Eddie lay on his back, watching shifting shadows on the ceiling with half-lidded eyes. To his right a small but cozy fire flickered and popped its way through a couple of pieces of hardwood. He’d pleaded with Kaeva to make a fire and yes, it was almost too hot in the small room (Next time you go out and chop wood if you want to waste it!) but damn it was nice—a real fire, with real heat, and the smell of smoke that was so, well, real! Back home they’d had a “fireplace” that his parents would use when they were feeling romantic. It hadn’t been a real hearth at all, though. It had been nothing more than programmed lights underneath hunks of material fashioned (poorly, even) to look like logs. The heat that had blown out of it had been real enough, but it came from a tiny furnace hidden behin
