Last night, Livie had stood at the edge of the stairs when the door to the house had opened and Ignacio had walked in with that strange girl. After that, she'd snooped around, because of course she'd snooped around. She'd asked questions, because of course she'd done that, too.

She'd figured out that the girl was Pendour, or Sadie, the one that she'd been writing letters to for a few weeks now.

Which, like, she'd wanted to bust into the guest bedroom and start asking Sadie a bunch of questions right then and there, but she couldn't do much 'cause the girl was kinda dead asleep. She might have tried knocking on the door, but it hadn't done much, so after that she'd given up and gone to her room.

The curiosity might have kept her up for a while, but eventually her phone games started to all blur together, and Livie had managed to fall asleep with her face smushed into a giant teddy bear.

Then she'd woken up at her normal time, and she'd waited, and she'd waited. She might have walked around the kitchen so many times that some passing family members had said stuff about how she was gonna wear through the floor, but it wasn't like she could stay still.

Then she heard one of the basement doors click open, and she might've squealed a little bit. In any case, she wasted no time in pouring out two bowls of chocolate cereal and then hovering by the edge of the stairs.

Sadie came up slowly, with her hair all tangled, wearing her leggings from the day before and a clean shirt that Ignacio had let her borrow. She still felt heavy. Later, when she got home, she would probably sleep for a few more hours. A least she was awake enough to smile at the very pink, very bouncy girl who was waiting for her with a grin like a shark.

Luckily, Sadie was neither afraid of sharks, or of girls who were saying things like, "Hi! Sadie, yeah? Are you okay? It was Faustite right? What even happened?" before she could even get a word in edgewise. When she opened her mouth to try to say something back, Livie was grabbing her hand and dragging her over to the kitchen. "Here, I got you some breakfast to cheer you up," she said. "It's my favorite."

"I've been through worse," said Sadie, as she eyes the very chocolate looking balls floating around in a puddle of milk. She pulled her hair across her eye, since she was thinking about that again, now, and then she stirred the whole mixture with a spoon.

"Did he go all explody on you?"

"No. Um. Not really." She flexed the fingers of her burned hand, which was still a little tender.

"Woah," said Livie, and she lit up like this was the most exciting thing in the world. She wasn't awkwardly stirring her cereal around, she was shoveling it into her mouth.

"I gave him some energy and he told me about how he hated humanity, about how it wasn't worth saving," said Sadie. Livie's grin faded at that until she added, "I think there's more to his story. I think I can get him to talk again."

If she hadn't burned too many bridges with him seeing the memory of the way she'd acted with that other half youma, if she hadn't ruined everything because he'd seen how she talked back when she didn't know as much as she did now. She'd try, though. She'd have to try.

To see Livie smile like this made all the last night worth it.

"Ugh, I love you so much, Sadie," Livie was saying, kicking her feet under the table. "Everyone's right You're so good at this. Plus, you're not, like, giving up on people, just because they're in deep, or doing weird stuff, like," she gave a little squeak that melted Sadie's heart.

Sadie went quiet for a second. She took a bite of cereal and tried not to make a face at the sugar content.

"I might need your help, though," she said. "Because you know, um, Encke, you know how he gets anxious?"

Livie might have managed to nod twenty whole times in three seconds, all while rolling her eyes.

"I might need you to be the one to help me home next time, if I get drained again," she said. "I've been thinking about it. I don't think he'll kill me, if he knows I can be a resource for him, but he might leave me like that again, and," she hesitated, licked her lips. "Ignacio doesn't deserve to see that. You know," she said, and Livie's nod that time was softer, too.

"If you think it'll work, I'll do anything I can to help," said Livie. "Anything. I can like, nurse you back to health and stuff. I'll watch some videos."

"Okay," said Sadie, and her smile was soft as ever. "Then we have a plan."