Page 41 of Embers of Midnight
Something loosens… somewhere. The way a building’s hum changes when the elevator decides to behave. I exhale without meaning to.
“See?” he says softly.
“Show-off.”
Ash slaps a deck of cards on the bench. “Now we initiate you.”
“Into what?” I eye the deck like it bites.
“Trash,” he says, and deals. “A game. Not a life choice.”
Ronan and Darian appear like summoned, two mugs, a bowl of cut fruit, an expression that readswe’re not losing to himacross Ronan’s cheekbones. We play. I lose twice, win once, and call it a moral victory because Ash looks truly offended. My hands learn the rhythm of being here: lift, lay down, breathe. The house listens. The sky outside does its slow wrong drift.
At some point, I realize I’ve been leaning into Ronan’s side like it’s natural. Not touching. Close enough that his warmth has a border and I’m standing right on it. He doesn’t move away. He doesn’t do anything I can’t handle. He just exists like a wall that won’t fall on me.
Caelum catches me noticing and gives me a quick, tiny smile that says go at your speed. Darian pretends to be very interested in whether a jack beats a queen (it does not, apparently, today).
We burn the rest of the afternoon easy. No one asks me to perform. No one asks me to confess. When my eyes threaten to go glassy with too much new, Ash changes the subject without a segue like a magician of social triage. When my breath getsshallow, Ronan makes tea like that’s how you call someone back. Caelum does the admin magic the world demands so I don’t have to hand over blood. Darian watches doorways so I don’t have to watch everything.
Dinner is pasta, heavy on garlic, lighter on conversation. The sauce is criminal in a way that I will encourage. My shoulders are so low by the time we fight over the last piece of bread that I might not have shoulders anymore.
After, we migrate to the lounge. The couch eats people for sport. We let it. Lights down. Screen up. Ash queues something with explosions and a terrible script. We heckle it into art. I laugh like my ribs were taped up and somebody finally cut them free.
When the credits roll, nobody leaps to fix anything. We sit in the comfortable wreckage. The vents breathe. The night outside the windows is unfamiliar and kind.
“I’m going to sleep so hard I forget my name,” I announce, standing.
“You just learned it,” Ash says. “Don’t misplace it.”
I flip him off without heat. Caelum takes it as affection because he’s correct. Darian nods once, which somehow translates to if anything scratches at your door, it dies. Ronan walks me to the stairs without making it a thing.
At my door, I pause with my hand on the knob. He does, too. The house is quiet enough for small sounds to count—his breath, mine, the soft tick of something cooling downstairs.
“Goodnight,” he says, voice low enough to live in.
“Night,” I say. My chest hurts in the good way. “Thanks for—” I gesture at the day like I can catch it all in one wave. “This.”
He shakes his head, the smallest, fiercest thing. “It’s nothing,” he says, and means it’s everything.
We stand there one heartbeat too long. My skin prickles under the morphsigil, heat wanting a job and, for once, not getting one. I open the door before I do something stupid.
“See you in the morning,” I manage.
He huffs a laugh that is not a laugh and turns away. His steps down the hall are so quiet the floor barely notices.
Footwork & Feelings
Seraphina
Weekend hangovers used to mean bad coffee and a promise to be less stupid next time. This one is four men, one house that keeps remembering me when I walk in, and a body that won’t stop leaning toward the same orbit.
I brush my teeth and argue with the mirror. The red-gold in my eyes refuses to tone it down. Downstairs, somebody laughs at a volume designed to pull me into it. My stupid heart gives chase.
Ash waits by the door like he slept there on purpose. Hoodie, grin, shadow-tattoos quiet for once. “Morning, Little Flame.”
“Define morning.” I shove my arms into my jacket. “And define little.”
He offers a to-go cup and the arm of a man who intends to be within catching distance all day. “Orientation first, then your brain feast. I’ll be around.”
