“You actually do look a little...” I begin.

She lifts an eyebrow.

I cave. “Okay, fine. No resemblance.”

“Her hacker name is Legacy,” Siaka says proudly, earning himself an eye roll.

“Are you the Legacy who hacked into the CRS database and exposed how many of Paris’s riot police have criminal records?” I sound like a fanboy, but even among dabblers like me, Legacy is a legend.

She studies my face as if it were a complicated line of coding. “Possibly,” she replies. Then repositioning her headphones over her hat, she slumps back into her chair and resumes typing.

Siaka shakes his head at me, and then carefully, as if she’s a rattlesnake and not a teenage girl, lifts up the edge of an earphone. “I believe you asked me to stop by. Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Not in front of him.” Her eyes don’t leave her screen.

“Hey, I think I’ll check out the garbage bag clothes,” I say, glancing toward the girl with the sewing machine.

“No,” Siaka insists, draping his arm around my shoulders. I try to ignore the thrill—whether Flame-finger or just hot guy-generated—that courses through my body. “Louis’s staying right here. Like I said, I’m working with him now. The database you and I are building will be linked to one he’s moderating. He’s a part of this conversation.”

Liv-slash-Livia-slash-Legacy slips off her headphones and sets them on the desk as though it pains her to do so. She swivels in her chair to face us, crossing her arms and frowning. “I assume that means he’s one of them.”

“Yes,” Siaka confirms.

She sighs, like this conversation is costing her so much energy she has none left to breathe. She stares at her cousin from beneath heavy lids. “I wanted to show you the hub. It’s basically like WhatsApp, Facebook and Zoom combined. Each member has a profile and can leave updates, communicate by phone, text, or video, and hold video meetings with shared desktop and document capabilities. It has a Dropbox-style area to share these recipes or whatever you call them. I’ve put an automatic translation option on all of the pages, since you say your group is global. If you’re good with that, it’s ready to test.”

She says this so fast that my brain is racing to keep up. It sounds like the perfect platform to reunite the far-flung Flame-fingers and allow them to share their secrets.

“So would my group...” I pause and look around, but no one is close enough to overhear, “...be able to sign onto the same platform?”