Page 98 of Our Radiant Embers

Finally. Finally.

Just us now.

* * *

Languid sweetness swirled through my blood like heavy wine.

Liam used a corner of the sheet to wipe the mess off my belly before he sprawled out beside me. We hadn’t closed the curtains around the bed, had seen no need to—the roof windows showed only sky. Sunlight gleamed on his naked back, and I leaned over him, kissed his shoulder and the nape of his neck.

He turned his head for a smile, his face relaxed like it hadn’t been all morning. “Feel better?” he asked.

I smiled back. “Isn’t that my line?”

“We can timeshare.” His gaze skimmed over my chest and throat before he met my eyes. “You just seemed a little…sad this morning.”

Huh.

Maybe, yes. I hadn’t thought anyone would notice.

I settled next to him on my side, sharing my pillow. “Just crash-landing back in the land of family expectations,” I said quietly. “Hit me a bit harder than usual, I guess.”

He watched me with warm focus, like nothing outside this shared space truly mattered. God, I wished.

“Let’s run away together.” I hadn’t planned to say that—it was errant daydreaming, silly afterglow notions. “Somewhere where our magic doesn’t matter. Sicily. Corsica.”

“We could get a fishing boat.” Liam’s eyes were blue like the morning sky. “We’ll spend what remains of our magic so it runs on an empty tank, and then it’s just us and the sea.”

We wouldn’t. Of course we wouldn’t—we both had people who depended on us. But a boy could dream.

I reached out to tangle my fingers with his and brought our laced hands up between us. “Deal. I’m sure I can learn how to cook fish the normal way.”

“Pack our bags, meet at the port at midnight?”

“I’ll bring the coffee machine.”

“Won’t need that in Italy. Great coffee everywhere.”

“Excellent point,” I said. “Sicily it is.”

We lay there, skin cooling and sunlight flowing around us, distant urban sounds spilling through the open windows. Minutes slipped away as though time had become inconsequential.

If only.

With a small sigh, I reached down to draw a corner of the duvet over us. “I know I asked earlier, but really, how are you feeling?”

A corner of his mouth quirked. “Like my brain just melted and I’m trying to scoop up the remains?”

“Well, same.” I puffed out a laugh that floated in the air for a second before it evaporated. “But I meant your magic. You said it’s calmer?”

“A little, yeah.” His eyes turned thoughtful as he studied me. “Nan thinks I’m somewhere around Sun-level now. Which—Jesus, Adam. That’s nowhere near the power you wield, and already it feels like I could go mad with it.”

Sun-level. Did he mean each element, or the combination of all four?

“You mean because of how it weighs on you?” I asked. The drain was mental rather than physical—a constant deviation of attention that I only noticed when returning to London after a few days away.

“No. Well, yes. That, too.” He shifted, attention drifting away. “But it’s even more how…aware I am of everything.”

Right, yes—there was that. For a while, after my mum’s death, I’d taken to letting my magic roam freely, taking refuge in all those little blips and signals that drowned out the noise in my head.

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