Page 33 of Embers of Midnight
The shower runs hard and hot until my skin files a complaint. Heat soothes and then starts pulling me hollow, so I slide the handle cooler and let the water take less. I scrub until the day finally lets go. It’s clingy. I stand under the last rinse with my palms on tile and count breaths until numbers feel useful again.
When I crack the door, a bundle waits on the handle like someone understood the assignment. Underwear, soft jeans, a black hoodie that smells faintly like detergent and not at all like strangers, socks, sneakers. I build myself back into a person.The coat goes on top before I can think better of it. It’s gravity I choose.
Back in the kitchen, the table is a small miracle. Bowls. Steam. Bread. Ronan moves through the space like it listens to him. Caelum pours tea and does not ask if I want some, he just puts a cup where my hand will reach it. Darian takes the end seat with a sightline on the doors and the window and me; his left shoulder makes a quiet complaint when he sits, and he tells it to shut up by ignoring it. Ash sets silverware with a flourish and pockets an extra spoon because apparently crime is a personality trait.
I slide into the nearest chair and don’t demolish my bowl. I try. I fail a little. The stew hits and my body starts forgiving me for being alive. Steam fogs my face; my shoulders loosen on their own time. Ash narrates my second helping like a sports announcer until Ronan aims a look at him that curdles milk. Ash zips his mouth theatrically. His eyes keep talking.
Darian rolls his shoulder once — the bad one — like he’s negotiating a ceasefire. Caelum slides a small jar his way without breaking conversation; Darian rubs something into the skin under his shirt, jaw set, and pretends it doesn’t smart. I notice. He notices me noticing.
“Tomorrow it will stop arguing,” he offers, not quite a smile. “I heal quickly.”
“Show-off,” I mutter, then take it back with a mouthful of bread.
Ash thumps his elbows on the table, all friendly menace. “Wardrobe malfunctions. Let’s avoid them.”
My eyes narrow. “That sounds like a threat.”
“An opportunity.” He taps the inside of his own left hip. “Morphsigil. Tiny tattoo. It tethers what you wear to your shift so your clothes don’t abandon you mid-metamorphosis. Burns like pepper for thirty seconds. Worth it. No cult oaths.”
Caelum, mild: “Clothes don’t shift. Sigils do.”
I map that to the memory of Ronan’s coat and colder air and decide I’m tired of negotiating with gravity naked. “Where?”
“Hip is easiest,” Ash says, delighted I’m not running. “Shoulder blade is artsy, sternum is dramatic. Your call. We can do it after the check-in.”
“Check-in?”
Darian tips his head toward the stairs we came up. “Headmaster. Brief report. Get you on paper; confirm you live here with us.”
The word live pokes something soft under my ribs. I stab it with sarcasm fast. “Neat. Let’s go explain how I boiled a river.”
“After you finish eating,” Ronan says, calm like a rule that existed before language.
We do. Then we head back down.
The basement wears focus like a uniform. Darian steers us past the portal arch to the thick door with the lightning rune glowing above. He places his palm on a plate that wakes at his touch; the rune brightens, the lock clicks. He opens into a room that makes the hair on my arms lift — not from threat, from purpose.
The table is long, the surface half wood and half embedded glass. Shelves line the walls with rolled maps, spines of atlases, tidy boxes with labels my brain won’t catch from here. The lights are set to a soft level that refuses to glare. It’s quiet in the way good libraries are. I hover near the head of the table and try not to look like I’m casing the place.
Darian works the console with a precision that reads as muscle memory — two switches, a dial. The glass wakes into a gray that sharpens into a face. Mid-forties. Gray at the temples. A mouth built to hold back whole speeches. Eyes that do math before they do emotion.
“Report,” he prompts. His attention skims me like the deliberate pass of a scanner, then returns to the four.
Darian gives him the short version without bleeding it dry. Clearing. River. Me. Camp. Attack. Twelve hunters, human, organized, null gear. Outcome. Portal. No heroics; no apology. When he finishes, the beat that follows is brief enough to be respectful.
“You brought her through,” the man notes.
“We did,” Ronan answers. He doesn’t lower his gaze. “She stays with us.”
“Not tonight.” The corner of the man’s mouth moves a degree. “Always. If she consents.” He looks at me this time and stays there, like balance is a thing he calibrates on purpose. “Do you?”
My hand finds the seam of Ronan’s coat because it’s there. Always lands heavy. Not bad heavy. Like a blanket I didn’t know I was freezing without. My throat wants to do something dramatic. I keep my voice level.
“I consent,” I tell him. “On my terms. They know them.”
“Good.” He nods once, a precise click. “We’ll formalize at ten tomorrow. Orientation after.” His attention flicks back to the four. “Priority: her safety. Guard her like she is yours until she decides who she is.”
Ash inhales for a joke. Caelum’s knee finds his under the table. Ash exhales good behavior and smiles like a threat upgraded to charm.
