Raven Chapter 34 Promises and Perfect Moments 428
Raven
I wake up slowly and without an alarm, the ghost of a dream still clinging to me.
I can’t remember much—just lonely eyes in the dark, and the feeling of swimming up from some deep, cold sea, fighting for every inch toward the light. My lungs still ache like I’d really been holding my breath.
The only thing more strange than the dream is not being dragged out of sleep by some harsh buzzer just to get put through the wringer all day. Weird dreams are definitely better than that.
Dre’s bath worked wonders. My body’s still a little sore, but it’s nothing compared to what a week of hard training without a magical soak would’ve felt like. My brain also doesn’t feel as… sharp. Which is something I didn’t even realize it felt like until the feeling was gone.
It wasn't the usual headache where it's all sharp, tight, and stuck in one spot. Nope. This was my brain throwing a tantrum, headbutting my skull from the inside.
According to Dre’s note—and the fact that it vanished by the time I was halfway through my tea—that was psychic fatigue.
There are definite perks to coercing a doctor with blood bending powers into loving you. Apparently, this is one of them.
I take my time getting ready, finding another comfortable sweater and leggings combo before slipping into Forrest’s room and snatching a single sock. If he thinks he’s getting off on my payback because he introduced me to the wonderful world of J.R.R Tolkien, then he has another thing coming.
Part of me feels bad about the seam-ripping incident. The other part doesn’t give a shit, because I finally don’t feel like a danger to myself and others. I’ve proven I can learn. I can control the wild thing inside me.
With his sock safely tucked away, I head downstairs, mentally poking at my familiars as I go.
I’ve gotten a few actual words out of them lately.
Mostly, they’ve told me they’re recovering as well as can be expected.
Who knew multiple city-leveling power surges could tire out two beings meant to fly between worlds on a god’s whim?
Put that way… the fear I've been ignoring isn't as ignorable as I'd like.
I've made progress. But a city-leveling power surge is still a city-leveling power surge, and I've had multiple.
I refuse to get cocky. People could get hurt. These people could get hurt.
Later. I'll panic later. I tell myself as I shove the panic into a box and lock the lid as tight as I can.
I have more important things to focus on. Delicious things.
Then Anik’s words echo through me again. The anticipation is almost unbearable. Is this what edging feels like?
Rude.
I pause in the kitchen doorway and just watch them. It's different now—being here, really here, instead of watching from the other side of an invisible wall.
Anik's at the stove. And let me tell you, that man at a stove is a whole thing.
Black henley, sleeves pushed up past those scarred forearms I've definitely stared at more than once. The fabric stretches across his back when he stirs, and I can see the muscle moving under it. All that contained power, just... simmering. Just like the onions I can smell from here.
His hair is cropped short, as it always has been. When he tilts his head to check the pot, the light hits his profile. That jaw. That nose with the little bump in the bridge. And those ocean-blue eyes, narrowed in concentration. All of it is perfection incarnate.
He's clean-shaven tonight. I don't know why that catches my attention, but it does.
Like he's trying to look soft for his mother's kitchen.
It doesn't work. There's nothing soft about him.
Even now, stirring a pot like a domestic god, he's still.
Waiting. Like he could go from cooking to killing in the same breath.
The scars definitely don't help in making him look soft. The one above his left eyebrow, the tip of a larger scar peeking out over the neckline of his shirt in the back, the small ones all over his hands and arms that are only noticeable if you're really paying attention.
I have no idea where any of them came from—I'm assuming badassary.
He hasn't offered the story, and I haven't asked for it.
But I want to. I want to know everything about him, about all of them.
I've always wanted that. But the physical ache that seems to have joined in on the party?
That makes the unknowing so much harder to deal with than before.
Ki-ki is teasing him, trying to slip around him to taste whatever he’s cooking, easing that ever present ache for a minute. It doesn’t take him long to give up, snatching a freshly baked cinnamon roll instead.
Those have to be from Miriam. I don't know where she is, but I know her handiwork. Roll in hand, he heads over to Em to pester him about his tinkering and gets a knife pulled on him within seconds. Classic.
Dre’s on the phone at the counter as he tries to stay out of the way while still being helpful.
His voice is low and steady as he seamlessly switches between carrying dirty dishes to the dishwasher while occasionally flipping open a tome titled “Anatomy and Alchemy: The Gnomic Physiology”, his finger trailing down paragraphs of text or a detailed diagram as he listens. Doctor mode. Always on.
Forrest is at the table, buried in paperwork. Deep in CEO-mode. For once he doesn’t look stressed. There’s no rigid shoulders and tense jaw, just a whole lot of focus. He doesn't look like a statue. He just looks like a man who forgot to shave.
One step closer to sweatpants and junk food.
And Em is tucked in a corner by the window, surrounded by what looks like a tech explosion. Wires, crystals, vintage radio guts, and his portable brain—a mess of circuit boards and glowing stuff that only he understands. He's soldering something tiny.
I've seen him with this thing before. It's not connected to MORDRED even though it looks like he reached in and took a chunk of guts with him before he left. I think this is more like a portable vault he can carry into the field and then glom back onto the big one when he gets home.
Like a USB drive designed by a paranoid 1930s mobster who trusts brass and crystal more than he's ever trusted the cloud.
No one is fighting. No one is tense. They’re just… existing together.
My chest does something funny and warm.
This is my life now.
I step into the room, and suddenly I have everyone’s attention.
Forrest's gaze sharpens. Anik freezes mid-stir. Dre mutters something into the phone and hangs up. Em’s focus goes from being entirely on his tinkering to entirely on me. Kieran walks up to me and presses a soft kiss to my temple that makes me go all gooey.
“Mornin’ Wisp,” he says with a smile, "Dinnae just stand there—Anik's nearly done, so grab a seat. I'll be back in a tick."
I listen, making my way over to the table and settling down between the two piles of stuff on either end of the breakfast table. Forrest quickly starts packing his stuff up, and Em doesn’t even bother, still looking at me obsessively.
“You stopped breathing last night.” His voice is flat, a statement of observed fact. My gaze snaps to his.
“What?” I ask at the exact same time the others do.
Dre is the first to reach me, the cool back of his hand pressing to my forehead. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he demands, his calm cracking. “This could be serious.”
A massive pan of something savory thuds onto the table before Anik’s shadow falls over me, a silent, looming question.
“How do you know that?” I ask Emerson, cutting through the worry swirling around me. “I didn’t even know that.”
“At 5:47 a.m., you experienced three distinct respiratory arrests. Each lasted fifty-four, forty-eight, and fifty-seven seconds, respectively.” He cocks his head, unblinking.
“I was preparing to intervene, but you were not entirely corporeal. Phasing. Translucent.” He states simply before looking back down and touching the soldering iron to something with a sharp hiss.
“Emerson,” Forrest snaps. “Explain. Now.”
Emerson looks up, utterly unimpressed by the command.
“She solidified completely at 5:58. Once the pattern indicated cessation, I started to research.” He sets the iron down, his focus returning to me, dissecting my reaction.
“The spectral energy signature was not one of distress.
It's a consolidation phase. Your magic has advanced and is settling into new architecture—recalibrating your physical form to accommodate it. "
There's pride in the way he’s said it, like I’m a puzzle he’s been trying to solve and finally made a breakthrough. He’s not worried at all; he’s fascinated . And he watched it happen.
“Why were you watching me at five in the morning?” I ask, confused and a little bit touched.
He waves his hand in dismissal, “Early mornings are my primary window of study. Consider sleep the control.”
I don’t have time to question him further as Kieran saunters into the room with the air of a magician about to pull a rabbit from his hat. A small box in his hands.
"For you, ye absolute bampot," he sets the box down next to Em.
Em doesn’t look up. “If it’s another way you’ve committed crimes against my gherkins, I will fillet you and hang you from the ceiling.”
Yep, because that’s super normal brotherly behavior. I get up and start to search for a phone book. It’s high time I called up a therapist already.
“Better,” Kieran promises, grinning.
With a sigh, Em sets his tools aside and picks up the box, then opens it, taking out the small piece of metal nestled in tissue paper.
I wander over because I'm nosy and I've already accepted that about myself. Also, if I'm going to worry about our collective mental health, I might as well be entertained while I do it.
In his hand is a perfect, palm-sized replica of his giant, wall-eating techno-magic mainframe. Tiny amber LEDs blink. Mini dials peppered across it. It's absurdly detailed.
He picks it up with two fingers, holding it like a curious bug.