THE FIRE SAGA

SPARK 46 - ABSOLUTION

Derry makes a pit stop in the kitchen on our way into the house, slicing through a loaf of freshly baked bread. Who's baking bread in the middle of the night? Don't all Sumairs need to sleep? Brody does.

"We sleep," he asserts. "Just not tonight."

I take a healthy bite of his offering. Extra centuries have given someone extra time to perfect domestic arts like baking. It's delicious, but you know what it isn't? Cake.

His expression is playful. "Take a guess who made it."

"Is this a trick question?" I lift a brow. "Was it you?"

"Nope." He pulls me to the stairs.

"Kiley?"

He laughs. "Nope, she's been kicking for over five hundred years, and she still can't cook anything that doesn't invoke a gag reflex."

I follow him up the stairs, and we pause on the landing.

"Melanie?"

"She can cook. She just hates to do it. I'm pretty sure she only took me in so she didn't have to prepare her own meals."

"Among other reasons," says a cool voice from the living room.

She's in the center of several easels. There's paint on each canvas, on the floor, on the ceiling, and all over her face. It's a chore not cracking a smile at the display.

"Our darling Barry is the house chef," she announces proudly. "If you want to see something amusing, ask him to show you his apron."

"Would he bake me a cake?" I don't know when, and I don't know how, but I am ending up with a cake at some point, or I swear on my honor, the world will burn. Derry chuckles.

"I told you she wouldn't run," she chides Derry. "You need to have more faith in me."

"I have tons of faith in you," he argues. "More bread?"

My stomach growls, rudely broadcasting the truth. Who am I kidding? I'm standing next to a mind-reader. I'll never be able to lie again.

He kisses me on the forehead. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not at an advantage."

I scoff.

"You can read my emotions just as easily as I can read your thoughts. It's a nice balance."

It is. Balance is paramount in everything we're trying to accomplish here. Opposite sides meeting in the middle of a bridge pending construction.

"You've brought him right out of his shell," Melanie claims. "Did he neglect telling you?"

I shrug. "Water, huh?"

"Ice."

"Specialty?"

"Dreamwalking."

"Is that like sleepwalking?"

Water-ice-dreams-walking. What can she do with that sort of ability? It hits me like a cold slap to the face. The Tribunal has a team of scholars who can essentially see everything: past, present, and future.

Barry effectively kept the Connells shielded from the Writers, but if that's true, how did Derry and his family find me? Their arrival into my life isn't coincidental. On the contrary, they're here because of me. There's only one way they could've known about me. Melanie can see the future.

This must be tied to her ice-wielding power. In cryogenics, the body is frozen to prolong life. There have been several cases of people surviving for longer periods under cold water, thus avoiding drowning. In theory, if she could slow herself, wouldn't everyone around her be faster? Wouldn't it have the opposite effect of speeding up time?