The thing about April and Harper’s big, old house is that it is both big and old. This means it is both always about three degrees cooler than Fray likes, even when Baj is in the room, and that each and every time Fray tries to find his way somewhere after everyone’s gone to bed, he gets lost.
But there’s definitely a bathroom somewhere around here. Bathrooms do not relocate, whether or not it’s one in the morning. He’s on the first floor, and the big neglected dining room was just around the last corner, which should mean the bathroom is—
CRASH!
Fray’s heart leaps into his throat at the sound of shattering glass. He goes perfectly still, waiting in terror for the shouting and lights that will surely follow a breaking window—will surely prove that the Library has tracked them down at last.
It never comes. Instead, he catches just the faintest rippling of voices from the kitchen. A stealth approach? Then why break the window? Fray is already peering around the corner of the doorway. And of course the floorboard under his feet creaks. Loud.
Two things move: one, the set of green-glint eyes hovering some two feet above the counter; two, the lamplight yellow stare that seems to shed its own light. Both fix themselves upon him. Fear prickles down his neck.
But only for a moment.
Fray has to fumble for the light before he can wrest control of his tongue away from his paralyzed limbic system. The scene resolves itself into what he had realized it must be after the initial fright: Baj, staring wide-eyed and ever-alert, and Tin, perched on all fours atop the kitchen island. The window just beyond the two of them is not broken, but in their hand Baj clutches the remains of a broken glass.
Adrenaline still pounding through him, relief mixing with annoyance, Fray manages to get out a reedy-voiced “Why are you standing here in the dark? Can you guys not be weirdos for, like, ten minutes?”
“No,” Tin says immediately, in his usual deadpan; simultaneously, a minutely relaxing Baj says, “Look who’s talking. Nice shirt.”
Fray looks down at the shirt he had thrown on for bed. It’s out of that pile of Salvation Army clothes they’d stolen from the donation pile, and Fray hadn’t given it more attention than a sniff test. Parsing it upside-down is something of a challenge at this hour, but he figures out the words “There’s No Place I’d Rather Be Than Beaver Valley.” Recognizing that the accompanying illustration is an extreme angle, altered to within plausible deniability, of the view from between a woman’s legs—that takes him a little longer. Tin is already making his scratchy little cackle by the time he does. Even Baj is smirking.
“I hate you guys,” Fray mumbles, and turns out the light.