And there, for a flicker of an instant, is all the horror that was missing from his expression before. If Meyer is looking closely he'll catch it, the way Ned's face goes still for a moment with profound sadness. His hands pause, briefly, halfway through slicing a strawberry. He'd come so close to killing Laura by accident; it had been a matter of inches. It's not that Ned even knows the girl so well, but it was all far too reminiscent of other things for his liking. He goes back to his slicing a moment later, and the look is gone, folded away beneath something much more neutral.

"Yeah, it would."

With that, he decides he's done discussing his powers.

"That's enough for one batch, I think." He gets up and takes one bowl in each hand, bringing them to the counter. He sets a large saucepan on the stove, turns on the heat, dumps in the contents of the bowls. "You need to add pectin as a thickener for strawberries. Most places will sell it powdered, but I haven't been able to find any, so I'm using lemon. It has enough pectin to make the preserve set."

He knows how transparent it must be, just stopping the conversation abruptly and starting to rattle on about how to make preserves, but it's the best alternative available. There is a deliberate, business-like quality to the way he delivers the instruction. There are a few lemons mixed in with the limes he'd been cutting for the pie; he slices two in half and has squeezed all of the juice out of them quickly enough, adding it directly to the strawberries.