, moving to look at the pot on the stove.

I looked at it.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Oatmeal, miss."

"Plain oatmeal."

"Yes miss."

"Just… plain. Nothing in it."

"Mr. Volkov prefers—"

"Give it to Mr. Volkov," I said, already opening the refrigerator. "I'm making my own."

She looked genuinely alarmed. "Miss I really don't think—"

"Relax," I said. "I'm not going to burn anything. Probably." I started pulling things out. "Do you have brioche bread? Eggs? Heavy cream?"

"I… yes, but…"

"Vanilla extract. Cardamom. Cinnamon." I looked at her. "Please."

She got everything with the energy of someone who had decided this was above her pay grade.

I found a wide pan, got the butter going low and slow, started the custard mix in a bowl. Eggs, cream, vanilla, a pinch each of cardamom and cinnamon. My mother always said cardamom was the thing. 

“Everyone does cinnamon,” she used to say. “The cardamom is what makes it yours.”

I laid the brioche slices in the custard and the kitchen filled with a smell that hit me somewhere below the ribs.

Saturday mornings. My mother in her yellow robe, humming that song she never finished. Elijah stealing the bread before it was ready and getting his hand slapped. My father reading at the kitchen table pretending not to watch.

“Stop,” I told myself.

I put the first slice in the pan.

The butter sizzled and the smell got worse — worse meaning better. I focused on the heat and on the edges crisping up golden.

"That," said a voice behind me, "smells like something important."

I turned around.

Niko was standing in the kitchen doorway in yesterday's clothes, looking at the pan with an expression of profound personal significance.

"How did you get in?" I asked.

"Door," he said, already crossing to the stove. "Is that cardamom?"

I stared at him. "How do you know what cardamom smells like?"

"My mother's best friend made French toast every Sunday with cardamom," he said, still looking at the pan. 

"I haven't smelled it since I was maybe ten years old." He looked at me properly. 

"You put cardamom in it."

"My mum's recipe," I said. I was still staring at him. Of everything I had expected from Niko at eight in the morning this was genuinely not in the top thousand.

"Can I…"

"No."

"I haven't finished—"

"The answer is no."

"One piece," he said. "One small piece. I haven't had this since childhood, you would be doing an objectively good thing…"

"Fine," I said. "One piece."

He grabbed a plate from the cabinet like he knew exactly where everything was, and I slid a finished slice onto it.

He cut into it and tasted it and his whole face changed.

"It's exactly like hers," he said quietly. Then louder. "How is it exactly like hers?"

"My mum said the cardamom was the secret," I said. "That everyone did cinnamon but cardamom was what made it yours."

"Her name was Mrs. Gray," Niko said, still looking at his plate like it had done something to him personally. "She was the warmest person I've ever met." He looked up at me. "Your mother sounds like she was the same kind of person."

My throat did something I wasn't expecting.

"She was," I said. I turned back to the stove.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. Not making it bigger than it was. 

"Don't," I said. "It's fine."

"Okay," he said. And left it there, which was the right thing to do.

I flipped the next slice. The edges were perfect — caramelized and golden, and I plated it with the warm maple syrup I'd found in the pantry and sliced strawberries.

Niko watched this process with the focused attention of someone witnessing something sacred.

"Your mother," he said, "was clearly an extraordinary woman."

"She was," I said. "She also said if I couldn't cook I'd embarrass the family name so."

"She was right," he said seriously. "This is absolutely a family name situation."

I laughed out loud.

"She also used to say—" I started.

Someone cleared their throat from the doorway.

We both turned.

Kai stood there in dark clothes looking between us with an expression that was trying very hard to be neutral and wasn't quite getting there.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

Then at the pan. At the plates. At Niko sitting at the counter with a fork.

"What," he said, "is happening here?"

"Breakfast," Niko said cheerfully. 

"Sloane's cooking. It's the best thing that's happened in this kitchen since Anton made that lamb in February."

"She has no permission to use this kitchen."

"She's making French toast, Kai. Not conducting operations."

"This isn't her space—"

"Last time I checked," I said, turning back to the stove, "you invited me to stay here. Or abducted me. I'm still deciding. Either way the kitchen comes with the house."

"I didn't invite you anywhere."

"Semantics."

"It's not—"

"Someone like you," I said, glancing at him over my shoulder, "probably eats plain oatmeal every morning and calls it sufficient."

"Someone like me," he repeated.

"Joyless and deeply unbothered by flavor."

Niko pressed his fist to his mouth.

"You have no permission," Kai said, "to be in my kitchen at eight in the morning making things that—" He stopped.

"That what," I said.

A pause.

"That requires this much involvement," he said.

"It's French toast."

"It's a production."

"It's FRENCH TOAST, Kai," Niko said. "With cardamom. Sit down and eat something that has actual flavor for once in your—"

"Niko."

"Sitting," Niko said. "I'm sitting."

I slid the last plate across the counter toward Kai without looking at him. He looked at it, looked at me and said nothing. 

Pulled out a stool and sat down.

I noticed, because I was observant, not because it meant anything, the dark circles under his eyes that hadn't been there yesterday. Probably came from a full night of not sleeping.

I looked away before he caught me looking.

We ate at the long table. All three of us, which nobody had planned. Anton appeared and added things quietly and then disappeared again.

Kai ate and said almost nothing. Niko ate and said everything. I sat between them and ate my French toast and thought about how strange it was to be here…

I broke the silence before I decided to.

"I need to get my things," I said. "From my apartment."

"I'll send someone," Kai said.

"I'll go myself."

"You won't."

"They're my things—"

"Your apartment is a known location with active Silvercrest surveillance," he said. "You're not going."

"I'm not letting your people go through my belongings."

"They won't go through—"

"Like they didn't before," I said. "When someone went through my room in Briar Falls."

"That was a security measure…"

"My underwear drawer, Kai."

Niko made a sound that was not a cough.

"That was," Kai said carefully, "a thorough security measure."

"I want to go myself."

"You've decided to stay," he said, leaning back slightly. Something cold and almost amused crossed his face. "I'm almost disappointed. I thought you'd hold out longer."

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Then stop making it flattering."

"KAI," Niko said, with the energy of someone who had genuinely reached his limit. "In six years. Six years. I have never once heard you say this many words before nine in the morning. I didn't know you were capable of this."

Kai looked at him.

"I'll take her," Niko said, gesturing between us with his fork. "To the apartment. She gets her things, I make sure nothing catastrophic happens, we're back before dark. Everyone is happy."

Kai said nothing.

Something shifted in his expression, there and gone before I could name it. He looked at Niko. Then at me. Then back at Niko.

"Back before dark," he said. He stood up. Looked at me once — flat, direct, the look that meant he was saying something without saying it. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Define stupid," I said.

He left.

                  …

Niko's car was a silver Porsche that made me stop walking when I saw it.

"This is yours?" I asked.

"Yes."

"This is what you drive."

"Is there a problem?"

"It has a spoiler."

"It's functional."

"It's unnecessary."

"Get in the car, Sloane."

I got in. The seat adjusted itself automatically. The dashboard screen was the size of a small television. It smelled like money and mild absurdity.

"You people," I said.

"What people?"

"Rich people."

"I'm not that rich."

"Niko. The spoiler."

He grinned and said nothing and pulled out of the gates.

I looked back through the window as we drove away. The mansion sat at the end of the private road, lit and enormous in the morning light.

Someone standing there.

Dark clothes. Still. Just… standing at the glass looking out.

I blinked.

The window was empty.

A shadow maybe. The angle of the morning light playing tricks. I couldn't be sure I'd seen anything at all.

I faced forward.

Niko was talking about something. I heard none of it.