章 294: 45.4 Embers

Scooting away, I felt Mathilde's presence loom over me as Anna quickly sat on the other side of the bonfire. Looking up, I could see the suspicion in the colder twin's eyes before she moved to sit beside her sister. Hopefully, she didn't notice my shvttier-than-usual appearance just now.

Wordlessly, we settled onto our respective responsibilities in terms of cooking. Mathilde and Anna knew some cooking techniques in terms of basic survival, but ultimately, whenever it came to something more complex than basic skewers, it inevitably fell to me to make sure the dish would come out at least semi-palatable. Using the excuse of prepping our meals, I set myself up just far enough that the twins wouldn't notice me still trying to dry off my sweat but at the same time, still near enough to the fire that I could see what I was doing. It was a wholly unnecessary balancing act. That, I knew. But it just wouldn't be-

"Rouge?"