Page 13 of Embers of Midnight

I don’t expect kindness. I’ll take physics that doesn’t hate me.

I set my sights on the sound and go.

At First Sight

Ash

Steam ghosts off my skin when I crack the bathroom door. Fresh towel, bare feet, damp hair shoved back with one hand. The house smells like cinnamon and steel—Ronan’s cooking. Good. I follow the heat.

The kitchen’s awake. Ronan runs the stove like an altar, two pans going, one pot humming, everything under control. He moves quiet for his size, wrist loose, shoulders easy. The halo around him reads warm, not blazing. Caelum’s by the counter with a tea tray, sleeves pushed, fingers counting beats on the rim of a mug like he’s testing a metronome only he hears. Darian sits at the table with a book in his hands and a bone folder, spine open to surgery. He’s cutting a new hinge in silence. Precise, clean.

“Showers are for cowards,” I announce, toeing the threshold.

Ronan doesn’t look up. He flips a pan. “You reek less,” he says. Deadpan, gentle. “Set the table.”

“My tragic fate,” I say, and steal a piece of fried potato off his cooling rack.

Two things happen at once: his left eyebrow lifts half a millimeter, and the kitchen warms half a degree. Even his disapproval is temperature.

“Forks, plates,” he says.

“On it, dad,” I say, and dodge the dish towel he throws without ever looking away from the pan.

I grab plates from the rack, forks from the drawer. Vex perches on the back of the empty chair and gives me a look like he’s been waiting forever. He hasn’t. He just likes to be dramatic. Ink-crow, my worst best idea. I break a corner off a slice of bread and hand it to him. He hops once, takes it neat, taps my knuckle with his beak in thanks. Show-off.

Morrow and Silks stay where they are—coiled black ink at my wrist and a slick line up my forearm under damp skin. Warm. Resting. Ready. Morrow is my wolf; Silks my serpent. Living shadow-ink, not art—familiars I peel off my skin when I need them. Morrow holds ground and takes knees; Silks slips under doors and tastes for poison. If anyone asks, they’re just tattoos. If anyone looks too long, they see movement at the edge and decide they imagined it. That’s the point. I drew them when being alone got to loud, and the dark said yes.

“Tea,” Caelum says, like a weather report. “Jasmine and white. I’m forgiving your crimes in advance.”

“I’ll earn them back,” I say. “What’s for dinner, Ronan? Besides potato theft.”

“Stew,” he says. “Bread. Greens. Sit.”

Darian doesn’t glance up. He folds a strip of linen and lays it along the spine he’s mending, breath steady. Vigil’s scabbard leans against his chair; the hilt lives where his hand can find it without looking. He never puts the blade on the table. Knife etiquette, but make it religion.

We sit. Ronan brings the pot. Caelum brings the tray. I pilfer another potato and get away with it because he’s putting bowls down and can’t be bothered to police me and stir at the same time.

“Vex,” I say, “you’re at the no-crumbs end of the table.”

He pretends not to understand me and intentionally sheds one black feather onto Darian’s closed book. Darian lets it be. Caelum smiles without teeth.

“Family meeting,” Caelum says in a mock-grand voice. “Agenda: eat, gossip, then pretend to be professional.”

“Skip agenda,” Ronan says. “Eat first.”

We eat. Bread breaks easy. Stew hits like an apology I needed. The quiet is good quiet, not the heavy kind. Caelum’s talk is light as steam. He points his chin at the ceiling. “There’s frost on the lounge window in my exact hand shape. Who wants to bet Ash tried to write his name backwards on it again?”

“Allegedly,” I say, mouth full. “Also: good tea.”

“Thank you,” he says, pleased. “Jasmine tames the day.”

Darian sets his book aside, the new joint clean and strong. He lays the bone folder next to his spoon, aligned like a knife beside a plate. “Schedule tomorrow?” he asks.

“Free until noon,” Ronan says. “Then arena for first-years.”

“Bless,” I say. “Small children I can terrorize with safety lectures.”

“Please don’t,” Darian says without heat.