Page 84 of Embers of Midnight
“What sticks for you,” she asks finally, pushing crumbs into a little line with one finger. “From what she said.”
“The part where you asked her to say it again,” I answer. “Because you wanted it twice to make it true the second time too. And the part where she told you to listen to men who breathe like you do. That was for me as much as for you.”
She flicks me a sideways look. “You breathe like a metronome. It helps.”
“That is the meanest compliment I’ve ever received,” I tell her. “Thank you.”
“Dance with me,” I say a minute later, not to fix anything, just to put our bodies somewhere simple.
“I can’t dance,” she says, automatic.
“In a dream you can be bad at it and still have it feel good,” I answer, standing and offering a hand.
She gives me her palm. I put it on my shoulder. My other hand finds the middle of her back where bone meets breath. We move. No flourishes. No dips. Just weight over feet and the slow turn the balcony allows. She steps on me once and glares like I scuffed her pride; I keep my face solemn so she’ll forgive herself faster. The street gives us a rhythm—fork on plate below, a chair scraping, a distant scooter that refuses to sleep.
Her cheek comes close enough that I can press my mouth to the warm line once. She slides in an inch that changes climate. When I kiss her, it is not a manifesto. It is a fact. Warm mouth. Soft exhale against my cheek. Her hands don’t clutch; they hold.
I stop before I have to wrestle myself. She opens her eyes slow. The lamp puts a clean reflection there. I want to deserve it.
“Mo rùn,” slips out. Ten years of songs in a language that isn’t mine claim the moment. My love. Not ownership. Direction.
“What does that mean?” she asks, because she always asks.
“A name I shouldn’t say out loud this early,” I answer, honest. “Let me keep it here for now.”
She nods. Secrets that aren’t lies are a language we share.
We stand at the rail after and watch the water turn from black to a lighter dark. She leans her shoulder into my side. I kiss the top of her head once because I am weak in all the predictable ways. The lamps burn down without going out. When she gets heavy against me—not asleep, just finished—I lift my palm and let the dream walk itself closed.
She drifts for real then. The weight of her arm over my stomach is the best anchor I have ever worn. I should leave. I don’t. The house has rules—don’t make noise, don’t make promises you haven’t earned, don’t sleep where you will wake a person you can’t soothe—but the house also has four men who are learning to break the right ones.
I wake before dawn because I always do. The light isn’t up yet; the room is blue-gray. She’s warm against my side, breath even, face softer than it ever is in daylight. I memorize it and promise not to weaponize the image. I shouldn’t kiss her again. I do itanyway, a slow press to her temple. She doesn’t wake, but her mouth curves like a person carried a good thing into sleep and kept it.
I ease out from under her without losing the blanket and fail. She grabs my shirt without opening her eyes. “Sta—” she starts, then clears her throat, looks at me, and doesn’t pretend. “Stay.”
“Okay,” I say, obedient as a saint. I lie back down and let the world keep its teeth outside this room until morning.
We tell them at breakfast. That is a sentence from my near future; I say it in my head until it holds. Ronan will get quiet and dangerous in the ways that help. Darian will design a route to a man who thinks he’s a wall. Ash will crack three jokes that hide the one sentence that matters and then hand it to her without making it heavy. I will write the four lines on a card and put it in my pocket because I am not trusting prophecy to memory alone.
I do not know who her father is. I have guesses I hate. I have the patience to outlast a secret, and I have a violin if patience fails for an hour.
“Mo rùn,” I whisper into the top of her hair because no one will yell at me for it in this room, in this moment. My love. I have called strangers by prettier names and meant them less.
Her breath answers with the count we share. Two short. One long. The house stays quiet, and for once, quiet only means rest.
Demonstration Day
Seraphina
Hot water takes the edge off; nerves stay honest. I brace my forehead to tile and breathe the count I’ve worn into my bones: two short in, one long out. The week lines up without me forcing it. Darian’s hands over mine, teaching heat to live where I put it instead of everywhere. Rell’s net on the stand, the trick of freezing beads before you cut. Ronan’s halt code said once and stapled into my spine. Caelum’s ward tabs humming against paper like a second pulse.
It’s Thursday. The proving sits at the end of the day. I could sprint at it. I make myself walk.
Towel. Jeans I can drop into a lunge. Black tank, hoodie for the chill in the halls. Bracelet left, sunstone warm where the skin thins; thread right, Darian’s knot light over pulse. I don’t take either off. I don’t plan to.
The kitchen runs on heat and purpose. Ronan owns the skillet. Ash has colonized a cutting board and a pan of tomatoes he’s coaxed into doing something sinful with garlic. Vex is on the curtain rod pretending to be a structural detail and failing. The wolf and the snake ride Ash’s forearm in ink.
“Little flame,” Ash says without looking up. “Taste test.”
