The smell of fresh coffee drifts in again.
I push myself upright with all the grace of a dying man and groan as if I’ve aged forty years overnight. My jaw cracks when I yawn, my back pops when I stretch, and I have to take a break to reconsider every life decision that led me here, up to and including letting a not-a-baby phoenix move inandgiving up my bed to said stubborn as fuck phoenix.
I shuffle into the kitchen, a ghost of the person I was before I spent the night on the death-trap couch, and the sight that greets me makes me do a double-take.
Sitting at my table, like this is a normal everyday occurrence, is Ember.
Except, it’s not Ember, at least, not the Ember I’ve known these past days.
No, this Ember is definitely not a toddler and is no longer pocket-sized. I swear to the gods he grew more than a foot overnight. He looks closer to ten now. All long limbs and awkward angles. His hair is still a dark mess around his head, and his yellow eyes are still ancient. It’s somehow worse now that they’re set in a face that’s starting to resemble something closer to a person rather than a cherub.
He’s wearing another one of my t-shirts, except now italmostfits. My sweats are rolled at the waist and still too long, pooling slightly at his ankles.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” he says pleasantly, glowing with the energy of a child who slept in a comfy bed. All night.
Dick.
I grunt because that’s the most he deserves for stealing my sleep. I grab a mug, fill it, and drown it in just enoughcreamer to make it drinkable without burning off my remaining will to live, then take a long, desperate gulp.
Ah… Caffeine.
It barely helps.
I drag myself to the table and collapse into the chair across from him.
“You grew,” I state the obvious. It’s early. Sue me.
He hums, flipping a page in aphysical newspaperlike we’re living in 1997.
“Where did you find that?” I ask, narrowing my eyes in suspicion.
“It was on the front porch,” he says offhandedly. “I think the house attracts the things we want. At least, I think that’s how it works. I’ll have to do more research before I know for sure.”
“That’s funny. I don’t remember asking for a feisty phoenix man child, yet here you are.” He does not find that very funny and levels me with a less-than-intimidating glare. “Are you still on track for four weeks?” I ask, trying to sound casual, “or are you… speeding this up?”
Please say yes. Please say you’ll be gone soon. Please say I get my bed back.
I take a sip of coffee to disguise my desperation for him to leave.
“It’s not an exact science,” he says with a casual shrug. “Sometimes it takes a few weeks, and sometimes it takes a few months. It depends on how rough I was in my last incarnation.”
My soul leaves my body at the thought of sleeping on the couch formonths.
“Rough?” I splutter
Ember side-eyes me over the corner of his newspaper. “I once lived as a soldier in a very active army,” he says with a nod. “Constant risk, constant damage. It took nearly three months to return to my usual self.”
“That’s… unfortunate.”
“On the other hand,” he continues, flipping another page, “I lived as a librarian once. Very calm and relaxing. It only took two weeks to reach adulthood that time.”
“So you change lives every time you’re reborn?”
“Yes.”
“And you remember all the details of these lives?”
“Not everything. It’s more… like trying to remember a book I read years ago. I can recall certain things, but the details are fuzzy.”
