Page 60 of Embers of Midnight
Caelum went first along the beams, fast chalk marks: mute, ground, hold. He hummed low in his throat, a tone that slid under the building noise and smoothed it. The edge left the air the way a headache fades when water finally hits a parched brain.
Ash studied the nearest bell. Shadow slid from his palm in a tight sheet and draped over the clapper and the mouth in a careful wrap. It did not look dramatic. It just made the metal quiet. Silks uncoiled, flowed along his hand to the clapper, and tightened in two cool turns until it could not swing. Vex hopped rail to rail, pecked a loose hook, and made a nasty little sound that I had learned meant problem. Ash tossed a thin ribbon of darkness to cinch it. Morrow moved at Ronan’s heel without noise, his shoulder brushing Ronan’s leg when he wanted a new position called.
Darian knelt at a junction of columns and set the suppressor ring flat. Thin lines bloomed like frost and sank into steel as if it drank them. He pointed to a yellow stripe painted on a support. “Safe column. If I point, get behind it. Do not argue.”
“Copy,” I said. The word fit my mouth without feeling like a costume.
Ronan touched my elbow once. “Your pace.”
I lifted my hands, palms out, and called heat the way Darian had made me practice at night until my ribs loosened. Four in. Six out. No spike. No flare. Warmth bled through my skin in steady waves and pooled on the floor. I let it creep forward in a narrow path that bent around the marked column and aimed toward theframe Ash had folded against two beams. The runes waited dull, ready to close without a show.
“Hello,” I said into the dim. My voice sounded normal. “We are moving dinner. Come on this way.”
Metal scraped under a casting table. I saw it in segments first. The slide of plate over plate. The dull orange simmer along seams. Then the head lifted. The eyes were kiln-bright. The tongue tasted the air like glass checking for heat.
Ash breathed, “Beautiful,” like it cost him. It did not sound like flirting.
I kept the pulses even. The path warmed in a simple gradient the creature could follow without thinking too hard. It swayed. It adjusted. It took one slow meter and then another. Darian brushed my sleeve. One tap. I let the pressure anchor the way my knees wanted to wobble.
Caelum’s hum crept up half a note and the itch in my jaw eased. The metal around us felt less eager to sing. I kept breathing. My hands were steady. The wyrmling’s head tracked the warmth like the only good decision left in a bad room.
We reached the narrow section between two columns. The path bent. The runic frame sat open and harmless. The creature followed, paused, and lifted its head as if listening to something I could not hear. Vex froze on a rail. He looked at the far end of the hall and flattened himself. He had time to do that because the problem was small and fast.
A loose chain swung one inch and kissed a small bell with the lightest tap.
The sound was thin. It still cut through my body like wire.
“Down,” Darian said. Three taps hammered my elbow. Ronan’s arm closed across my waist and turned me behind the yellow-striped column in the same step the wyrmling flared. Plates snapped open. A burst of molten grit sprayed the space where my knees had been.
Ash threw shadow like a shield. It hit hard and held. The grit hissed against it, sparks dying against dark. Silks tightened hard on her clapper until the tiny metal groaned. Vex vanished under the catwalk with his feathers slicked to his body. Morrow planted his feet and braced, chest between us and the heat, teeth bare without sound.
My magic tried to kick in the wrong direction. It wanted to answer blast with blast. I ground my molars, inhaled, and forced the heat down until it evened out. I turned it into a heavy blanket without a single edge. I laid it along the wyrmling’s head and over its closed eyes. Darian’s fingers slid to my inner wrist and tapped my pulse in time with my count. I matched him.
“Hold,” Caelum said, and his hum slid along the bell’s aftertone until it stopped running on my nerves. The burst stuttered and died. The glow at the seams dulled. The wyrmling rocked twice, then lowered its head and rasped air through its mouth in short pulls.
Ronan’s mouth was near my ear. “Good,” he said, quiet. The word carried more weight than praise. I kept the path warm and thin. I did not move until my body quit trying to sprint out of itself.
Ash reset the frame with a soft click. He did not crack a joke. He just met my eyes and nodded once. “Home, Little Flame.”
I stepped back into view and drew the warmth through the open frame like a line on a map. The creature followed, slow and obedient to physics. It crossed. Caelum’s runes slid shut with a soft mechanical sound. No flash. No show. Darian rolled the dial on the ring one notch and the air dropped a few degrees. The plates stopped thinking about flaring again.
We stood very still for a count of three. Vex popped up and pumped both fists like a vandal celebrating a perfect crime. Silks eased her grip and flowed back up Ash’s wrist. Morrow shook once, full body, and leaned into Ronan’s leg with a satisfied huff. My hands shook, not with fear, with adrenaline looking for an exit.
Tires crunched on wet gravel outside.
“Time,” Darian said, eyes on the side door.
Ash peeled a narrow strip of shadow and tossed it down the far corridor. It shimmered like heat and walked into the old casting room. “Decoy on the move,” he murmured. “Let them chase noise.”
“Side exit,” Ronan said. His hand found the small of my back with steady pressure that did not rush. “Left side. Stay close.”
We slipped through a service door into night air that smelled like rain and oil. Caelum wiped chalk dust onto his thigh. Darian kept a pace I could hold even with the shakes. Vex dropped onto Ash’s shoulder with a pleased croak. Silks settled along his forearm and went still. Morrow ranged two steps ahead, then two steps back, checking the path without fanfare.
At the fence, Ronan reached through the bars and pressed a clapper with his thumb so it could not swing. “Not tonight,” he said, not to the building, to the possibility.
Headlights swept the street behind us. The van turned where Ash’s phantom went. We turned the other way and left.
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