"Or that I was alive?" Nishelle asked.
I nodded. "Or that. Or so much else. It's been such a twisted, turny place and I... I don't want space, or a break," I said, sinking into my chair. "I don't want anyone to go away or leave me alone. But I talked to my mom after everything went down and she brought something up."
"Did she do the Mom-thing and tell you your clock is ticking and that you'd better get a move on deciding what you want to do? That 30 is the new 50?" Adam frowned. "Because that's what my aunt used to do to me all the time. She's got no idea I'm dating you, by the way. That should be a fun conversation."
I snorted at him and picked up the ladle, too. "I can imagine. But, sort of. And I don't really know where any of you guys stand on that." I tipped the ladle out and plopped it back in the pot, then frowned. "Well. That's not true. I have a good idea of where Nishelle stands on most of these things. We'd talked about a lot of them before you passed away."
"And maybe some of my opinions changed," Nishelle said. "But not most of them. Not enough to have any real impact. I intend to work until I can't, then retire and growl at all the new little Pyros that show up. Standard superhero gig since I have a heart that doesn't try to kill me."
Edwin shrugged. "You know what I'm doing. It's usually a lifetime position, unless you quit. And it comes with risks, for all of you. Running the Alliance isn't for the faint of heart."
Adam and Nate looked at each other, but it was Nate who spoke up. "We're pretty open."
"We're?" I asked, brows raising.
Adam cleared his throat. "We're just friends, Cassie. Technically."
"Technically." I smiled. "Look, if any of you guys want secondary relationships with each other, that's fine. Just... let me know? I don't want to be in the dark like that."
"You're more than enough effort for me," Nishelle said, flicking a dumpling at my head.
I caught it easily enough and plopped it into my bowl. That ended the seriousness of the conversation and the light, quiet chatter kicked up again. I watched and relaxed in my chair, letting the white noise fill me, soothe me, and reassure me that I had a home. I was safe. That what mattered could be decided in the morning.
And that was just super for me.
Epilogue
The years passed too quickly for me.
I still felt like it was Scribe's office, not mine. Sometimes, I half-expected him to walk in when I wasn't looking. I had demanded that we keep his book for selfish reasons. It was filled with decisions, scribbles, thoughts about the job; the sorts of things that would be of no use to anyone but me. Emma certainly wasn't old enough to understand her father's choices or what had plagued him.
It had turned out that he had wanted to pay us more, to treat us better, but he just hadn't been able to figure out the funding. Scribe had been an outstanding writer, but numbers seemed to be his weak spot. I honestly feel as though, had Allison left Izzy's mind alone, we likely would still be working under Scribe.
Though it meant that our existence would be... lesser, there was a comforting thought that we really hadn't been the factor that had brought him down.
The clocks chimed behind me and I waited for it. The coo-coo bird shot out of the old, Germanic clock and made its terrible racket. You can't tell a dignitary from another country that you don't want their gift, and every time I spoke with him he'd made sure to ask how it was working for me. That meant pictures, happy comments, and the little white lies that corporate and political America ran on.
There were bigger fish to fry than a tiny, annoying hanging on my wall.
Like the fact that my wife was having trouble marrying her wife because of some ridiculous legislation; and the fact that we still hadn't been able to get Nishelle's paperwork completely cleared. It turned out that fixing the status of someone who was actually alive, not dead, was incredibly complicated. There were people in that system for over a decade, desperately trying to regain their personhood.
My writs only meant so much to those in charge. I had verified it was her time and time again, but they were hesitant to allow her back into society. Dead meant dead. She'd had no heartbeat, she'd been gutted on an operating table; she was dead.
The thing is, we'd been able to verify that the poor person who had been vivisected had been someone four years older than her; and Arabic. Nishelle's fingerprints hadn't matched and, had we been allowed that information, it was entirely possible that we would have died to Izzy's attacks on that lonesome street.
Because we would have gone after Nishelle. And she would have run from us. That meant she would have never turned up to save our asses as Ardent.
Despite my protests, I'd loved the name Ardent and the costume, she'd gone back to her old Ember motif and namesake. I supposed it worked better for a Pyro, but what did I know? It was her choice and the marketing team agreed with her.
I glanced at my notes for tomorrow's meeting and rolled my eyes. There was still an enormous debate between the merchants and those who manufactured our promotional junk; the action figures, the ice cream bars, that kind of stuff. At least the superheroes were making more off of those profits
