Page 22 of Embers of Midnight
He settles by the fire and clears his throat like he is trying to sound normal. “We should talk about the obvious,” he says, and if anyone else said it I’d tell them to wait. It’s Ash. I let him pick the timing.
Darian doesn’t stand on ceremony. “We felt it,” he says. “I assume we all did.”
Caelum nods once. “At the river.”
I keep a hand around the spoon, heat steady through the metal into my fingers, and figure out if I can share air with this conversation without snapping at it. I can. “Yes.”
Ash leans his elbows on his knees and doesn’t look at me. “I don’t know what to call it that won’t make it sound like a children’s story.”
“Don’t,” I tell him. “Use small words and keep it ugly.”
He huffs a laugh that tries to be a cough and fails. “I saw her and I wanted to stand between her and the sky,” he admits. “That’s not poetry. That’s a fact I could put in a report and not be embarrassed about it.”
Darian’s mouth tilts, more a pressure release than a smile. “I wanted to put her in a room where nothing could get in until shedecided to open a door,” he says. “That is not a healthy reaction for a stranger. It is also the one I had.”
Caelum looks into the tent where her breath makes a small rise under my jacket. “I wanted to make sure she had the kind of quiet that doesn’t make your skin crawl,” he says. “I don’t have a better sentence.”
They look at me last because they’re not fools. I ladle stew into a bowl and set it to the side to cool, then let myself speak.
“I saw what she is capable of and wanted to make the world smaller by one degree,” I say. “For her and because of her.”
Ash rubs a hand over his jaw. “All right.” He nods like he is checking off a list only he can see. “So we agree it’s not…small.”
Darian’s eyes flick to me, then away. “Not small,” he agrees.
Caelum tips his head. “We can name it later. For now we agree on behavior.”
“Slow,” I say, before anyone else can get idealistic. “We don’t drop a net on someone who just found out she has teeth. We keep her warm. We feed her. We teach her to stand up in rooms that want to eat her. If it’s what I think it is, it won’t break because we didn’t label it the first week.”
Ash exhales like he’s been bracing for me to be the problem. “Guides, not jailers,” he says. “Yes.”
Darian nods. “We tell her nothing she doesn’t ask for,” he adds. “We answer what she asks and leave the rest alone until she is steady enough to carry it.”
Caelum’s gaze sharpens. “And we don’t scare her with names we can’t back up with practice,” he says. “I’m not interested in recreating religion on a Wednesday.”
“Good,” I say. “Settled.”
We eat leaning toward the fire like men who forgot they’re allowed to enjoy something. Ash burns his tongue and pretends he didn’t. Caelum blows on each spoonful with ridiculous care. Darian eats like he’s filing evidence. I take seconds because I made enough and because I need my hands to do something that isn’t hover over a sleeping girl.
Vex stalks the perimeter of the light like the petty tyrant he is, steals a meat scrap from Ash’s bowl, and has the gall to look proud of himself. Ash opens his mouth to scold him and remembers the tent. He swallows the noise and gives the bird a look that would make most men reevaluate their lives. Vex tilts his head and flicks a bit of snow off his beak into Ash’s lap. Caelum pretends not to see the whole exchange because he doesn’t want to be the one to officiate a murder.
“Why now,” Darian asks after the bowls are empty and I have the pot lifted to clean. “If that was her first shift, why here and not two years ago, or ten.”
“No data,” Caelum says, immediate. “We can’t build a cause without context.” He pauses. “The river had a signature I didn’t like.”
Ash wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and misses the corner. I hand him a cloth, and he takes it without rolling his eyes, which tells me he is paying attention. “Hunters,” he says. “Their stink was fresh. Maybe that’s enough.”
“Maybe,” Darian allows. “Or the way the cold hits here. Or hunger. Or the wrong kind of fear.”
I don’t add to it. My head prints the image it wants: her hooves scoring ice. Steam rising in sheets when she moved. How she stopped at the sound of my voice. How her eyes tracked us like she was deciding whether to add us to the list of problems or the list of things she would not allow to die. She chose. That matters more than the rest.
Ash pokes the fire into a shape he likes. “Whatever else,” he says softly, not facing the tent, “she’s ours.”
“Careful,” Caelum warns, but there is no sting to it. “We don’t call people that until we’ve asked them.”
“You can have my qualifier.” Ash meets his eyes. “We will act like she is ours.”
“That,” I say, “I can live with.”
