Page 31 of Embers of Midnight

The word snags something in me I didn’t know was loose. Comfort. I’m so tired of earning every scrap of it with teeth.

I breathe. Once. Twice. The third time catches and stutters, then evens as if my lungs finally decided to follow instructions. My boots feel heavy and then, abruptly, like boots again instead of anchors.

“Okay.” My palms open. “We go.”

Caelum doesn’t cheer. He doesn’t even grin. He tilts his head, a quietgood, and lifts one hand toward me, palm up. No rush. No assumption. Simple offer.

Humor finds me anyway. “If this turns out to be cult-adjacent, I’m stealing your tea set.”

“I don’t own a tea set,” he says.

“Then get one,” I reply, and slide my fingers into his.

Warmth. That’s the first thing: the clean, human kind. His hand closes around mine, secure but not trapping. Ronan exhales like a knot slipped. Ash spins his knife once and slots it away. Darian rolls his injured shoulder and settles the pack higher like he intends to look effortless about it until he forgets it hurts.

We step together to the darker break between trees. The air smells different beyond it, charged, high. A shimmer gathers like heat above asphalt, except the day is frozen and nothing should shimmer and yet here we are, physics with a headache. The space ahead thins, a sheet pulled too tight. Light bends. Sound does a little skip. My ears pop. I taste copper and ozone and something like pine sap burned clean.

“On three?” Caelum asks.

“Just do it,” I answer. “Before my courage realizes it’s overworked.”

Ash snorts. Ronan’s quiet huff might be a laugh if you give it time. Darian’s mouth shapes a brief, private smile like he put it away for later and forgot to lock the drawer.

Caelum squeezes my hand once. “One.”

The shimmer deepens, colors I can’t name laced into air I can feel.

“Two.”

The clearing behind us stays very still, as if the world holds a breath for me, too.

“Three.”

We step.

The Bed Won’t Catch Fire (Probably)

Seraphina

The world tips, drops one clean step, and catches me like it meant to the whole time. My ears pop. Air changes — less pine, more metal and lemon. Stone under my soles, not dirt. Light above, soft and even, no bulb in sight.

I don’t throw up. Gold star.

Ash spreads his arms like a host at a weird hotel. “Welcome home.”

Home. Bold.

We’re in a room that favors quiet. The floor is dark basalt, matte enough to swallow reflections. A standing oval of black metal hums behind us — the arch we fell out of, hairline seams threaded with a pulse I can feel in my teeth if I pay attention. The walls are wood-panel warm, trying to talk the industrial edges into behaving. To my right: a thick door with a recessedhandle and a single rune above it glowing the color of disciplined lightning. To my left: a cage of racks bolted to concrete, labeled strips where nothing sits yet. Overhead, vents breathe in a steady hush. No echo. Even my heartbeat keeps its voice down.

Darian tips his chin, patient. “Basement. Portal room.”

I turn a slow circle because yes, that tracks. “You have a basement portal.”

Ash leans in, conspiratorial. “We also have snacks.”

Caelum’s mouth quirks. “Upstairs.”

Ronan gestures toward a wide staircase at the far wall. The rail is cool under my palm, the kind of steel that does its job without showing off. My legs remember water and cold and then decide stairs are fine after all. Ronan goes first, easy and watchful. I could step behind him and disappear. I don’t. I keep pace.