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Alex and Jordan needed no further encouragement, nor did they need a reminder that they were on borrowed time. For this moment, Alex was determined to just enjoy the company of her friends as they moaned over the offering D.C. and Bear had returned with.

“Do you guys remember the first time we did this?” D.C. asked, leaning against Jordan and stealing some of his honeyed popcorn.

“I don’t remember that, but Idoremember hearing about how you three snuck into the Chem labs to make my surprise birthday cake this year,” Bear said, his dark gaze filled with mirth.

Alex and D.C. both choked on their laughter, while Jordan groaned.

“I’d forgotten about that,” Alex said, recalling how they’d wanted to make something special for Bear, but since the Rec Room had no cooking facilities, they’d had to get creative.

“IwishI could forget about that,” Jordan grumbled, pressing his arm that wasn’t wrapped around D.C. to his middle. “I vomited for three days.”

“Blue,” D.C. corrected. “You vomitedbluefor three days.”

Alex snickered, and Bear dryly said, “For three people of reasonable intelligence, you’d thinkoneof you might have considered what else was cooked up in the lab ovens that day.”

“We can’tallbe geniuses,” Jordan said, throwing some popcorn across the room at Bear. “You should be thanking us for the thought we put into your gift.”

“If memory serves, you couldn’t resist tasting the cake before giving it to me,” Bear said, his tone still dry. “You have only yourself to blame.”

“He’s right, you know,” D.C. said to Jordan, grinning. “Alex and I waited. You didn’t.”

“And I paid the consequence,” Jordan returned. “For three days. Not even Fletcher could help me. ‘Better out than in’— that’s what he said. Can you believe it?”

Alex laughed again, and she wasn’t alone.

“We’ve had some really good times here,” D.C. said, looking around at them all. “It’s sad to think that we only have a year or so left together.”

“Or three,” Bear reminded her, “if we’re taken on as apprentices.”

Alex was pulled back in time to the similar conversation she’d had with Kaiden. Just like then, she was grateful that her friends were going along with her request for normalcy, for acting as if they weren’t all about to face death with a slim hope of conquering it.

“Remember that time we snuck out at night to go riding in the forest?” Jordan said.

“I remember Bear’s screams,” D.C. said, her eyes dancing. “I’m surprised he didn’t wake the whole academy.”

“I don’t like horses, okay?” Bear’s cheeks were tinged with pink as he shoved more chocolate into his mouth. “And the feeling is mutual. I still maintain that the devil beast was trying to kill me.”

D.C. laughed, but then her face softened as she said, “Your dad didn’t like horses, either.”

Bear stilled and looked across at her.

“Before I met you, he often accompanied me on my rides at the palace.” She shook her head and laughed again. “He was terrible. Almost as bad as you.”

A sad smile flitted across Bear’s face, but it stretched and filled with humour as he said, “We went on a family holiday to a farm once, years ago. Mum thought it’d be a fun idea for us togo on a beach ride all together. Dad fell off three times, which was only one less time than me. The two of us were hobbling around and moaning for the rest of the day until Gammy stuffed us with painkillers and sent us to bed.” He chuckled quietly. “For the rest of that holiday, neither of us went anywhere near the stables, and anytime someone tried to make us, Dad pulled out his Stabiliser and threatened to shoot them.”

The idea of kind-hearted William making such a threat had them laughing all over again at the imagery, with Alex also fighting the burn in her eyes at the sight of Bear amused right along with them at a memory of his dad.

‘Better than okay.’

That’s what she had promised Bear. And that’s what he had promised in return.

“What about you, Jordan?” D.C. asked, if carefully. “Do you have any fun memories from your childhood?”

Alex sucked in a breath, wondering what D.C. was doing. But Jordan just pulled a face and said, “‘Fun’ wasn’t a word we used much in the Sparker household.”

“There must have been something,” D.C. hedged. “Some nice moment.”

Jordan shrugged, his face closing off enough for Alex to fear he’d been pushed too far, too soon. But then, as if forcing himself to think beyond his years of pain, he admitted, “It wasn’t all bad. When I was a kid, my mother made me learn the piano. Said it was what ‘all proper young men’ should know.” He rolled his eyes and reached for more popcorn. “I hated it. But she was adamant that I practise for hours every day.”