Page 36 of Embers of Midnight
They disperse with the choreography of people who’ve lived together long enough to know where elbows go. I collect my water, my coat, my nerve, and head upstairs. The blank room isn’t blank anymore. The hook takes the coat; the quilt waits. The window shows a sky I don’t recognize, which somehow helps. I reach for the lock out of habit and stop with my fingers on cool metal.
Not tonight.
I let darkness be a choice. The bed takes me like it approves. I breathe. Once. Twice. The third time stops being an order and starts being mine.
Tomorrow I’ll let strangers write my name into a place I’ve never seen.
Tonight I sleep like I might deserve it.
Between Doors
Seraphina
I wake to heat and quiet.
Not the choking kind from a fever or a panic attack; the good kind. Warm air, steady breath from the vents, weight of a quilt that doesn’t itch. My body tries to sprint before my brain’s loaded and then gives up with a small, embarrassed twitch. The ceiling is pale and patient. The window is a rectangle of softer light than Alaska ever managed.
For a second, I listen for the world to go wrong.
It doesn’t.
Someone moves in the hall—socked feet, even pace. A cupboard clinks. The house makes the soft sounds of a place that knows its own bones.
I roll out, test the floor with my toes. Cool wood, no shock. When I breathe in, the air tastes faintly like tea and something rich that could be butter. I bite the inside of my cheek until my brain wakes up enough to form adult plans. Clothes are where I left them. The morphsigil sits under my skin, quiet as a secret I agreed to keep. I tug on a soft tee, jeans, socks. Hoodie last, because armor can be cotton.
The hall is bright without being rude. My door closes with the kind of click that singles try to write poems about and fail. I pad down the stairs.
Ash is singing to a pan in a falsetto that should be illegal. “—and the eggs say thank you, chef—” Vex perches on his shoulder, claws hooked in the jacket seam, head cocked at the pan like a tiny health inspector. When Ash hits the high note, Vex croaks a rude harmony and steals a chive.
Ronan is at the stove, not smiling and somehow still unmistakably amused. He slides a spatula under a golden edge and tilts the pan just so. Ash yelps like he’s actually assisting; Vex fluffs, scolds, then settles again. Caelum leans against the counter with a mug, steam softening the sharp line of his mouth. Darian sits at the end of the table with a folder open, a pencil and neat columns that look like order, not obsession. He’s writing with his right hand; the left shoulder moves carefully, no fuss, like it’s winning the argument today.
Four heads tilt my way almost together. My stomach, traitor, growls loud enough to file paperwork.
Ash clutches his chest. “Behold: a dragon’s morning roar.”
“Eggs,” I croak. “Or I will set the doctrine on fire.”
Ronan gestures to a chair. “Sit.” It’s not a command. It lands like help.
I sit. A plate appears—eggs, toast, something green that looks like it once had ambition and is now buttered into submission. Caelum slides a mug in front of me. Tea. Honey. The exact color that says, drink me and stop shaking.
I don’t demolish the plate. I eat like a person who hasn’t eaten in a while and is trying to pretend she’s refined. Heat spreads out from my middle, unspooling muscles I’d apparently been storing under my ribs. Every time I glance up, someone is not watching me in a very obvious way.
“You sleep?” Darian asks, pencil stilling.
“Like a criminal with a great alibi,” I say, then immediately regret committing to the bit. “Yes. Thanks. The room didn’t try to murder me.”
Ash grins, dimples like weapons. “Our standards remain high.”
Ronan sets another slice of toast on my plate. “We meet Draven at ten.”
The name drops into the room and doesn’t crack the floor. I swallow tea, let the heat sit under my sternum. “That’s the Headmaster, right? Actual person, not just a floating screen.”
“Actual,” Caelum says. “Less pixellated, same disappointment potential.”
“Good,” I mutter. “I’d hate to see a man in higher resolution and like him less.”
Ash points his fork at me. “Aim for medium resolution. Everyone looks best there.”
