I woke to the sound of the smoke detector screaming. It blared incessantly. Could that be the neighbors? I tried to pinpoint the sound. Nope. That was definitely us. What was Mom—

  Crap. Syrin. I bolted upright, throwing myself off the bed and almost running into the door in my haste to get to the kitchen. The smoke alarm wasn’t the only thing flashing, a harsh white glow was leaking under the door.

  I pushed into the kitchen.

  “Syrin?” I coughed, waving a hand in front of my face. “What did you do?”

  “I was only making tea,” he said, voice soft and strangled with guilt. He stood by the stove, kettle in one hand. He was wearing Dad’s old sweats and a T-shirt now. It looked strange on him, especially considering how his skin was glowing a stark white.

  It made him look a little… frightening. Alien. The light flared again as the alarm let out another shriek, and I flinched, looking away.

  "Sorry, sorry!” His glow dimmed a little, enough that I could finally look at him again. The white glow was just eerie now.

  “Tea?” I yelled over the next round of the alarm.

  “I found the water pitcher and thought—” He stopped, glancing at the alarm shrieking above us. “I didn’t know it would be so… responsive.”

  “You boiled the Pacific Ocean,” I said. “How is that tea?”

  He flinched, light flaring a little. “It went wrong the first time. My magic is… wrong here. So, I added more water. I just need practice. Why does your house scream when there is steam? Does it feel pain?”

  I wanted to be mad, but I couldn’t help but let out a gasping laugh at that description. “Not exactly.”

  I flipped on the fan, propping the door open as I ran to open the windows. The steam started to disperse, and I grabbed a book from the shelf and used it to fan the detector until it gave up its cry.

  The apartment was a humid mess, my hair sticking to my forehead, and Syrin looked like a kicked puppy, standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a tea blend that actually smelled really good. Earthy, but also tangy somehow.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “My satchel. It’s from home. I just wanted…” he didn’t finish, cheeks flushed red.

  He just wanted something that felt like home. That one sentence hit harder than the alarm.

  “Next time,” I muttered, “use the electric kettle. It’s a machine that boils the water fast.”

  He blinked. “You have a machine for that?”

  I groaned. “Yeah, and it doesn’t flood the house with divine steam.”

  I started mopping the floor with a towel to make sure if didn’t turn into a slip hazard.

  “You don’t have to—” Syrin started. “I can clean up. It’s my fault.”

  “S’okay.” I moved on to wiping down the counters. If no one was watching him… “Where’d Mom go?”

  “She said something about…” He frowned. “Tacos?” He pronounced the word like it was a complete mystery. “I told her about the Spanish spell, and she said we needed tacos.”

  I grinned. “Seems like Mom and I think alike.”

  “Are tacos related to tortillas? You said we needed those before.”

  I raised an eyebrow, impressed he remembered the word. Maybe the Spanish spell helped somehow, but still, seemed like a skill that came from practice. “How many languages do you speak, Syrin?”

  He tilted his head. “You mean without spells?”

  I nodded.

  “Three,” he said after a moment. “Four if you count Forsitk, though I speak it so badly I’m not sure it counts. We get petitioners from all over at the Tower.”

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  Considering Syrin seemed like a bit of a perfectionist, I wasn’t sure what “spoke it badly” meant. Probably that he couldn’t write flowery letters or something.

  I toweled down the front of the microwave. Then turned back to him. “Why not just use spells?”

  Syrin blinked. “It just seems wrong. They don’t always get things exactly right. I don’t want to misunderstand people.”

  “Do all the keepers do that?”

  He shifted on his feet. “It’s not required. You can use spells. It’s not heretical or anything, but spells only teach you so much. Like tortilla. The spell tells me it’s a word, but… I have no idea what it means.”

  He looked at the floor. “Plus, people like it. I have an accent, but… they know it means I cared enough to try.”

  I just stared at him.

  “What?” he said, shifting uncomfortably.

  “Nothing. Just never met someone so…” I couldn’t think of the right word.

  His shoulders hunched a little. “It’s okay. Some of the lords think I’m crazy too. They say I’m wasting time.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “That’s not—I was going to say earnest.”

  The glow under his skin warmed again, faint and golden. “Is that good?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. It’s good, but not as good as tacos.”

  Syrin frowned slightly. “Tacos again. They must be very important here.”

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  A key rattled in the door then, and Syrin tensed.

  “Just Mom,” I assured him.

  The door clicked open, and Mom stepped in balancing a large paper bag in one hand and two paper cups with straws balanced precariously in the other. The smell hit instantly—roasted meat, grilled onions, cilantro, lime.

  “Lunch,” she announced. “Tacos. Because apparently that’s what this day needed.”

  Her voice trailed off as she took in the scene: open windows, fogged glass, towels on the floor, and one sheepish Keeper of the Light in an old T-shirt, still clutching a mug.

  She blinked once. “Do I want to know?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “He tried to make tea.”

  “With magic,” Syrin admitted. “I didn’t mean to upset your house.”

  “Upset my house?”

  “The smoke alarm went off,” I clarified.

  “Ah.” Mom just stared for a beat, then sighed, setting the food down on the counter. “Okay. Well, the apartment’s still standing, so we’ll call that progress.”

  “It screamed,” Syrin said softly. “A lot. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I would hurt it.”

  “That’s how it communicates its feelings,” I said.

  He blinked, uncertain if I was joking.

  Mom shot me a glare. “Syrin, you didn’t hurt the house. That alarm is just to make sure people get out if there’s a fire. It goes off whenever I’m cooking too much at once. The house is fine.”

  Syrin looked unsure, like he suspected our words might have been just to comfort him.

  “It’s true,” I said. “It goes off all the time.”

  His glow shifted from slightly too white to amber. Relief?

  I glanced back at Mom. “I told him to use the electric kettle next time.”

  “Well, I’m glad everyone’s okay,” Mom said. She started unpacking the tacos, lining up little foil-wrapped bundles on the counter. The smell intensified until my stomach growled loud enough to be embarrassing.

  Syrin’s lips twitched into an almost smile. Of course he noticed. “You said these are… tacos? The necessary ones?”

  “Extremely,” I said. “Foundational, even.”

  He crouched slightly, inspecting the tortilla like it might be ceremonial. “And how does one… approach it?”

  “Fold. Bite. Transcend.”

  Mom snorted into her drink. “You can tell she hasn’t slept properly.”

  Syrin followed my example, taking a cautious bite. The second he did, his eyes widened and flickered warm gold.

  I flinched. The last time I saw his eyes shift, he’d exploded with fire, but… nothing happened. Maybe the color mattered, like with his normal glow?

  Then the gold faded, leaving his usual hazel, almost green, but not quite.

  “Oh,” he said softly. “That’s… unexpected.”

  “Unexpected good?” I asked.

  He nodded, still chewing. “It tastes like… sunlight and salt.”

  I gave him an amused look. Sunlight? It did taste sort of summery, I guess.

  “That’s the carnitas,” Mom said. She moved to the cabinet and grabbed two more cups, pouring half the second drink into one. “Here, try this. It’s horchata, cinnamon milk.”

  He took a sip, and this time the glow across his whole body pulsed, not harsh, but soft, like candlelight captured under his skin.

  Interesting.

  “Do you like the tacos or the horchata better?” I asked as I scooped salsa onto a tortilla chip.

  He held up the cup.

  So, the full-body glow was stronger, and the eyes more… contained? That tracked, mostly. But then why had both flared with the assassins?

  I pushed the thought aside. “Bit of a sweet tooth?”

  His brow furrowed. “Sweet tooth?”

  I grinned. “That one doesn’t translate well. You like sweet things?”

  He blushed. “Yeah.”

  “Why is that embarrassing?”

  “It’s not—”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He sighed. “I don’t know. It just is.”

  I giggled, and for the first time, he glared at me, which just made me laugh harder.

  I finally got a hold of myself, and for a few quiet minutes, all you could hear was foil crinkling and the faint buzz of the vent fan. The chaos from earlier melted into something easy and homey, the kind of moment that made the kitchen feel warm in the best way.

  Finally, Mom leaned against the counter, wiping her hands. “So,” she said lightly, “no more magical tea-making experiments today?”

  “None,” Syrin promised. “I think I’ll just… observe.”

  “Good plan,” I said, shifting the chip bag to grab the last one. “Observation first. Culinary destruction later.”

  His mouth curved into a shy smile.

  Mom smiled, too, the kind that meant she was secretly pleased we hadn’t set anything on fire. “Good. Finish up. After that, we’ll get you both out for some air. Syrin’s going to need clothes that aren’t Torrik’s old laundry.”

  Syrin glanced down at himself, expression caught somewhere between embarrassed and resigned.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Shopping’s basically a rite of passage.”

  “Another sacred ritual,” he murmured dryly.

  “Exactly. We’ll start you small, borrow Mom’s car. No scary buses this time.”

  He gave me a look, his eyes flickering to a coppery amber. It was the closest thing to exasperation I’d seen from him yet.

  I grinned at him. He just took another bite of taco, his eyes shifting back to gold.

  Honestly, it suited him.