Page 33 of Into Ember

The wrong story is the safe story. The wrong story agrees with me.

Fine.

Great.

That’s what I’m for.

Four centuries of telling everyone fate’s a fairy tale, and the first person who ever agreed with me out loud just used me to do it.

Not investigating that. Some doors you don’t kick.

“Well.” I’m up. I need to not be in this chair. “Compelling. Airtight. Somebody get her a gavel.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, Beautiful.”

I take my mug to the pot and pour slow. The armor’s back on by the time I turn around — grin, walk, all of it. Her eyes track me the whole way. Narrow. Furious. Satisfied with herself.

I stop at her chair.

“For what it’s worth” — low, just for her, in a room where everyone hears everything — “you got the story wrong.”

Her chin comes up. Ready to argue. She’s always ready to argue.

“I never flopped into your nest, Beautiful. I couldn’t. I tried twice and couldn’t make myself sit down in the thing. Erik had to drag me in by the wrist.”

“He swore,” Erik says, from the stove. “Then he stayed.”

“Thank you, Erik.”

Her mouth is open. Nothing is coming out of it.

“So here’s your correction. A female’s nest doesn’t let just anyone in. Anything that doesn’t belong, her instincts throw out before it lands — and mine wouldn’t even let me walk into it on my own.”

I lean down. Close enough to hear her breath change. Close enough that she knows I heard it.

“And once I was in, nothing in you minded me there.”

And I walk, coffee in hand, and I don’t look back. The kitchen behind me is quiet enough to hear a case fall apart.

Good exit line. Best of the morning. Worth it for her face alone.

It meant nothing.

It means nothing.

Because if her nest let me in, then fate finally got its—

No.

Nope.

Not today.

The front door is too loud as it swings shut behind me.

I need air.