Page 47 of Embers of Midnight
“I’m not—” Heat hits my face so fast it’s rude. I cough. “Fine. Borrow. I’ll come back in one piece.”
Darian’s gaze ticks over my face, careful. “Ping me if you need anything.” His fingers graze my sleeve one more time. My stomach flutters like an idiot. He peels off to the railing with a clear sightline and pretends he’s admiring ornamental vines.
Taya pulls me into the café. It smells like coffee, citrus, and damp earth. We claim a window table half-swallowed by a climbing monstera.
“I ordered you something,” she says, shoving a mug at me. “You look like a cinnamon person.”
I take a sip. Sweet heat. “I’m a person who won’t fight cinnamon at nine a.m.,” I allow.
“Good.” She tucks her legs under her and leans in. “So. Weekend with the Four Horsemen of the Hotpocalypse. Talk.”
“I did not climb anyone like a tree,” I inform her with dignity that has seen better days. “I deserve medals.”
Her green eyes go glitter-bright. “But you wanted to.”
“That’s not… inaccurate,” I admit. “It’s like my body forgot the part where people ruin everything.”
“Right,” she says, delighted. “Welcome to the funhouse. You’re feeling resonance.”
I sip to buy time. “Is that the polite term?”
“It’s the accurate one,” she says, softer now. “Sometimes it’s one-to-one. Sometimes not. The Academy stopped trying to make neat little charts about it after a few people fell apart pretending they could resist physics.” A beat. “You don’t have to call it anything yet. Just… notice.”
I think of Ash’s arm dropped casual over my shoulders like he was born to find that line, of Caelum’s maps folded into kindness, of Ronan’s warmth radiating like a space heater with opinions, of Darian’s fingers ghosting my sleeve until my breath forgot how to be boring. My pulse trips. “Everyone stared this weekend.”
“They stared because those four don’t do this,” Taya says bluntly. “They flirt with danger, not with people. They’ve never looked at anyone like they’re recalculating their whole life.”
“That’s a lot for a Tuesday.”
She props her chin on her fist. “Look, harems aren’t rare here. Neither are matebonds. The point isn’t the structure. The point is how people carry each other. Your call. Your pace.”
My chest loosens and tightens in the same breath. “Matebonds?” I ask, low, because the word is a lot for the mouth.
Her voice gentles. “Sometimes you know because your bones say so. Sometimes it creeps. Even if it’s there, you choose what to do with it. How to build around it. Who you’ll become together. It’s not a leash. It’s a door.”
Butterflies go heavy. Rocks, right into my gut. “And if it’s a door and I don’t walk through? What if I screw this up because that’s my brand? What if it’s all momentum and I’m just a placeholder for a someone better they haven’t met yet?”
Taya’s hand lands on mine, warm, soft, steady. “Breathe. You are not a placeholder,” she says, and the way she says it makes my stupid eyes sting. “They don’t do pity. They don’t do obligation. They do choice. Watch how they treat you when no one’s watching. That’s the truth.”
My brain unhelpfully replays four separate moments in empty halls and kitchens where someone adjusted my world by a centimeter and then got out of the way. The rocks grind. “What if I like all of them,” I say into my mug, “in ways that aren’t safe for a single heart.”
“Then you like all of them,” Taya says simply. “Welcome to Why-Choose. It only works if everyone keeps their hands on the samerope and pulls toward the same shore. It is not a competition. It’s a project.”
“You make it sound like homework.”
“It is,” she says cheerfully. “But the kind with extra credit.”
I bark out a laugh in self-defense. The rocks don’t shrink. They settle. Heavy, not crushing. “People are going to talk.”
“They talked the second you arrived on campus.” Taya shrugs. Bells chime. “Let them. You feed your own house first. Start with lunch.” She leans closer. “Also, Cassandra’s going to escalate. She’ll dress it up like school spirit.”
“She tried to needle me yesterday in Runecraft,” I say dryly. “Someone should tell her I stab back with verbs.”
“Oh, I plan to,” Taya purrs, then sobers. “You don’t owe anyone a performance. Least of all them. Tell your boys what you need. Make a plan. Go slow if slow fits.”
The butterfly-rock thing does a nauseating tango. I drain the mug just to have something to do with my hands. “Okay. Thanks for the pep talk and the threat of plant-based violence.”
“Please,” she says, offended. “My plants are pacifists unless asked nicely.” She slides me a contact rune. “Coffee tomorrow before class? We can pretend to study and definitely gossip.”