Page 121 of Aftertaste

“I really gotta spell it out? Right now, the Food Hall’s just your dining room. You’re the pantry. The stations. The fuckingChef. Make those ghosts a meal they can’t resist, and meanwhile, we’ll seal the veil. Maura have a plan?”

“Something about dough.”

“I knew I liked her.”

They came to the bottom of the stairs, and Frankie stopped before a subway turnstile, the entrance to the 6.

“Wait,” Kostya said slowly. “Where are we going?”

“To your kitchen. At DUH,” Frankie said.“Duh.”

DUH IN THEHereafter was, down to the bathroom tile, the same as DUH in the Heretofore, except for two things. It was missing its people, and it was missing its food.

This had a strange effect. As though the restaurant itself were on the brink of death, the soul that had given it life abandoning its body.

Kostya gathered supplies at his station—knives and cutting boards, pans and pots and kitchen towels—and took a deep breath, trying to exhale his nerves. He needed ingredients now. Would have to make them. Find them in himself. Frankie had explained this part to him (twice), but Kostya still wasn’t entirely sure how it worked—ifit would.

“Remember,” Frankie reminded him.

Kostya nodded, trying to look braver than he felt. Death was one thing. Forgetting was another.

“I better get started. While I still know what I’m doing here.”

“Shit, Bones.” Frankie pulled him into a hug.

“Frankie, if—” The words caught in his mouth. “If, in the end, I’m not all there, I just want you to know: you were the best friend I ever had. Thanks for pushing me into the kitchen.”

“Thank me again when this works.”

They pulled apart, Kostya’s hands still clutching Frankie’s shirt.

“Come back, okay? Soon as you find Maura. And close that fucking veil.”

“You got it, Bones. I’ll see you soon.”

“But seriously? Hurry.”

“SERIOUSLY, HURRY!” MAURAhad shouted into the phone, and left it there, dangling down the wall, knowing the dispatcher would trace the landline to Saveur Fare’s address.

She was trying to remember if she’d given them enough detail—pufferfish, toxin, respirator, dying—as she raced back down the steps to the kitchen, down the hall to where the walk-in was, where Konstantin’s body had betrayed him.

Something had gone wrong.

The poison had hit him faster than expected—she’d started the timer on her phone once he stopped responding to her voice—but barely two minutes into his death, he’d begun convulsing. Vomiting. Foaming at the mouth.

He was ice-cold to touch. Impossible to wake.

She’d sprinted up the stairs to call an ambulance, far earlier than they’d planned, and she was supposed to wait for the paramedics now. To abandon her trip back. They’d agreed: only if it was safe. But looking at Konstantin, the edges of his lips turning blue, his fingers, the frost forming in the pool of sick at his feet, she couldn’t do the safe thing.

She had to find him. To save him.

For the real thing, you hold on, she thought as she swallowed the other half of the pufferfish liver.

THE KITCHEN WASstill as Kostya closed his eyes.

He began at the beginning, with the first spirit he’d ever raised.

Cava, he thought at the Food Hall.Gin. Lemon juice. Luxardo cherry.

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