Do not darken, my phone translates in real time. Spend one or two days at Massimo’s.

I click out of my useless app with an eye roll. In truth, Dr. Cacciari speaks English as well as I do, but stopped once he realized that if he talked with only Conor and Lucrezia, he could stick to Italian. I don’t mind being excluded, especially after overhearing the phrase “Staphylococcus aureus.”

It is, I believe, Latin for: These fucking morons.

“So,” Minami asks once he’s gone, “what are the bullet points, Hark?” The three of us, official plague survivors, have retreated onto the living room couch. Everyone else is making out with a ceramic toilet.

“Axel and Paul went to some kind of market. Axel, in his infinite wisdom, saw a bottle of something that looked like fresh arancello—that’s limoncello, but made with orange rinds—and bought it.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Pasteur is rolling in his grave.

“Was the seller a trickster god?” I ask. “Did he throw in a pouch of magic beans?”

“One can only assume. Axel then proceeded to pour shots while we were waiting for someone to join us for dinner.”

“Hey,” I say mildly. “So now the puke-a-thon is my fault?”

“I’ve been referring to it as vomit-fest in my head, but yeah.” His lips twitch. “Everything is your fault, Trouble.”

My heart stops. Restarts. “You should know better than to accept food or drink items from some dude who probably glued his balls to his thighs well into his twenties.”

“She’s got a point,” Minami mutters. “Axel is an idiot, but everyone else should have known better.”

“How come you’re okay?” I ask her, curious.

“Didn’t feel like having some weird orange concoction. What’s your excuse, Hark?”

He shrugs. “It’s food poisoning, that’s all. They all need fluids and rest, and should be fine by tomorrow night.”

“At which point they’ll be able to join us in the collective lighting of Axel’s funeral pyre?” I ask.

Conor’s smile is grim. “If he doesn’t get stabbed overnight.”

“How do you think Rue and Eli would feel about holding a wedding and an entombment on the same day?”

“While everyone around retches like a garden hose?”

“It’s about time we redefine the term ‘wedding shower’—”

“Hey,” Minami interrupts, eyes narrow between us. “Why do you two sound like you’re enjoying yourselves?”

Conor and I exchange another look. His lips twitch, just like mine. “Do you ever laugh just to avoid crying?” I asked him a year and a half ago, after hitting a curb and messing up the brake system of the car I’d just finished paying off.

“I laughed three times at my mom’s funeral,” he told me. “Felt like absolute shit the whole time.”

He remembers that conversation, too. I can see it in the sudden softness of his expression. “Some people just like to see the world burn, Minami,” he says.

“What people?”

“Terrible people,” we say in unison, and our eyes lock, and—