Page 83 of Embers of Midnight
She breathes in a way that tries to steady and mostly lands the landing. “Half free,” she repeats, quieter. “It fit under my ribs when she said it. I don’t know why.”
“Because it’s true for now,” I say. “Not forever.” I angle my head toward the little street off the waterline where the balcony I built waits. “Walk, then food. You need something your hands can do.”
She peels herself off the view and follows. We take the alley behind a row of kitchens, the warm vent air hitting our knees in soft waves. Someone sings a line in a language I don’t fake; it folds back into clatter. She bumps my shoulder with hers once, like yes, I’m here. I want to put my hand between her shoulders and keep it there. I don’t.
“What do we tell them in the morning?” she asks.
“Everything that matters,” I say. “Her name. Her words. The part with the wind. We’ll write the prophecy down. We’ll keep it boring so no one is tempted to add sparkle.”
“No sparkle,” she repeats, faintly amused. “Deal.”
We climb a short flight and the balcony opens—a narrow ledge, two teak chairs that wobble unless you wedge a napkin, a table with a hairline chip. Lamps with warm bulbs turn metal to gold because physics, not magic. The restaurant door sticks and then gives. I shoulder it open and let her feel the swap from street salt to heat and garlic. She closes her eyes like the smell flips a switch.
“You brought me somewhere my body recognizes,” she says.
“I brought you somewhere mine does,” I correct gently, and her mouth tips the way it does when the truth is kind.
We sit. No server appears because I didn’t put one in the build. I carry two plates out of the small interior like a person raised to carry his own weight. Bread. Tomatoes that taste like they were allowed to be themselves. A green thing that will make Darian feel spiritually vindicated if he ever audits my dreams.
She tears the bread and hands me the bigger piece because she is that kind of person. We eat first. It steadies everything.
“What did you need to hear, when you were me,” she asks after a few bites. “When you were younger.”
“That quiet isn’t failure,” I say without thinking. “And that you don’t have to wait for the room to be safe before you put sound in it.” I set the crust down and force myself to keep going. “I grew up where silence meant we’re fine and noise meant somethingbroke. I learned how to make my own noise. Music, mostly. If I can get a room vibrating at the right frequency, people remember how to breathe.”
“You did that today,” she notes, simple. “My lungs listened.”
“Good,” I say, a little hoarse. “I want that for you more than I want a single victory in a single room.”
She tips her head. “Tell me something unflattering,” she says. “About you. The kind you only admit when there’s bread.”
“I used to rehearse apologies to furniture before guests came over,” I confess. “I didn’t like surprises. If I could plan the shape of the evening, I thought I could keep the bad news outside.”
“And?”
“And it turns out humans are not chairs,” I say. “They bring their own weather.”
She snorts. “You like my weather.”
“I like your weather very much,” I agree. “Even when it comes with lightning.”
She eats another tomato, cheeks less tense. “Your family?” she asks, and I pick something true that doesn’t hurt under her current wounds.
“Alive,” I say. “Distant in the way that happens when you make a job out of being fine. They didn’t mean harm. They just worshiped competence. I got good at folding myself into a useful shape.” I scrape olive oil with bread. “Music gave me an honest shape that didn’t depend on performance metrics.”
She looks at my hands, at the callus near my thumb. “You’re very careful,” she says, not praising, labeling.
“Careful keeps people safe,” I say. “It also hides you until you decide not to hide. I am practicing the second thing.”
Her mouth does the small curve again. “Practice on me.”
“I am,” I admit. “I followed without asking tonight because I felt a stranger in your head. That’s a sin in my book. I’m not sorry I stayed. I am sorry I listened. If you want to be angry later, I will hold still.”
She studies my face. “I want you to follow when I’m drowning,” she says. “I want you to knock when I’m fine.” A beat. “I was drowning.”
“Then I will always break the door,” I say. “And fix it after.”
We finish the plates. The air is cooler by a degree. She doesn’t shiver. The water below the balcony keeps doing its job.
