Page 18 of Our Radiant Embers

“That’s funny,” I said in a tone that implied the opposite. “Should I run the laugh track?”

“Nah, that’s quite all right.” He dropped into one of the chairs at the table and gestured for me to do the same. I complied at a leisurely pace lest he think I did his bidding. Meanwhile, he poured us both some water and nudged one glass towards me. In the spirit of playing nice, I bit back my comment about his hosting skills rivalling those of a cactus.

“Thank you,” I said instead, leaning back with a lazy smile as I curled my fingers around the water glass. “So kind of you to ward off my impending dehydration. It’s almost like you don’t hate my guts.”

He countered my smile with one of his own. “Well, ensuring your survival might serve my interests.”

“How reassuring.” Straightening in my chair, I met his gaze. “Now, anyway—let’s get down to business. I took another look at your proposal, and there are promising ideas in there, I’ll give you that.”

“Wow,” he said flatly. “What a rousing endorsement.”

“You’re welcome.” I flashed him my most charming, most sarcastic grin, then reminded myself I’d come in peace. “So, how about we go through my list of everything that I think could bring real value to the project?”

Daylight caught in his eyes and brought out the blue of his irises. “Let me guess—your list has two lines?”

“Try eighteen.”

“Eighteen,” he echoed slowly, like he was waiting for the catch. Smart guy.

“Eighteen.” I started ticking off my fingers. “Like your fire-enhanced cooktops, and the rainwater-harvesting solar tiles. Or using earth magic to increase storage capacity and water magic to cool the IT infrastructure in the commercial area. All clever ideas.” I paused. “If you can make them work, that is.”

Just then, footsteps creaked on the floor above us. It made me wonder if Liam had told his whole family to hide until the big bad wolf was gone. Probably. He had a habit of attending events alone, and I sure didn’t think it was an addiction to hogging the spotlight.

In my family, it was sink or swim. No one thought to protect you from the harsh realities of life, and even Gale, who avoided the magical community, had to put in an appearance once in a while. In a nutshell, if you couldn’t handle the heat, it was your own bloody problem.

Between my lack of a hard edge and the unfortunate event of my sexuality, I could have easily crumbled. It was damn lucky I’d had Cassandra and Gale in my corner.

“Go on,” Liam said, face inscrutable.

“We define targets and delivery timelines specific to each idea.” I paused, leaning forward. “And we define kill criteria.”

A small wrinkle showed between his eyebrows. “Kill criteria?”

“If this, then that. If by date X you haven’t managed to deliver on Y, we pivot to another solution.”

“Which is to say a solution of yours.”

“Obviously.”

He pursed his mouth as he fixed me with a flat stare. “Only if we do the same for anything that you haven’t implemented at scale before. Like those energy-generating penises.”

I clung to my pleasant expression. Not many dared to doubt us so openly—but I was here to move things along. If Liam needed to feel like this was a partnership of equals?

By all means.

* * *

In the next two hours, we made actual, tangible progress. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised—Liam or me.

Once we’d settled into a rhythm, temporarily suspending all barbs, things started falling into place. Liam was sharp and focused, quick to point out any flaws in my logic. Since he granted me the same courtesy, I didn’t mind as much as I otherwise would.

For each untested concept, we defined concrete steps—from assessing viability at scale to prototype testing to minimum performance and reliability expectations. While Liam grumbled about how most of the onus was on him, he also acknowledged that they had much more to prove. Although the way he put it was, “Surprise, man—a revolution isn’t ‘more of the same, please!’”

As we were wrapping up our rough agreement, his grandmother wandered into the kitchen. She must be in her early eighties, dressed in jeans and a jumper that hung loose on her birdlike frame, short hair styled into tight curls.

“Oh, hello!” She sized me up with a sharp look, keen intelligence in her eyes. “I didn’t realise we had a guest.”

Liam sighed. “This is Adam Harrington, Nan Jean. I told you he’d be here.”

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