Page 67 of Our Radiant Embers

“Right.” I made my way down the rest of the stairs and drew closer, studying the swirls of chalk. It was an intricate pattern that might easily take me an hour to recreate, and much longer to memorise. Maybe he’d drawn it this morning, before heading to the construction site—when we made it here earlier, I’d hardly been in a state to notice much of anything. “How long does it take you to do this?”

“Half an hour, give or take.”

“Would it work for me?”

“Only the fire aspect.” He watched me with calm, bright eyes. “There’s a generic one, but that’s less efficient. This one’s based on it, but my grandmother altered the design so it’s specific to fire, and then Gale optimised it more.”

I crouched just outside the circle, my gaze trailing intersecting lines of chalk. When I glanced up, Adam was still watching me, and I sent him a smile. “You’re not supposed to show me this, are you?”

“No.” He made it sound quite simple.

“And you’re really going to spend the night in this circle?”

“Yes.”

“With a few nuts for dinner.”

“Yes.”

“After you spent a whole lot of energy earlier taking down those buildings.”

“I guess I could order us some pizza.” His voice was light, but it was the ‘us’ that swung it for me.

I pushed myself to my feet and went to check his fridge. Over my shoulder, I asked, “Can I pass things to you? Like food?”

“Sure, yeah. You can walk in and out of the circle too—it’s not one that’ll trap you.” With a gusty sigh, Adam fell onto his back, legs splayed and arms behind his head. “But if you’re planning to use the coffee machine, please don’t.”

“I’m not that bad,” I protested. Granted, my results with the fairly similar machine in my office had been, ah…subpar. “You’re just a snob. And anyway, no. I’d like to get some sleep tonight, and you should, too. I’m going to make us a proper dinner.”

“Uh.” Adam let his head tip to the side and sent me a full, beaming smile. “I mean, yeah, that sounds nice. But even you can’t conjure ingredients out of thin air.” He paused. “Or can you?”

Milk, apples, and a lone slice of cheese. Greek tragedies had started like this.

“No.” I closed the fridge and turned to face him. “But I’m perfectly capable of doing a grocery run. Key, please?”

“Oh, darling.” Adam fanned himself, eyes dramatically wide. “I don’t think we’re quite at that stage yet in our relationship.”

I swallowed a grin. “Key?” I repeated with pointed emphasis.

“Listen, it’s not that I’m afraid of commitment…”

He won that round—I laughed, and it loosened a knot of lingering tension in my chest. His lips tugged into a smile as he dropped the theatrics.

“Key is on the little shelf under the stairs. You need directions to the closest supermarket?”

“You actually know where it is?” I asked with exaggerated surprise. “Based on the contents of your fridge, I thought you lived on coffee, fruit, and takeaway.”

“I also make an excellent bowl of cereal.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” I realised I was grinning at him like he’d hung the bloody moon, so I turned away to grab the key and tuck it into my pocket. “And no worries, I’ll just ask my phone for directions. You fine with a stir-fry?”

“Sounds amazing,” Adam said softly. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for all the help over the last few weeks. This really is the least I can do.”

“It’s no hardship, you know?” Still on his back, he shot me a brief smile. “Like I told you, I like feeling useful.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake—my stupid heart needed to settle down. “You are useful. You’re brilliant, okay? If your dad and aunt can’t see it, that’s on them.”

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