Page 50 of Embers of Midnight

By the time I dress—soft tee, jeans, hair up—I’m steady enough to walk downstairs. The kitchen is warm in that practical way: bacon on low, toast popping, the scrape of a knife, the thud of a cupboard. Ash’s laugh is already loaded. Ronan moves at the stove like he’s teaching heat manners. Caelum reads and actually eats. Darian pours tea with surgeon control.

I take the chair I always take now. I butter toast like a woman who isn’t about to set her life on fire with one sentence. My stomach tightens anyway. The plate fogs at the edges.

“Eat,” Ronan says, quiet. He sets an egg on my plate like a vote of confidence.

I try. Two bites sit wrong. My mouth is dry. My heart goes offbeat.

Say it.

“I think you’re my mates.” It comes out clean and soft and lands like a dropped weight. “All four of you. I don’t know how I know, but I do. I… want to try. Slow. If you want that too.”

Silence. The good kind. Not empty—held.

Ash is first. Air rushes out of him like he’s been under for a week. “Thank fuck,” he breathes, bright and wrecked at the same time. “I have been shutting up so hard my tongue has a gym membership. I wanted to say it the second you stepped through our door, but I didn’t want to bulldoze you.” He drags his chair closer; the legs rasp, and Vex, perched on the backrest, gives an approving croak at the scrape like he’s signing off.

Darian’s mouth loosens, almost a smile. “We knew,” he says, voice even. “Day one. But new walls, new rules, new body—too much noise. We chose not to stack our certainty on your first week. You needed air.”

Ronan slides the pan off the burner and turns fully to me. “Dragons worship their mates,” he says, and the word should scare me, but it doesn’t. “It’s not a game. It’s not a claim we use to win. It’s reverence. I’ll give you all the time you ask for. If youwant me close, I’ll be close. If you want me far, I’ll be far. But I’m staying.”

Caelum folds his slate shut, eyes on mine. There’s something old in that look that makes my chest ache. “I’ve dreamed about the piece that was missing,” he says, simple. “Longer than I admit out loud. Not to fill a hole, but to be understood at the seams. I’m indescribably glad it’s you. And that it’s us, five, not one against one. We feel… whole.”

It hits like a body blow. Not pain—gravity. I swallow hard, vision blurring for one humiliating second because I hear the loneliness under his words. The years inside them. I blink it back. The room doesn’t make a sound about it.

“Okay,” I say, small, steady. “Then… slow. Dates.” It feels ridiculous and perfect at once.

Ash’s grin snaps back in, all sunshine and menace. “Friday evening,” he declares, already too pleased. “I’m taking you out. It’s a surprise. Wear shoes you can actually run in and a smile you won’t mind misplacing.”

“Bossy,” I manage.

“Motivated,” he corrects, wicked.

Ronan nudges my water toward me with one knuckle. Caelum steals my toast and replaces it with another slice buttered the way I like, the exact ratio that says he’s been watching. Dariansets tea in front of me like an anchor. My pulse finally steps off the ledge.

We finish breakfast like normal people do: plates scraped, a bad joke, the clink of a mug, the slide of a chair. Normal is a miracle.

Caelum walks me out. The morning has that crisp edge that makes breath show. Students move in knots. He takes my bag with one hand like it’s a habit, fingers brushing mine just enough to be a problem. At the greenhouse path he stops. His knuckles tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear like he’s done it a hundred times in his head. His smile is warm and private and ruins half my vertebrae.

“See you for lunch,” he says.

“Try and stop me,” I whisper, traitorously soft.

He peels off, and I’m left with my heartbeat and the smell of damp earth.

Taya is already bouncing on the steps, bells at her ankle laughing. Laz leans against a pillar like gravity owes him rent.

“You look like news,” Taya sings.

“I said the thing,” I tell her.

“And?”

“And yes. All of us. Slow.” Saying it makes my skin go hot.

Taya beams so hard the greenhouse windows might crack. Laz’s mouth tilts, approval in his eyes he will never name.

“First: Magic Control & Theory,” Laz says. “Ventress will measure your soul with a ruler.”

“Perfect. I love judgment.”