The door was still ajar, a thin blade of hallway light cutting across the rug. Snow pressed its quiet face to the window; the radiator ticked in time with Mira’s breath.

Our animals had collapsed into a constellation around the bed—husky pup with his nose hooked over the mattress seam, ember fox kit a squeak-dreaming comma by the heater, lynx kitten perched on the dresser like a smug gargoyle. The glamour softened them for anyone else; I saw straight through it now. Soft fur, needle claws, a little wild smuggled into a human house. The thought of anyone else walking in and seeing only ordinary pets made me absurdly grateful for illusion.

Mira slept in the circle of my arms like a solved problem. Her scent had sunk into the cotton and into me: toasted marshmallow heat, the sweet flare of stargazer, clean ocean breath and that first after-rain inhale—yes, petrichor—threaded with a quick, bright citrus I’d learned I caused. It was indecent, how safe it made me feel.

Enemy, once. Center of gravity now. I was her consort, which meant her wife, which somehow also meant she was my queen. The word should have crushed me. Instead, it felt like a door I’d opened myself. She was mine. Not as a trophy—gods, no—but as a vow. Mine to guard, to match, to make a world for. I’d helped make her doubt once; I would spend the rest of my life undoing that.

I mapped the micro-details: the scar above her brow soft in the lamplight; hair that wasn’t red so much as an entire sunrise—copper, gold, threads of silver where heat bent air. And the reel in my head, the one I never say out loud, unspooled itself: a project night that ended with us asleep in a tangle; the first time her glamour slipped by a car door and I pretended I hadn’t seen; a field trip where I chose to sit beside her after an all-nighter at the hospital because I needed to, not because it made sense; the bus hitting a pothole and me jolting awake to eyes that weren’t green at all but constellations poured into dark glass; her slipping a parchment into her coat and me deciding—deliberately—not to turn that into leverage but a question I could spend months answering. Three months of wanting like a fever. Then a kiss. Then her impulse and my certainty and rings sliding home before a court that would have devoured us if either wavered.

My ring—left hand, third finger—caught the lamplight in a single, patient blink. Firefly, my mind whispered, traitor-soft. Heat coiled low in me; I told myself it was just the radiator.

She stirred, a warm shift under my arm; rolled to face me. I drowned for a second: those eyes, unglamoured in the hush, flecks of gold and silver like distant cities.

“Morning, Firefly,” I said, voice still sleep-rough.

The corner of her mouth curled, smug and soft. “Morning, Kindling.”

Ridiculous that one word could trip my pulse. Ridiculous that she could pull me closer with a barely-there tug and kiss me like a lit match pressed to frost—heat, yes, but held, careful, a promise instead of a blaze. The tether between our rings hummed once, warm along my bones. My heart leapt to meet it, traitorous. Door open, I reminded myself; family awake somewhere in the house. For a beat I didn’t care. If she’d pressed, I would have let the door, the rules, the entire house fall away. She stopped first, because she was trying to be good, and because we’re us.

We breathed. Counted radiator ticks. The husky huffed when her braid slid over the edge and brushed his nose. The fox kit squeaked. The lynx performed a silent opera yawn and resumed judging.

On the sill, I caught it: tiny bead-prints scattered like confetti, and near the hallway vent, a thimble-sized lantern flickering butter-yellow. The Small Folk had been by; of course they had. This house was a stitched map of their shortcuts.

Careful not to jostle her, I reached for the vase on the dresser and plucked a soft-headed carnation. A quick crack of the window let cold bite my fingers; I set the flower outside, head bowed an inch in thanks. The lantern winked once in answer, then went still.

Mira watched me slide the window shut, that bright, private look she saved for when I surprised her. “Making friends with my people already?” she murmured.

“Your people have better lighting than my parents’ entire foyer.” The word parents jarred something loose. Reflex almost pushed me toward a barb—something I would’ve said back when she was still my rival—but I swallowed it. Instead, I smoothed my thumb over the new groove at the base of her ring and said it before I could lose my nerve. “I want to go to the hospital today.”

Her attention sharpened in an instant. “Elliot.”

“I haven’t seen him in a couple days.” The words scraped a raw nerve on the way out. “I want him to meet you.”

“Obviously,” she said, like it had always been part of the plan. No theatrics, no long speeches. Just sure. “What are we waiting for?”

Before my brain could trip over relief, she flowed out of bed with that infuriatingly graceful fae economy and tugged me with her. The open door gave a little waggle as air moved; the lynx blinked, unimpressed. She yanked a drawer, flung me soft flannel and an old Firestarter Academy tee like we’d been sharing closets for years.

“You’re a menace,” I told her, already pulling the shirt over my head. It smelled like her. Of course it did.

“Efficient,” she corrected. Her three-beat finger tap started up against her thigh—tap, tap, tap. I reached without thinking, hooked my pinky with hers. The rhythm stilled. Her shoulders dropped half an inch. We are ridiculous. We are us.

I glanced at the pets—still happily asleep. We hadn’t named them yet; I wanted time to learn who they were before we pretended we knew. Tomorrow, maybe, when the holiday noise quieted—if my parents didn’t kill us after we told them everything. The thought stung; I tucked it away.

We both checked our left hands at the same time—the rings, the whole world that came with them—and both looked away like we hadn’t. Cowards. My pulse jumped at the faint hum in the band; I told myself it was just nerves, not the heat it lit in my chest.

“I’ll grab coffee downstairs, tell everyone we’re heading out,” she said, rolling her cuff once, catching herself, smoothing it flat.

“Roads might be ugly.”

“Elias will tell you to drive safe like it’s a spell,” I said. Her mouth tilted; she didn’t deny it.

I palmed my phone; she clipped on our bracelet—emberstone beads winking like they knew our pulse better than we did. Frosted citrus and cold vanilla threaded into her toasted-marshmallow warmth; the room smelled like a campfire on the edge of snow.

“Hey,” she added, stepping close enough that heat erased the cold from my skin. “We visit Elliot. Then… whatever else today throws.” Her hand rested at my ribs, steady. “With me?”

“Always,” I said, and let the truth of it steady me. I skimmed my fingers through her hair—red, orange, gold, silver—and felt that same wild, unmanageable tenderness climb my throat. “Also,” I added, because honesty was easier while looking at sunrise, “I get to keep you.”

Her smile reached the flecks in her eyes and lit them. Something in the room brightened—maybe the lamp, maybe the day, maybe only me.

“Let’s go introduce you, Firefly,” I said.

We stepped around sleeping paws and pride and into a hallway that smelled like cinnamon and coffee and a family trying, and for once it felt like exactly the right way to start.

I laced our fingers as we headed downstairs. I’m the cheer captain, but next to Mira’s no-audience glide I felt like a fawn on tile. She ate two steps at a time without trying, the kind of grace that doesn’t apologize for existing.

On the landing, Lucien had colonized the couch, handheld screen lighting his face ghost-blue. He looked up, sneer preloaded.

It still shocks me—how he punishes her for what she didn’t choose. And it gets to her; I feel the sting under her skin even as she acts like it doesn’t. His thumb worried the cracked edge of his screen-case until the plastic groaned.

“Good morning, little brother,” Mira sang, light but sincere. “I don’t have time to play today, but I fully intend to kick your ass at Veilocart next time. Sorry we didn’t get more time—just you and me.”

He kept his gaze flat. “Yeah, whatever. Don’t really care.”

He cared. He was still bruised that I wasn’t a variable anymore, and that she brought me home. It was still not fair to pin it on her.

We cut into the kitchen and, of course, Elias already had travel mugs lined like he saw this scene in a preview. Steam lifted in curls; cinnamon and coffee arm-wrestled the winter draft slipping under the door.

“Morning, ladies,” he said with Mira’s same smile, older and steadier. He snapped lids on with the practiced grace of a man who lets go without letting you feel it.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Mira said, and folded herself into a quick hug, a kiss against his cheek that softened everything for half a breath.

“Morning, Mr. Quin—” I started.

He cut me off with kindness wrapped in iron. “I may not love the idea of Mira being seventeen and already married,” he said evenly, “but since it’s done, you’re family now and always. Call me Dad.”

Only Mira and I would survive the small eye-roll I couldn’t hold back. “As you wish, Dad.”

He passed us the mugs. “Roads aren’t fully plowed—go slow.”

Juliana swept around the island in a cranberry cardigan and flour-dusted apron, bustle bright enough to count as lighting. “Morning, girls.”

“Morning, Mom,” we chorused without planning, and she beamed like the house just got warmer.

Before I could blink, a canvas tote thumped into my hands—still warm from the oven. “We heard you’re visiting your brother,” she said, softness catching in her throat. “Take these—so you can have breakfast together.”

Grams ghosted in long enough to tuck a small tea tin into the bag—“for later; it soothes”—and Pops palmed a peppermint into my hand with a conspirator’s wink, like we’d just made a pact.

Quick hugs. My rushed, “I’m sorry this is so short.” Coats. Keys. We scooped the carriers from the mudroom: the husky huffed and resigned himself; the ember fox kit squeak-dreamed deeper into his blanket; the lynx flicked one imperial ear as if to say clocks were for mortals.

Outside, the snow had sanded the morning down to clean edges. We loaded the babies into the back—safe, snug, temporary. First stop: Emberhall. Staff would fuss properly over our chaos gremlins until tomorrow, and—if I had anything to say about it—for the rest of their stitched-together little lives Mira and I would spoil them stupid.

Mira slid behind the wheel of the sleek black coupe—ours, now. I anchored the pastry bag in my lap and curled the peppermint in my fist like a charm, folding its paper into clean quarters just to keep steady. She started the engine; the dash glowed. Her ring flashed once on the leather wheel; mine answered with a private echo only I could feel.

We pulled away. Elias’s warning about the roads trailed us down the drive like a blessing disguised as an order.

Fresh plow lines stitched the street; the city blurred into a watercolor of salt and snow. By the time we slipped through Emberhall’s gates, winter had met its match—heat blooming in the marble, banners whispering summer even in Eclipsend. The air tasted faintly of resin and sun-sweet citrus.

We cut through to the antechamber outside Mira’s suite—pale stone, woven rush mats, lanterns breathing a living golden light. A Summer Court attendant in crisp livery (white shot with copper thread, a pin like a hammered sun at his collar) stepped forward and bowed just shy of formal.

“Your Highness. Lady Consort.”

Titles landed; we didn’t feed them.

“We’re dropping the babies,” Mira said, setting a carrier down with ridiculous gentleness. I followed with the others.

The attendant’s face warmed. “Of course.”

I kept it cheer-captain clean, handing over the tote of supplies. “Fresh water. Short play windows. No raw emberfruit. And if they nap, let them. They’re little tyrants when overtired.”

He nodded, attentive. The husky gave a proud tail thump that drummed the carrier floor. The fox kit nosed through the bars to boop the attendant’s cuff like he was pinning a medal. The lynx allowed exactly one dignified chin scratch, then pretended it never happened.

“We’ll see them tonight,” Mira added, palm brushing the husky’s crate like a promise.

“They’ll be doted on,” the attendant assured. “I’ll send word if they pine.”

“They won’t,” I said, then softened it with a smile. “But thank you.”

Carriers lifted, a quiet bow, and they were gone down the corridor—three small hearts disappearing into summer-warm light.

We stood there a beat longer than necessary, hands still emptying. Clean hands. Clean doorways. Clean visit.

Mira’s fingers found mine. “Hospital?”

“Hospital,” I echoed, and the rings hummed, faint as a vow. We turned toward the exit, the antechamber breathing behind us, and stepped back into the white morning waiting outside.

The hospital ate sound and gave back air that tasted like lemon and metal.

We left the car in a crusted drift of snow and crossed the salted lot side by side. I tucked Grams’s peppermint into my pocket for Elliot; the paper crackled like a promise. At the sliding doors, Mira’s glamour settled as neatly as a shirt—ginger instead of sunrise hair, emerald instead of starlit brown, ear tips softened, every edge turned human. Glamour was a mask, one I’d watched her wear even when it scraped; I hated that the world still demanded it. Her jewelry stayed on—our rings bright on left hands, the quiet fact neither of us was interested in hiding. They hummed once, a low-thread acknowledgment, then behaved.

Inside, the lobby was too bright. Fluorescents flattened everyone to paper. A volunteer tree drooped with paper doves and Sharpied names. Someone’s coffee breath skated over disinfectant. I squared my shoulders and did what I’d done a hundred times.

“Hi,” I told the desk, crisp and courteous. “We’re here to see Elliot Fairborn, cardiac floor. I’m his sister.”

ID, stickers, the soft clack of a keyboard. A toddler in a red hat stared at Mira with the unblinking intensity only toddlers and gods manage. For a second, the air around her bent warmer—like the light itself wanted to follow. She dipped her head, tightened the glamour one notch, and the kid went back to their cracker. A tiny pang hit me: months ago, I’d have sniped at her for showing off. Now, I just swallowed the memory whole.

Badges spat from the printer. “Elevators to the left,” the clerk said. “Follow the blue line.”

We did. The blue stripe along the linoleum looked like a vein.

In the elevator, the fluorescents felt colder, winter pretending to be light. The panel pinged each floor. Mira’s three-beat tap started up against her thigh—tap, tap, tap—then hesitated. I didn’t even think about it. Pinky hook. Her fingers settled. Knee pressure. Her shoulders dropped a fraction. Cuff glide. The roll/unroll urge smoothed under my thumb.

The air, for me, was lemon and old plastic; for her, heat under skin checking for fault lines. When the car sighed past a floor where a vent hissed like a respirator, her breath caught and I felt it—the faintest copper-ozone tang at the back of my tongue, like a penny left in rain. I anchored my palm to the rail beside hers.

“Hey,” I said, eyes on the glowing numbers. “You’re okay.”

She didn’t say I know. “With you,” she answered, small and honest.

Ding. Cardiac. Doors opened on shoe squeaks and monitor beeps that chirped not-quite-in-time. The floor smelled like saline, plastic wrap, warm dust from overworked vents. We followed blue to white to his wing; the walls held framed photos of the city in summer—green water, fireworks—artificial warmth no fluorescent could counterfeit.

A nurse with kind eyes and a ponytail steered a meds cart around us. She clocked our visitor stickers and offered a tired, real smile. “He’s awake,” she said. “Room 412.”

I lifted the tote. Surprise breakfast. Elliot wouldn’t be expecting us, wouldn’t be expecting pastries. That was the point.

The emberstone bracelet at my wrist gave a faint, pleasant warmth—Mira’s enchantment checking my pulse and deciding we were fine. Our rings caught the corridor light as we walked: not hidden, not apologizing, just there.

We passed a room where a family read aloud from a battered fantasy paperback; another where a woman in a beanie slept while a monitor did the worrying for her. The corridor was one long held breath. My footsteps learned the rhythm of beeps and hisses like choreography I didn’t want but had memorized anyway.

Halfway down, Mira’s cuff twitched. I caught it; she let me. “Firefly?” I said under my breath, tasting the word before I released it.

Her glamoured-green gaze flicked to me. “Mm?”

“Thank you for coming.” Too small for what I meant—for dropping everything, for watching me pick up courage like a bag and carry it anyway.

“It’s Elliot,” she said, like that was explanation enough. Then, softer: “It’s you.” The last word found every loose board in me and nailed it down.

We reached his door. ELLIOT FAIRBORN in block letters on the placard; a paper snowflake taped crooked in the window. The fluorescent above this threshold shivered once, a flicker only I seemed to notice. Mira stilled, listening to something I couldn’t—then nodded like a decision had been made. The copper-ozone edge kissed my tongue and receded.

I palmed the peppermint in my pocket—the circle that wasn’t a ring—and built the smile meant only for my brother. Mira’s hand found the small of my back.

“Firebreak?” she whispered—question and vow.

“Always,” I breathed.

The rings hummed once—faint, private. I pushed the handle down and carried us both over the threshold.

The door was half glass and all hums and numbers. Whiteboard with date, nurse name, pain scale. Sun snagged on the IV pole and turned it holy for exactly one second.

Elliot was awake.

He was propped against pillows too big for him, puzzle cube slow in his hands, a stuffed fox tucked at his side like a guard. Oxygen cannula looped his ears and hissed softly; the monitor behind him kept time like a fussy metronome.

“Hey, El.” My voice landed quiet and sure, the one I saved for him.

He looked up—and everything in me lifted. Same icy blue eyes as mine, but softer. Tired, yeah, but bright. “Cass.” A grin, quick and lopsided. Then he clocked the tote, and his eyebrows jumped. “Please tell me that’s illegal food.”

“Strongly suggested pastries,” I said, shutting the door with my hip. I set the tote on his tray table and my thumb went white-knuckle on the handle before I could stop it.

Mira’s hand covered mine, warm as a mug. No flash, no show—just steady, human heat. My tendon unclenched on a breath. Her pinky hooked mine for one beat, then released.

Elliot noticed her then—really looked. “So this is your girlfriend.” He said it like it was a victory he’d expected to win all along. His gaze dipped, fast, to our rings—left hands, same finger—and something knowing flickered before he politely let it go.

“She is,” I said, and my ring caught the light. “Mine.” It came out without apology.

Mira’s mouth tucked into a smile that was all sunrise. “Hi, Elliot. I’m Mira.”

“Cool,” he said, easy. Then, to me: “About time.”

I laughed; the sound wobbled but didn’t fall. “We brought cinnamon knots and hand pies. And—” I fished in my coat pocket “—a peppermint from Pops.”

“Pops-approved contraband?” His grin went greedy little-kid for a second. He palmed the mint like treasure. “Heck yes.”

Mira nudged the tray closer. “Which first?”

“Hand pie.” He eyed the knot like it was a long game. “Apple if the gods are kind.”

“The gods are terrified of me,” I said, tearing open the paper. “So yes.”

Mira cupped the pie between her palms—and for a heartbeat there was a fine corona of light along her fingers, a blink of spark like static catching sunlight. I saw it. Elliot saw it—his eyes flicked to her hands, fascinated. Fluorescents were unkind and no nurse was looking; the glow tucked itself away as quickly as it came. I prayed no camera caught it.

She passed the pie to him. Steam feathered the air. Elliot blinked. “Whoa—it’s warm.”

“Fresh,” she said, innocent as sin.

He took a careful bite. Chewed. Closed his eyes. “That’s illegal,” he declared, and the monitor obligingly ticked a little faster like it agreed.

We settled in: me at one side of the bed, Mira at the other, balanced on the edge like we belonged there. Elliot ate in small, precise half-moons and studied Mira like a puzzle he liked.

“Okay,” he said around a second bite, “important questions. Track event?”

“Four hundred,” she answered without pause.

“Cheer stunt?”

“Arabesque to heel stretch. Don’t tell your sister—I’ll gloat.”

I rolled my eyes; he smirked. “Favorite book?”

“Depends on the week,” she said. “Right now? The one your sister won’t admit she’s re-reading.”

I elbowed her—gentle. Elliot’s grin poked up again. The stuffed fox slid, and Mira reached to right it; he watched her hands like they were careful magic.

He took another bite, then lowered the pastry, voice going smaller. “You don’t… have to fix me,” he said, eyes flicking to mine like he expected me to fight him on it. “You know? Just… visit.”

“I know.” I pressed my palm to the blanket near his knee. I didn’t make promises I couldn’t keep.

Mira didn’t either. She just said, careful and sincere, “Can I…?” and gestured to his wrist.

He offered it, trusting. She cradled it in one hand, two fingertips finding the pulse with the other. Nothing dramatic happened on the outside.

Inside, she opened the tether. Our rings gave a soft, private hum, and a ribbon of her perception slid along it to me—on purpose. The room didn’t change, but it tasted different: a prickle of copper and ozone at the back of my tongue, not hospital air but her magic-sense. She was sharing what she felt so I would know what she knew.

Later, I’d name it: a thread of somewhere-else braided under the skin, a cold-twilight hook lodged where it shouldn’t be. Now, I just felt her stillness travel through me.

She lifted her gaze to Elliot. “I can’t promise anything,” she said, voice steady as a handrail, “but I’m going to look for a way to help.”

Something like a low resonance brushed the room—too faint to set off machines, enough to raise every tiny hair on my arms. The copper-ozone taste lingered, then thinned as she drew the sense back, closing the circuit between us.

Elliot studied her—then nodded, serious as adults think only adults can be. “Okay.” A beat. “But you’re not allowed to do anything stupid.”

“Terrible news,” Mira said dryly. “I specialize in stupid.”

“Accurate,” I said, and Elliot snorted, victorious.

He wiped a crumb from the fox’s ear, then looked between us again. “She makes you less scary,” he told me, like he’d been saving it. “In a good way.”

I felt something in my chest come untied. “She makes me more me,” I admitted, soft.

“Good.” He leaned back, exhausted by ten minutes of joy but unwilling to drop it. His eyes drifted to our rings one more time, understanding more than he said; his mouth twitched toward a secret he kept for us, and he let it rest.

I poured a little water from the carafe and set it where he could reach without tugging the line. He thumbed the peppermint wrapper, spun it like a coin, and saved it for after the nurse checked his sats—because he’d learned the choreography of his own body, and I both hated and admired him for it.

When he drifted—eyes half-mast, puzzle cube pausing between blue and green—Mira eased her hand from his wrist and I took hers instead. My thumb tracked along the inside of her cuff—the little move that shut down her roll/unroll loop before it could start.

“Firefly,” I whispered, because I could.

“Here,” she answered, because she was.

Elliot slept. The monitor went back to reasonable. The fox kept watch. And for a few borrowed minutes on a too-bright floor, everything important was in the same room.

The sliding doors sighed us out into a white-bright morning. The hospital smell—antiseptic and lemon—fell away in a breath; cold took its place, clean and biting. Our footfalls crunched over plowed ridges and old tire tracks. Beyond the curb, the world was muffled, all edges sanded down by last night’s snow.

I stopped beside the black coupe and set my palm on the roof. Frost filmed the lacquer. My breath fogged—once, twice—like I could blow the last of the fluorescent harsh out of my lungs. Inside my chest, something shook loose and went quiet. The copper-ozone taste that had threaded through the visit—Mira’s senses braided with mine so I wouldn’t miss a single thing—thinned to the faintest ghost and then was gone.

Mira moved into my space without asking, like she always did when I forgot I was allowed to need it. She took both my hands between hers and rubbed. No visible magic. No flare. Just her, warming me the mortal way—thumbs sweeping over my knuckles, steady pressure, patient heat.

“Hey,” she said, soft as a secret. Up close, she smelled like toasted sugar and stargazer and clean winter air, a promise I could breathe. “With me?”

I nodded. Couldn’t trust my voice; Elliot’s smile was still lodged behind my ribs. The puzzle cube’s plastic-click echo. The peppermint in his cheek. The way he’d looked at our hands and hadn’t said a word, like he’d decided happiness counted more than definitions.

Mira tipped her head, reading my silence the way she reads glyphs. I tightened my ponytail—a little ritual to keep my face on straight—and watched a flake melt on her sleeve. The rings hummed between us, bare and unapologetic on our hands. Let anyone look.

“I want to go to my parents’ next,” I said finally. The words left a frostbite sting on my tongue. “I need to tell them.”

Her thumbs stilled for a breath, then started again, calm as tide. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I echoed, because saying it twice made it real. I lifted our joined hands and pressed my mouth to her knuckles. “Thank you for Elliot. For… all of that.”

She leaned in until her forehead touched mine, the world narrowing to breath and skin. “Always, Firebreak.”

It landed in me like an anchor dropping—solid, clean, necessary. I exhaled and watched the cloud of it drift and disappear.

“Let’s go,” I said, opening my door. The heater would need a minute to catch up. The roads, Elias had said, weren’t fully plowed; a snowplow wailed its slow warning two blocks over, a bright blade taking bites out of the quiet.

Mira circled to the driver’s side. The engine turned over, low and obedient. I set the pastry tote at my feet—the tea tin clinked once inside—and smoothed the crumpled top flat, because control begins where it can.

She glanced across the console, a question caught at the corner of her mouth. I answered it with a nod I hoped looked braver than it felt.

We pulled out of the space, tires whispering over salted slush. The hospital shrank in the rearview; the city opened ahead, all pale sky and unplowed truths. I reached for her hand over the gearshift and didn’t let go.

“We should go to my parents’ next,” I said again, steady this time.

“Then we will,” she said, and the coupe carried us toward the trap I couldn’t see—and the conversation I was done running from.