That left Fenric, still standing apart, surrounded by spontaneously manifested paperwork and looking like he'd aged several years in the past ten minutes.
"Come here," I held out my free hand to him.
He hesitated, his silver-blue eyes moving from me to the others and back again. The pink flush had spread from his ears to his cheeks, and I could practically see him mentally calculating the protocol violations of joining our group embrace.
"Fenric," I kept my hand extended. "The paperwork can wait."
Something in my voice must have reached him. With visible effort, he stepped over the scattered forms and accepted my hand. When I pulled him into our hug, he went stiff for exactly three seconds before melting against us with a small, defeated sound.
"This is highly irregular," he muttered, but his arms came around me and Milo, anchoring himself to us.
"Irregular is our new normal," I pressed my face against his shoulder, breathing in his clean, precise scent. "Get used to it."
We stood like that for a long moment, the five of us connected in a tangle of limbs and shared warmth. Through the bonds linking us together, I felt their emotions flowing. Rook's fierce protectiveness. Zane's ancient wisdom. Milo's irrepressible hope. Fenric's structured stability.
And beneath it all, something deeper. Something that made the blue markings on my skin pulse with gentle warmth rather than chaotic energy.
Love.
Maybe not the conventional kind. Maybe not the kind that fit into neat boxes or followed established rules. But love nonetheless, in all its messy, complicated, prophetically significant glory.
Horrace trilled musically from the couch, and I felt him projecting contentment through our bond despite his lost memories. The mini-skeletons on the dresser began a synchronized dance, their tiny forms swaying in celebration.
"I don't know what's coming," I spoke into the comfortable silence of our embrace. "The choice, the Harbingers, whatever the Oracle's mark means. But I know one thing for certain."
"What's that?" Milo's voice was muffled against Zane's shoulder.
"I'm not facing it alone," I squeezed the hands I held. "Whatever happens, we face it together."
"Damn right we do," Rook growled softly.
"The Harbinger belongs to all," Zane murmured agreement.
"Together," Fenric's voice held quiet conviction.
"Always," Milo finished.
Chapter
Fifty-One
Zane
The apartment settled into an unfamiliar quiet around three in the morning. Winter had finally crashed after her spectacular paperwork manifestation, curled up in her bed with Horrace wrapped around her like a living security blanket. Milo had followed shortly after, exhausted from helping Fenric categorize the spontaneously generated forms into seventeen different piles organized by "level of bureaucratic absurdity."
Fenric himself had retreated to his makeshift office corner around midnight, muttering about filing systems and reality-defying administrative protocols.
Which left Rook and me on night watch.
I'd positioned myself in the armchair with a book I wasn't actually reading, while Rook stood sentry by the sliding glass door that led to the small balcony. He'd been there for hours, silhouette backlit by city lights, shoulders tense despite the lack of immediate threats.
The silence between us had weight. Not hostile anymore, but not comfortable either. We'd been dancing around something since the Harmonic Alignment Chamber disaster, since that forced confession about wondering what he tasted like. The admission had been involuntary, dragged out by magic, but that didn't make it less true.
I turned another page I hadn't read, watching him from the corner of my eye. The lean muscle of his back was visible through his thin t-shirt, tension evident in every line. His fingers drummed against his thigh in an irregular pattern that suggested restless energy with nowhere to go.
"You're going to wear a hole in your jeans," I finally set aside my book.
Rook didn't turn. "Someone has to stay alert."
