Page 42 of Red Demon

“We should talk.” She looked over my shoulder, and I turned. Ash met our gaze, then pretended he didn’t, keeping his distance on the far side of the clearing. Galen was already walking ahead of us up the road.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Jesse.” She met my gaze with what appeared to be some effort. “You’re incredible. You’re kind, funny, brave. You did nothing wrong…” She took a shaky breath.

My heart flapped in my chest like a trapped bird, waiting for the “but.”

“But what I realized,” she continued, her voice gaining strength, “is that I really admire that bond you have with Asher. The brotherly connection. I’ve had friendships, but nothing quite like what you both share. I haven’t known you very long, sure, but…”

The words trailed off, what was left unsaid heavy in the air. Relief washed over me, and I felt like I understood. My own thoughts settled.

“If I’m ever dumb enough to let an elder marry me off,” I began.

She froze.

Not a good start. I winced. “Family is there for you, no matter what,” I tried again. “Ash will have a couch for me when I get divorced, much to Galen’s shame. We’ve already worked out the details. Or more likely, I’ll refuse to get married in the first place, much to Galen’s shame. I just have to figure out what will shame him least, and stick to that. But I’ll need Ash’s couch either way. Anyway—” Fuck. I was rambling.

She just stared, considering.

Asher looked away when I caught his eye across the clearing. “I seriously doubt he’s going to have the same problems I do.”

“I agree.” A wistful smile graced Mira’s lips. “So what does a girl who has known you for such a brief period of time need to do to get a couch from you? Or is that inappropriate?”

A smile tugged at my own lips. “Yeah, you got a brother, if that’s what you mean.” I realized the full depth of that didn’t terrify me. I shifted my stance. “Ash adopted me in his head after a week, and well, I think I feel the same about you as I do for him.”

She lit up at that, and we both looked at Ash, who was still pretending not to be side-eying us as he packed the last of his things.

“But I don’t have a couch. I need to get my shit together,” I said.

Her smile widened. “Maybe in a year, I’ll have a little apartment in Thebos or Ea Shadohe. Same offer. And I mean it. A decade from now. Twenty. I’ll be there for you too. Family.”

I closed my eyes with the warmth of her words. And it meant so much more than the hurricane of emotions I felt after kissing her. This was the foundation that survived all that. “My home will always be open to you too, Sister.”

She hugged me then, holding me tight, with her head to my heart. It felt right for her to be there, safe.

I caught a glimpse of Asher’s back as he strode fast down the path home, alone.

Chapter 19

A Man Who Knows His Place

The summer sun beat down on my sweaty brow as I walked through the garden to Mira’s greenhouse lab. Opening the rickety door of the frosted glass structure for the first time, I was grateful to find it was climate controlled inside.

It was clear that Mira was working off a low budget, despite her father investing plenty of coin into modernizing the governor’s house. Her lab was a cluttered haven of two tables, a shelf, a tablet, lots of books and stacks of papers, and her little code sequencer running with a low, electronic thrum. Ash and Mira sat huddled over the tablet, their brows furrowed in exhausted concentration.

Research was not going well.

“Hey Ashes,” I said, the sound echoing off the glass walls. “Who wants mint lemonade?”

Mira glanced up, her frustration tugged away by a smile.

Voids, had she even slept? Asher didn’t look much better. He’d been staying up reading some of Mira’s Mod-Tech books in an effort to help her figure out what she was doing wrong. He’d retested every circuit, coming up empty. That was all he cared to share with me regarding anything to do with Mira.

“Still getting error messages?” I asked, knowing if she wasn’t, she would have told me before the door creaked closed behind me.

“Drowning in them.” Mira rubbed the exhaustion out of her eyes. “Same as the last sample. I’ve isolated some segments of code that don’t throw it, but there are far too many that do. It can’t be right. None of this can be right.”

My stomach churned. “What would it mean if it was right?”