Page 66 of Embers of Midnight
“Accurate,” Darian murmurs from the table, not looking up from the strap he’s repairing. He taps two fingers against his knee—my rhythm from earlier—and lets the ghost of a smile show when I breathe in time without thinking.
Vexdrops out of nowhere, lands on the fruit bowl, fluffs like a small emperor, and eyes a grape. I give him a look. He makes exactly the same look back at me and bolts with the grape like a thief who pays rent.
Caelum pushes a mug toward my spot, steam curling. “Tea. Hot. Don’t burn the inside of your mouth; we’ll all be sad.”
“Tragic,” Ash mutters around a slice of toast, then points the knife at me with terrible manners. “Schedule?”
“Navigation,” I tell him, sliding onto the chair beside Darian. “Lunch. Then I—”
Ronan clears his throat. It’s not loud. The room still shifts. His gaze holds mine like it has a reason. “After lunch,” he says, as if we left the conversation mid-sentence yesterday, “come with me. Boots. Warm layers.”
My fork stops halfway. The heat that rises in my chest is not panic. It is thoroughly unhelpful joy. “All right,” I manage. The word feels like stepping onto something solid.
Ash opens his mouth. Caelum kicks his ankle under the table with precision. Ash closes his mouth, eyes shining with the kind of glee that starts rumors. Darian’s knee stays against mine, casual pressure, no commentary.
“Eat,” Ronan adds, like a man who believes in food as religion. The plate in front of me is obscene in the best way. I comply.
Navigation with Kieran Holt at nine-thirty could sand a person down to essentials. I like him for that. We build a route with three redundancies and a breadcrumb cadence that refuses to hum with any gate. My partner—Juno with the sharp braid—handles anchor math while I adjust angles by feel. Drift tries to misbehave; we correct on the second note, not the third. Kieran grunts. In Holt, that’s practically applause.
When the bell releases us, I roll my shoulders with the slow satisfaction of not screwing up. The corridor outside the lab is wide, bright, and empty enough to hear footsteps before you see their owner. Ronan doesn’t tiptoe. He appears at the far end, hands in his pockets, a small tilt to his mouth that is not a grin and somehow loosens my chest anyway.
“Two,” he says as we meet in the middle. It’s not a question. The time lands like a promise.
“Two,” I echo. My lips insist on trying to smile; I let them. He walks me as far as the stair, brushes a knuckle over my sleeve where the thread shows, and heads for whatever dragons do between classes.
Lunch carries the hum that means the house is running: plates, low talk, the occasional swear when someone drops a fork. I slip into my spot and let the noise sit in my bones. Taya slides a bowl of something green toward me like she’s decided I’m scurvy-prone. Laz narrates the death of an unrepentant fern. Ash steals a carrot and frames it as assistance. Caelum peels a another ward tab and seals it on the edge of my notebook with neat fingers, the runes so clean they almost vanish.
“Dampens clangor,” he mentions, eyes on his work, which is the most Caelum sentence possible. “For hallways and bells.”
Ronan arrives late, sits close, and hooks our pinkies under the table like we invented it. Warmth lines up in my sternum. Darian doesn’t speak for long minutes; his knee says plenty. I don’t need much.
The clock does what clocks do and suddenly it’s time. Ash lifts both hands in the air. “Return her in one piece,” he orders, grinning like a devil. “And if you find a dragon-sized pastry shop, bring back samples.”
“Noted,” Ronan replies, deadpan. He rises, and I follow the gravity without pretending I’m not.
We cut through the back garden and into a small courtyard nobody seems to use. The sky is clear, the air crisp enough to nip at my ears. Ronan shrugs out of his jacket, hands it to me, then steps two paces back.
Heat rolls off him without effort. It isn’t a performance. It’s a truth. Thehalf-shiftcomes on like a tide: scales on his forearms, the long flex of shoulder blades as something more than muscle wakes. Wings slide from potential into shape with a sound that runs low in my ribs.
He doesn’t ask about my face. He reads it. His mouth edges into a grin that shows a little tooth. “Ready?”
My hands find his shoulders before my mouth catches up. “Yes.” My voice is steady. Good for me.
He scoops me up—one arm under knees, one along my back—like the simplest problem in the world. The lift steals a breath; the warmth gives it back. He tips his head, studies the angle, and then the world drops and then rises as the wings drive down in a clean, hard stroke.
Air shoves my chest and then lets me in. The courtyard snaps small. The roofs line up like scales. The line of trees that marks the edge of campus pulls us forward into a sweep of darker green. He doesn’t show off. He doesn’t need to. The rhythm is workmanlike and elegant, the kind that makes you trust it inside the first ten seconds.
We cut east over the river, catch a slice of silver, then bank toward the high country. The air thins by degrees; the cold sharpens. I tuck against his chest and the heat under his skin answers. The beat of his wings turns into a heartbeat I can count without feeling foolish. A valley opens under us—pines, a snarl of stone, ice-dust along shadow. He holds nothing back and alsonothing flashy. Skill instead of spectacle. I like that more than I can say out loud.
By the time we cross the long ridge and drop toward a meadow tucked between two shoulders of rock, my face aches from smiling. He lands in a glide that would make pilots sulk, folds the wings, and lets me down with a care that is not fussy.
“Halfway,” he tells me. “Shift eats less if I split it.” A hand slides to the back of my neck, his thumb brushing once. The touch is brief. It warms everything it finds.
We walk the rest—a narrow path, stone warm where the sun hit it, cold in the shade. The world smells like pine sap and old iron. Birds move, then stop. My breath fogs and pulls itself thin. We don’t talk much; it feels like the talking will burn off something I want to keep.
He points once, not at a landmark, at a seam in the rock where the light seems heavier. “There.”
We step through.
