Nightfall and I worked well into the evening as we got lost in our work. James was busy tinkering with the Nexus in the corner, and I only realized I’d missed Bruiser when Bonaparte came scrabbling into the room on his own and climbed up into my lap.

“Hey, my little furry friend,” I said, scratching him behind the ears. “Are you hungry?”

“If he tells you he is, he’s lying,” Bastion said from the door. “Bruiser took him to the river, and he ate about three times his body weight in fish. I don’t know where it disappears to.”

“Did you find a job?” Nightfall asked.

“Not yet,” Bastion frowned. “Asked at a bunch of places, but they all told me to apply online – whatever that means. I’ll try again tomorrow. I came to see if Emma was hungry. I only know how to make porridge, but I could make you some if you want.”

I yawned and stretched my sore muscles, feeling my body pop and crack in several different places.

“It’s probably about time I stopped, anyway. Nightfall, can I leave you to put the books away? I’ll teach Bastion how to make spag bol and we’ll have dinner ready in about twenty minutes.”

“Of course,” Nightfall said, and I left with Bastion.

James muttered something unsavoury under his breath, but I ignored him. Teaching Bastion to cook was kind of fun. It was something I’d never done before, cooking with someone.

When I’d been growing up, I’d been several years older than any of the step or half-siblings that had come in and out of my dysfunctional family. I’d always cooked for them, as a stand-in mother when my actual mother was elsewhere.

When I’d been a student, my roommates had always taken turns on a roster to cook. It had never been something we’d wanted to experience together. And with James… well, he had resolutely insisted that he didn’t know how and had no interest in learning.

But Bastion was curious about my world and all the contraptions we had that differed from what he’d seen in Newtopia. He was used to open fire cooking, but once he worked out the stove, boiling pasta and frying meat wasn’t exactly a challenging concept.

He diced vegetable deftly, having maintained some of his elvish dexterity, and took experimental tastes frequently to see how the different ingredients changed the flavour of the sauce.

The four of us ate around the table, and I set a smaller dish up in the kitchen with plain mince for Bonaparte. James ate quietly, shooting dark looks at the two elves-turned-humans on either side of me.

We cleared the table, and Nightfall offered to do the washing up, but I insisted he and Bastion go ahead to bed while James and I took care of it. They shared an awkward look, but it showed how far they had come that they agreed and disappeared into my bedroom together.

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“You clearly have a problem,” I said to James, as we entered the kitchen. “How about you just say it instead of snarking at everyone every opportunity you get.”

He gave me a pained look. “They hate me. I made them and they hate me. You don’t understand how much that sucks.”

I shrugged. “You made a pretty big mess. I’m sure the hatred will subside a bit if you try and fix things. They’re not bad guys, James.”

“They can’t stay here,” James said. “We’ll get kicked out. You must remember what a big deal Greaves made over your sister staying here.”

“Half-sister.”

“Whatever. We’ll get evicted. And you’re right to worry about unplugging the world. I don’t know what will happen. We used to have two servers running it, but since Dave’s computer was unplugged, it’s just us. Letting them stay here is really risky, Emma. I know you think they’re all perfect and everything but letting them stay is trouble. They don’t belong here.”

I gave him a flat look. “You’re not sending them anywhere, especially when you say their world is at risk. I’m not risking any of them being uncreated in a power outage. Why didn’t you tell me this when we were debating the risk of them using the Nexus in the first place?”

James paused, and I glared at him, shoving one of the plates I’d just washed at him to dry.

“It’s really sad I can’t trust you,” I said, scrubbing the next plate furiously. “Not even with the people you should care about more than anyone else, even if they do hate you.”

“I always thought it would be cool,” James said quietly. “To meet the characters that I designed. I never imagined it would be like this.”

“Well, making necromancers the hated villains of your little world, and then becoming one of them wasn’t your smartest move,” I said wryly.

James said nothing and avoided my eyes when I looked at him.

I washed the last plate and handed it over before pulling the plug and drying off my hands. I wasn’t going to exert more effort to try to make him feel better if he wasn’t even going to engage with me. I was done being everyone’s mother. His regrets weren’t my problem.

“I appreciate the effort you’re putting into fixing things, and all the time you’ve spent teaching Nightfall. But if I find you have tried sending anyone back to Newtopia without getting my approval first,” I turned to him, deadly serious, and saw that same fear flicker in his eyes from when he’d addressed how I’d murdered Dave, “I will make you pay.”

He swallowed, all the colour draining out of his face.

“You’re not going to try that again, are you?”

“No,” James said, his voice sounding thin. “But Emma…”

“Yes?” I crossed my arms and leaned against the sink.

“I still love you,” James whispered. “It’s not easy for me, seeing you with them, and maybe I… I wasn’t thinking straight, trying to do it while you were away. But I do love you. Please don’t hate me as well.”

The heat drained out of my anger. It would take a while for me to be able to really trust James again, but I didn’t truly want to be enemies with him. We’d been together a long time, and friends for even longer.

“I don’t hate you, James,” I said softly. “Don’t give me a reason to.”

Then I turned on my heel and left him in the kitchen alone.

I brushed my teeth and found Bastion and Nightfall sitting on my bed, talking quietly. Their conversation died once I entered, and they gestured for me to join them.

“I need to get a bigger bed,” I sighed, wrapping my arms around Bastion, as Nightfall wrapped his around me in a snug sandwich.

“You need to get a bigger house,” Bastion snorted.

Huh. That was a thought.