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“Ah, would that be why I heard a distinctly hushed—” He swears. “—a minute ago?”
“Yup.”
“Charming.” Turning sharply on his heel, the man starts down a hall beneath the two staircases, disappearing slowly into the shadows. “I’m going to go bully him. Also, your pie might be burning.”
Andromeda’s eyes widen before she can finish tugging me inside. “F…rickety.”
She’s kicking the front door closed and yanking me into a massive gothic kitchen before I know what’s happening. Dumping me off at a bar stool by a wide black island counter, she marches to the stove beyond it.
I attempt to ignore a miniature guillotine in the corner by the large silver fridge, but it has beheaded a massive carrot bigger than any carrot I have ever seen before.
I cannot ignore it.
I’m staring dead at it while Andromeda opens the industrial-size oven and pulls a pie out to set on a cooling rack in front of me.
She follows my gaze toward the guillotine.
“My dryad friend, Pila, came by earlier. She gave me a pumpkin and some carrots. Said she was feeling orange today. So we played with the guillotine Daddy and I built, then had carrot soup with lunch.” She beams at the slightly over-toasted pie between us. “Pumpkin pie for a pre-dinner snack later. It’s plant-based, so I hope it sets up right in the fridge.”
My mouth is dry as I pull my attention off the sharp blade and find Andromeda’s bare hands, a piping hot pie, and not a single oven mitt in sight. I can hardly breathe. Shaking, I reach for Andromeda’s little palm. Her bare little palm. “Sweetheart…” I whisper. “Why are you using a gas oven all by yourself?”
She pulls her hands away and tucks them beneath the counter. “I don’t understand the question.”
“You…weren’t wearing gloves.”
She grimaces. “I never use them. Gloves are for the weak.”
My brain turns to static in the same moment heavy footsteps draw my awareness to Pollux. He comes down the stairs beyond the kitchen archway, marches into the gaping space, fills it completely, and stops.
A swallow moves through his throat.
My vision bleeds redder than my hair as I picture stuffing his arm into the guillotine his seven-year-old daughter shouldn’t be playing with.
Standing, I smile. Then I stalk.
Planting my hand in the center of his broad chest, I push him out of the kitchen, across the foyer, and behind the set of stairs nearest the kitchen entrance.
He swears when his back hits the wainscoting.
As bright as the blinding, burning, cancer-giving sun, I say, “Mr. Strakh.” I clasp my hands daintily in front of my dress skirt and all the little veggies I embroidered onto the material. “Good evening.”
Ever the articulate one, he grumbles, “H…hi.”
My lashes flutter. “I was just in the neighborhood. I hope you don’t mind my stopping by.”
His chest trembles, just slightly. “You’re…welcome here.”
Innocent as a puppy, I tilt my head. “Great! I’m so glad I’m not intruding. Can we chat?”
“Sure…?”
“Awesome!” It takes everything in me not to listen, friend him as though he’s a child throwing a tantrum. “Are you aware that your seven-year-old is taking pies out of the oven with her bare hands?”
Like a layer of sleet, the stiffness in his body drops out of him in a slushy mess. His eye twitches.
Then he picks me up by my shoulders and sets me aside.
“Meda,” he roars, and the very chandelier above us rattles as he stomps back into the kitchen. “Why the—” He swears. “—are you still burning yourself?” Marching, he buries his fingers in Andromeda’s hair, grabs her head, and shakes her while she squeaks.
