Page 83 of Ghost Ribbon

Then I asked, “Can you teach me?”

Dimitri turned his head in increments.

“My cooking skills aren’t exceptional,” I explained. “Can you help me improve them.”

He stared at me like I had announced plans to join a monastery.

“Are you concussed?”

“No.”

“Drugged?”

“No.”

“Blackmailed?”

I gave him a flat look.

Dimitri set the chopsticks down and leaned both palms on the counter.

“Why would you want to learn how to cook?”

I had no intention of explaining that Marco had once admitted that he often nicked or burned himself in the kitchen because he got distracted, or moved too fast without thinking. Nor was I going to tell Dimitri that I had decided then and there that Marco was no longer to be trusted with open flame, sharp knives, or any domestic activity that involved risk to his hands.

Some thoughts weren’t for public use.

Especially not with Dimitri, who would make them unbearable within minutes.

So I shrugged once and said, “Maybe I’m developing a new interest.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then perhaps I’m bored.”

“No.” Dimitri pointed the whisk at me accusingly. “This is about someone.”

“Can you cook,” I asked evenly, “or can you only interrogate?”

His mouth curved. “I suppose I can teach you. Since you helped me with the garden, it’s only fair.”

I was about to answer when the bathroom door down the corridor opened and Ilya emerged, damp-haired and aggrieved.

He had apparently run off to wash himself after the spider incident.

He walked into the kitchen, took one look at the counters full of food, and brightened instantly. “Ohhh, food.”

He made for the tamagoyaki at once.

Dimitri smacked the back of his hand lightly before he could steal a piece.

Ilya recoiled in exaggerated outrage.

“Excuse you.”

“This is for Rei,” Dimitri said without looking at him. “Touch something else.”

“First you work me to death in a garden I didn’t consent to, then you deny me breakfast?”