It took less than five minutes for the house to stop feeling like a place and start feeling like a contest.
“I’m telling you right now,” Ymir said, already halfway up the stairs with his bag slung over one shoulder, “if there’s a room with a window that actually opens, that one’s mine.”
“That’s not how this works,” Noah called after him, slower to follow but not far behind. “You don’t just declare ownership and expect everyone to agree.”
“I don’t expect it,” Ymir shot back, glancing over his shoulder with a grin. “I enforce it.”
“You enforce nothing.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It’s not.”
Madaline smiled faintly as she lingered near the base of the stairs, watching the two of them disappear into the upper hallway. Their voices carried easily, bouncing off the walls in a way that filled the space, pushing the earlier quiet farther into the background.
For a moment, it almost felt normal.
“I’m not sleeping anywhere small,” Katarin announced from behind her, like she was picking up a conversation that hadn’t actually involved her. “I need space.”
“You’re five-two,” one of the guys said from the living room. “You are small.”
Katarin turned on him immediately. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“It kind of does.”
“No, it doesn’t, because I have things.”
“You have clothes.”
“Exactly.”
Madaline stepped aside as Katarin brushed past her, already heading for the stairs with quick, determined steps. The ends of her short hair shifted as she moved, the darker dye catching unevenly under the light. One of the guys followed her without hesitation, the other lingering just long enough to glance toward the kitchen again before trailing after them.
The house stretched around them in different directions all at once.
Upstairs, voices overlapped—Ymir claiming something loudly, Noah correcting him, Katarin talking over both of them. Downstairs, the space felt wider, quieter in comparison, like the noise hadn’t fully reached it yet.
Madaline adjusted her grip on her bag and started up the stairs more slowly.
The wood creaked faintly under her weight, the sound softer than the porch had been but still noticeable. She found herself listening for it, for anything out of place in the rhythm of movement above her, but everything blended together into something messy and familiar.
When she reached the top, the hallway was already half chaos.
“This one’s bigger,” Ymir was saying, standing in the doorway of one of the rooms like he was guarding it. “So logically—”
“That’s not logic,” Noah cut in, leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. “That’s you seeing something you like and deciding it’s yours.”
“Which is basically the same thing.”
“It’s not even close.”
Katarin slipped past both of them, peering into the room with a quick glance before wrinkling her nose. “This lighting is terrible.”
“You’re not a plant,” Noah said.
“I still need good lighting.”
“For what?”
“For existing, Noah.”
Ymir snorted. “You can exist anywhere.”
“Not in bad lighting.”
Madaline leaned slightly against the wall near the stairs, letting the conversation wash over her as she took in the rest of the hallway. Doors on either side, some already pushed open, others still closed. The space felt narrower than downstairs, the air closer, like everything was stacked on top of itself instead of spread out.
“You picking or just watching?” Ymir asked, glancing toward her.
“I’m thinking,” she said.
“Dangerous,” he replied immediately.
“Apparently.”
She stepped away from the wall, moving down the hallway at her own pace. One of the doors near the end stood half open, the room inside quieter than the others. Not smaller, just… less claimed.
She pushed it open the rest of the way and stepped inside.
The bed sat neatly made against one wall, a window across from it letting in a thin stretch of late afternoon light. It wasn’t the biggest room. It wasn’t the best.
But it felt… settled.
Madaline set her bag down on the edge of the bed, letting it rest there as she glanced around. The quiet in here felt different from the quiet downstairs earlier. Less empty. More contained.
Voices filtered in faintly from the hallway, still arguing, still overlapping, still normal.
She exhaled slowly, letting herself relax into it for just a second.
Footsteps passed the door.
Then slowed.
Ethan appeared in the doorway a second later, pausing like he hadn’t meant to stop there but hadn’t fully decided to keep going either.
“This one taken?” he asked.
His voice was neutral, easy enough, but his eyes moved past her for a second, taking in the room the same way he had downstairs—quick, efficient, like he was noting things without needing to linger on them.
“I think so,” Madaline said, resting a hand lightly on the bed behind her. “Unless you really want it.”
He shook his head once. “Doesn’t matter.”
It didn’t sound dismissive.
Just… true.
“There’s a bigger one down the hall,” she offered.
“Yeah,” he said. “I saw.”
There was a brief pause.
Not awkward exactly. Just… there.
“You guys all lived together in college, right?” he added after a second.
“Not all of us,” Madaline said. “Mostly just… around each other a lot.”
He nodded, like that matched something he already knew.
“Mira talked about it.”
Of course she had.
Madaline smiled slightly. “She makes it sound more interesting than it was.”
“Probably.”
Another pause.
His gaze shifted briefly toward the hallway again, like he was tracking the movement out there without needing to see it directly.
“I’ll grab something downstairs,” he said finally, stepping back. “Let you—” he gestured vaguely toward her bag “—settle.”
“Thanks.”
He gave a small nod and moved on, his footsteps quiet as they faded down the hall.
Madaline watched the doorway for a second longer after he left.
There was nothing wrong with the interaction.
Nothing strange.
And yet—
She couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was always paying attention to something just outside whatever conversation he was in.
Madaline stood there for another moment after the thought passed through her, one hand resting on the strap of her bag, listening to the movement outside her room and trying to let that be enough. Voices rose and fell in the hallway, familiar in the careless way only old friendships could be. Ymir was still making his case to anyone who would listen, Noah was telling him he sounded ridiculous, and somewhere in between them Katarin’s voice kept slipping in sharp and bright, like she couldn’t bear not being heard in whatever room she stood in.
It should have felt grounding.
In some ways, it did.
But there was still something beneath it all she couldn’t quite shake, some thin layer of discomfort that had started when she pulled up outside and never fully left. It wasn’t strong enough to mean anything yet. Just enough to make her more aware of small things—the faint draft near the window, the sound of the house settling in places she couldn’t see, the way every room seemed to hold quiet differently.
She moved farther inside, setting her bag properly on the bed before unzipping it. A sweater. A charger. A book she probably wouldn’t read. The familiar shapes of her own things made the room feel less borrowed, less like a place she had stepped into and more like somewhere she could actually stay for more than a few hours.
Footsteps slowed outside again.
Lighter this time.
Not the heavier, unhurried stride Ymir had, and not Noah either. Madaline looked up just as Mira appeared in the doorway, one hand brushing the frame before she leaned against it slightly, like she hadn’t been planning to stop there but had changed her mind when she saw her inside.
“You disappeared,” Mira said.
Her voice was soft enough to immediately change the feel of the room. It always did that, Madaline thought. Some people took up space by being louder. Mira somehow did the opposite. She made spaces feel smaller, quieter, easier to breathe in.
“I escaped,” Madaline said, glancing toward the hallway. “Temporarily.”
A smile tugged at Mira’s mouth. “Smart.”
She stepped inside then, closing the door only partway behind her instead of all the way. The gesture felt casual, but Madaline noticed it anyway. Enough privacy to soften things. Not enough to separate themselves completely from everyone else.
Mira had taken her sweater sleeves down over part of her hands, the soft fabric bunching around her wrists as she crossed to the bed and sat near the edge. Her auburn hair had shifted more loosely around her face since they’d arrived, a few pieces falling forward each time she tipped her head. She pushed one back absently, blue eyes lifting toward Madaline with an expression that was open, a little amused, and something else quieter underneath.
“Did Ymir bully you out of a better room?” she asked.
“He tried.”
“That sounds right.”
“I think he’s emotionally attached to every room he sees within ten seconds.”
Mira let out a soft laugh, the sound warm and brief. “That’s because he likes acting like everything belongs to him.”
“Including people.”
“Especially people.”
Madaline smiled and sat beside her, angling herself sideways against the bed just enough to face her better. Up close, Mira looked a little more tired than she had downstairs. Not upset exactly. Just worn at the edges in a way that made her seem younger for a second, softer in a way that pulled at something instinctive in Madaline’s chest.
“You okay?” she asked.
Mira’s expression shifted, not closing off, but pausing.
“Yeah,” she said after a second, and then made a face like she heard how automatic it sounded. “I mean… yes. Mostly.”
That pulled a quieter kind of honesty into the room.
Madaline watched her for a moment. “Mostly is not the same as yes.”
“I know.” Mira glanced down at her hands, then back up. “I’m fine. It’s just…” She hesitated, searching for it. “Everything feels kind of weird.”
The words settled into Madaline more quickly than they should have.
Not because they were dramatic. Because they weren’t.
Because they were almost exactly what she’d been trying not to think.
“The house?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
Mira nodded once.
“And everything else.” Her mouth tilted slightly. “The drive. Getting here. Katarin bringing…” She trailed off and shook her head a little. “I don’t know. It feels off.”
Madaline looked at her, really looked, and felt something in herself soften further.
Maybe because Mira had said it first.
Maybe because she had been careful all afternoon not to sound dramatic, not to be the first one to say the place made her uneasy when everyone else seemed determined to turn the whole trip into noise and jokes and room arguments.
“I thought it was just me,” Madaline admitted.
Mira’s eyes lifted fully to hers then, and the relief in them was immediate enough to be real.
“No,” she said. “No, I felt it too.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
The sounds in the hallway seemed farther away now, dulled by the room and by the simple fact of being understood. Madaline hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that until the tension in her shoulders eased all at once.
“When I got here,” she said slowly, “the door was already open.”
Mira’s brow pinched slightly.
“Like open open?”
“Not wide open. Just… not shut all the way.”
“That’s not creepy at all.”
Madaline laughed under her breath. “I knew you’d make me feel better.”
“Sorry.” Mira tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I just meant—did anyone say they got here before you?”
“No.”
“Maybe the rental people?”
“Maybe.”
Mira was quiet for a second, then drew one knee up slightly onto the bed, turning a little more toward her. “Did you go in alone?”
“For like two minutes.”
“Absolutely not.”
That made Madaline laugh again, this time a little more openly. “What?”
“I would’ve sat in my car until someone else got there.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
“Okay,” Mira said, a smile tugging at her lips, “I would’ve gone in alone, but I would’ve hated every second of it.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
“I’m brave in very situational ways.”
“You say that like it means something.”
“It does.” Mira tilted her head. “Like if someone needed me to do something actually serious, I probably would. But if a house looked at me wrong, I’d leave.”
“A house looked at you wrong?”
“You know what I mean.”
Madaline smiled, shaking her head. “No, but I like the sentence.”
Mira smiled back, and this time it lingered.
It had always been easy with her.
Not in the loud, all-consuming way some friendships were. Not intense for the sake of feeling important. Just easy. Comfortable in the little spaces. Built out of glances across crowded rooms, private jokes that never needed much explaining, quiet conversations that somehow ended up mattering more than the bigger ones.
Madaline had known a lot of people in college. Been close to enough of them. But Mira had become one of those rare ones who slipped into her life without effort and stayed there the same way—gently, naturally, like she’d always belonged.
“Do you remember,” Mira said suddenly, “that awful apartment Ymir lived in junior year?”
Madaline let out a surprised laugh. “The one with the broken heat?”
“The one with the broken everything.”
“Oh my God.”
“He had a folding chair in his kitchen and kept calling it furniture.”
“Because he didn’t have furniture.”
“Exactly.”
“And Noah kept coming over with random supplies like he was trying to stop him from accidentally dying in there.”
“He was,” Mira said. “None of us thought Ymir could survive unsupervised.”
“Honestly, I still don’t.”
Mira laughed, her shoulders loosening now, the earlier tension melting more visibly from them. “Do you remember when the power went out and he just lit, like, twelve candles for no reason?”
“That was not for no reason. He said it was to make the room ‘romantic.’”
“He said it while Noah was standing there holding a flashlight and a wrench.”
“That somehow made it worse.”
They both laughed then, and the room finally tipped fully into something softer.
The kind of softness that came from shared history rather than mood.
Outside the room, the house still creaked occasionally. Voices still rose and overlapped. Somebody thudded down the hallway, then back again. But here, on the bed with the afternoon fading slowly at the window, it felt distant. Manageable. Like whatever had felt off when they arrived had moved a little farther away.
Mira leaned back on one hand and exhaled. “I miss that.”
“The terrible apartment?”
“No.” Her smile softened. “The being together all the time part.”
That quieted Madaline more than she expected.
“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Me too.”
Mira looked toward the window, where the light had already started slipping into a dimmer shade of gold. “It’s weird, isn’t it? How fast everybody becomes busy.” Her fingers played absently with the edge of her sleeve. “Then suddenly seeing people feels like scheduling a meeting.”
Madaline smiled faintly. “That is the least romantic way you could’ve said that.”
“I know.” Mira made a face. “I hated it while I was saying it.”
“Still true, though.”
“Unfortunately.”
Another stretch of quiet settled between them, easier this time.
Madaline studied Mira as she looked away for a moment, the curve of her profile softened by the window light, her expression thoughtful and unguarded. There was always something about her that made people underestimate her. Maybe because she seemed sweet before anything else. Maybe because she could be absentminded in a way that came off almost careless. Maybe because she laughed at herself easily and never tried too hard to seem sharper than she was.
But there was a steadiness in her too, hidden farther under the surface.
Not loud. Not obvious.
Just there.
“What?” Mira asked, glancing back at her.
Madaline blinked. “Nothing.”
“You’re looking at me like you’re about to psychoanalyze me.”
“I was not.”
“You were a little.”
“I was just thinking.”
“Again?” Mira asked. “You really have to stop doing that.”
Madaline smiled. “Dangerous, right?”
“Extremely.”
Their eyes met for a second after that, and something passed there that didn’t need much language. Familiarity, maybe. Affection. The kind that built up over years of small moments rather than one big one.
Mira’s expression shifted first, growing quieter.
“About downstairs,” she said.
Madaline’s smile faded a little.
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” she said.
Mira looked down briefly, then back up. “I’m not upset.” She paused. “I mean, I am. A little. But not because of him, really.”
“Then because of Katarin.”
Mira gave a tiny, rueful exhale. “She always does that.”
“Laughs when she shouldn’t?”
“Makes everything feel like if I react, I’m the one making it awkward.”
That settled hard in Madaline’s chest.
“I don’t like her,” she said before she could stop herself.
Mira looked surprised, then amused. “You’re saying that like it’s a confession.”
“It kind of is.”
“You’re usually nicer than me.”
“No, I’m quieter than you. That’s not the same thing.”
Mira laughed softly, then shook her head. “She just… attaches herself to people. Then acts weird when they don’t give her exactly what she wants.”
“You mean you.”
Mira’s expression changed just slightly at that, enough to count.
Not defensive.
Just tired.
“Yeah,” she said, more quietly. “Mostly me.”
Madaline frowned. “Has she always been like that?”
“Pretty much.”
“Why bring her, then?”
Mira’s mouth parted like she might answer right away, but no words came. For a second she only looked down at the edge of her sleeve again, thumb rubbing over the knit fabric.
“I didn’t exactly,” she said at last. “It was more like… once people started talking about the trip, she inserted herself into it. And then brought extras.”
“Of course she did.”
“I didn’t want to make it a whole thing.”
Madaline understood that. Mira tended to bend around things before she’d ever force them head-on. Not because she was weak. Mostly because she hated making people uncomfortable, even when they deserved it.
“You know,” Madaline said, “you are allowed to dislike people openly.”
Mira smiled faintly. “I know.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.” She glanced up at her again. “I just don’t always want the fallout.”
That answer felt too honest to argue with.
Madaline leaned back a little on her hands. “Still. If she gets weird, you can tell me.”
Mira looked at her then with something warmer than amusement, something that made Madaline feel the weight of what she’d said even after it left her mouth.
“I know,” Mira said softly.
The room held that for a second.
Outside, someone thumped against the wall hard enough to make both of them glance toward the door.
“Ymir?” Madaline guessed.
“Almost definitely.”
A muffled voice immediately rose from the hall.
“That was not my fault.”
Mira snorted. “Definitely.”
Madaline laughed again, and just like that the heavier edge of the conversation softened.
Mira leaned back farther now, one hand braced behind her on the bedspread. “Do you think this trip was a bad idea?”
The question came lightly, but not lightly enough.
Madaline considered it.
The quiet house. The long drive. Katarin’s men. The strange little feeling she still couldn’t shake.
And then this—sitting here with Mira, talking like no time had passed at all.
“No,” she said after a moment. “I think maybe we just got here weird.”
Mira smiled at that. “Got here weird.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.” She looked down, then back up with a softer expression. “I’m glad you came.”
The words were simple.
But they landed deep.
Madaline smiled before she could help it. “I’m glad you came too.”
Mira’s gaze held hers for a moment longer, and there was something deeply sincere in it, unhidden and gentle enough that Madaline didn’t look away.
Then voices rose downstairs.
Louder this time. More gathered.
The sound pulled the moment open without breaking it completely.
Mira exhaled through her nose and pushed herself up from the bed. “We should probably go back before Ymir appoints himself head of the house.”
“Too late.”
“God.”
She smoothed a hand over the front of her sweater, then paused as she reached the door, glancing back over her shoulder. The late light caught her eyes oddly for a second, making them look brighter, sharper.
“And Madaline?”
“Yeah?”
Mira’s expression softened again almost immediately. “Thanks.”
Madaline blinked. “For what?”
Mira gave the smallest shrug. “For not making me feel crazy.”
Something in Madaline’s chest pulled warm.
“Anytime,” she said.
Mira smiled then—small, real, enough to make the room feel lighter one last time before she slipped back into the hallway.
Madaline followed a second later, pulling the door open wider as the fuller sound of the house came rushing back in around her.
The upstairs hall was brighter now, though the daylight had already started thinning. Ymir was standing two doors down arguing with Noah over whether “airflow” was a valid reason to steal a room from someone, while Katarin hovered near the stairs with one of her men beside her, already talking too loudly about drinks and who was sleeping where. Ethan was at the far end of the hall, one hand in his pocket, glancing downstairs as though he’d heard something before anyone else had.
For one brief moment, Madaline stood there between the noise and the fading quiet of her room, feeling both at once.
Then Mira looked back at her from halfway down the hall, and without thinking about it, Madaline moved toward her.
Together, they headed down the stairs.
By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, the house had shifted again.
Not in any obvious way. Nothing dramatic. No broken silence, no sudden darkening of the rooms. It was still the same house, the same furniture, the same voices filling in all the empty places. But whatever softness Madaline had been holding onto upstairs had to make room for the group again, and the group was never quiet for long.
The kitchen had become the center of everything without anyone officially deciding it. One of Katarin’s guys was already halfway inside the fridge like he lived there, Ymir had claimed a spot near the island and was talking with his hands, and Noah stood close enough to keep an eye on all of it without looking like he was trying. The overhead light cast a warmer glow in there than the living room had, softening the edges of the cabinets and counters, making the space feel more domestic than eerie for the first time since Madaline arrived.
For a little while, that was enough.
“I’m saying,” Ymir said as Madaline and Mira stepped into the kitchen, “if nobody else wanted the room with the better window, that sounds like a personal failure.”
“You are not measuring room quality by windows,” Noah replied.
“I absolutely am.”
“That is insane.”
“No, what’s insane is sleeping in a room with no airflow and pretending that’s not how people die.”
“People usually die from things other than bad airflow.”
“Usually is not comforting.”
Madaline smiled as she drifted toward the counter, setting a hand against the cool edge of it. Mira stopped beside her, close enough that their sleeves brushed for a second before she shifted and leaned lightly against the cabinet. Ethan looked up from where he stood near the sink, his attention landing on Mira first, then Madaline.
“You two vanished,” Ymir said.
“We were upstairs for ten minutes,” Madaline said.
“Exactly,” he replied, as if that proved his point.
Mira shook her head. “You need a hobby.”
“This is my hobby.”
“That’s bleak.”
Katarin laughed too loudly from the other side of the island, the sound arriving just a second later than everyone else’s. She had perched herself on one of the stools without fully sitting, one foot hooked around the leg of it, attention moving quickly between whoever was speaking and whoever was looking at her. “He’s right, though. You guys disappear for like five seconds and suddenly it’s suspicious.”
“Only because you make everything suspicious,” Noah said.
“That is such a horrible thing to say to me.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Maybe emotionally I won’t.”
“We’ll take the risk.”
That drew a real laugh from Madaline, and even Katarin smiled despite herself, if only because the room had decided to move on without her. For a few minutes, it all came together the way group trips always seemed to in the early hours—messy, overlapping, louder than necessary, but easy enough to fall into once everyone found their place.
Ymir started opening cabinets with too much confidence for someone who had never been in the house before. Noah told him he was going to break something. One of the guys found glasses. The other found alcohol faster than anyone else. Katarin immediately claimed she wanted the first drink even though she hadn’t helped with anything. It was ridiculous in a way that felt familiar, and familiar was comforting.
Madaline caught herself relaxing into it.
Not fully. Just enough.
Mira reached for a bottle of water someone had set near the edge of the counter, but her sleeve caught the corner of it awkwardly. The bottle tipped, slid, and would have hit the floor if Madaline hadn’t caught it first.
Mira groaned softly. “See? This is why I can’t have nice things.”
“It’s water,” Madaline said, handing it back to her.
“It could’ve been a very meaningful water.”
Madaline laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And yet you keep me around.”
“Questionable choice on my part.”
“Deeply.”
The exchange was small, nothing worth anyone else’s attention, but it settled warmly between them anyway. Madaline saw the faint lift at the corners of Mira’s mouth before she looked away, twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a sip. Beside them, Ethan had gone back to watching the room with that same unobtrusive quiet he always seemed to carry. He wasn’t withdrawn exactly. He answered when spoken to, spoke when it mattered, even smiled sometimes in that restrained way of his. But he still felt slightly offset from the energy of the others, as if he were standing half a step outside it and choosing when to lean in.
“You want something?” he asked Mira quietly.
She glanced at him. “I’m okay.”
He nodded once and let the answer stand.
Across the room, Kane had taken up space the way he always did—without seeming to. He wasn’t part of the louder rhythm around the island, but he wasn’t absent from it either. He stood near the doorway between the kitchen and living room, one shoulder brushing the frame now and then whenever someone moved past him. His jacket was still on. His expression had settled into its usual hard-to-read calm, eyes moving from person to person without lingering long enough to invite comment. Every now and then, though, Madaline caught the direction of his attention. It kept returning to Mira. Not constantly. Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to be noticed once you were already paying attention.
It wasn’t strange, exactly.
They were siblings.
Still, there was a particular watchfulness in him that made her think of something held tightly in one hand.
“So,” Katarin said, leaning forward on her stool as one of the guys handed her a drink, “are we doing something tonight or are we just standing around pretending this place isn’t weird?”
“We can do both,” Ymir said.
“That’s not helpful.”
“Neither are you, but here we are.”
Katarin rolled her eyes. “I’m serious.”
“There’s outside,” one of the guys said, jerking his head vaguely toward the back of the house. “Firepit, right?”
“That’s if nobody dies trying to start it,” Noah said.
“You say that like it’s gonna be me,” Ymir replied.
Noah gave him a look. “It is going to be you.”
“Cruel.”
“Realistic.”
Conversation rolled onward from there, branching into too many directions at once. Someone asked where they’d left the bags of snacks. Someone else complained about reception. Ymir insisted the house wasn’t that isolated until Noah pointed out that none of them had signal and Ymir had to concede that maybe it was “a little murdery” out here after all.
“Don’t say that,” Mira said at once, her tone light but immediate.
Ymir lifted both hands. “Okay, sorry. A little remote.”
“That was worse.”
“I’m doing my best.”
Madaline smiled into her cup, but something about the exchange stayed with her anyway. Not the joke itself. The way Mira had responded to it. Too quick, maybe. Or maybe just sharper than she was used to hearing from her.
Then one of Katarin’s guys spoke, and the moment shifted.
“You scared of the woods or something?” he asked, glancing toward Mira with the same careless tone he’d used earlier.
It wasn’t overt this time. Not on the surface. But there was something in the way he smiled when he said it, something lazy and needling, like he was already enjoying the shape of her answer before she gave it.
Mira lowered the bottle from her mouth. “No.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“You’re very easy to fool, then.”
For a beat, the room paused.
Not dramatically. Just enough for the line to land.
Ymir barked out a laugh first. Noah’s mouth twitched. Even Ethan looked faintly amused, his gaze dropping for a second as though he didn’t fully want anyone to notice.
Madaline turned toward Mira, surprised in the best way.
Mira only blinked, then smiled into the bottle like she’d said nothing unusual at all.
The guy gave a short huff through his nose. “Okay.”
Katarin laughed again, but this time there was something thinner in it. She looked at Mira for a fraction too long, like she hadn’t liked the room turning with her instead of with him.
Madaline noticed it.
So did Kane.
She knew because when her eyes moved across the kitchen, his were already there, resting on the man for one brief, unreadable second before drifting away. No visible reaction. No comment. Just that same quiet stillness, intact and somehow heavier for it.
Beside her, Mira leaned slightly closer. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why not?” Madaline asked.
“Because now I seem mean.”
Madaline stared at her, then smiled. “No. Now you seem correct.”
That drew a quieter, more genuine laugh from Mira, one she didn’t try to hide.
“You’re biased.”
“Probably.”
“Definitely,” Ethan said from just beside them, and Madaline looked over in time to catch the briefest trace of a smile on his face before it faded.
It changed him a little.
Not enough to make him suddenly easy to read, but enough to remind her that whatever reserve sat in him wasn’t coldness exactly. Just caution. Or distance. Or some habit she hadn’t learned the shape of yet.
“See?” Mira said. “Unfair.”
“You’ll live,” Madaline told her.
“Maybe emotionally I won’t.”
“You really are spending too much time with Katarin.”
“Against my will.”
“Debatable,” came Katarin’s voice from across the island.
Mira’s face shifted into something politely neutral so fast Madaline almost missed it.
“Very against my will,” Mira said.
Ymir laughed hard enough this time that he had to set his drink down.
The moment passed, carried off by fresh noise and movement. Somebody found a speaker. Somebody else started talking about making food before it got too late. Noah intercepted a bottle before Ymir could drop it. Katarin wandered toward the living room with her drink and both of the men trailing in her wake like loose shadows. Ethan pushed away from the counter just enough to let someone pass, then settled back again near Mira without touching her.
The house held all of it.
Voices. Glass clinking. Cabinet doors opening and closing. Shoes against the floor. The kind of careless, layered life that made a place feel occupied and ordinary.
And yet.
Madaline couldn’t help noticing how easily sound got lost here too. How quickly a laugh from the kitchen vanished once someone crossed into the hall. How the edges of the rooms still seemed to keep pieces of quiet folded into them, untouched by whatever the rest of them were doing.
It made the house feel less welcoming than patient.
Ymir ended up dragging everyone toward the living room under the argument that food could wait ten minutes and room assignment debates were “unfinished business.” Noah told him that phrase made him sound twelve. Ymir said Noah had sounded thirty-five since they were nineteen, which Noah didn’t deny. Madaline followed with Mira just beside her, the two of them moving more slowly than the others as the group spilled into the next room.
Even there, Mira stayed near.
Not clingy. Not dependent. Just close in the easy way some people naturally became when they trusted you. Madaline found that she liked it more than she should have. The simple steadiness of it. The way Mira would lean in to say something only meant for her, or glance toward her first when someone said something stupid, like they were already sharing the same reaction before either one spoke.
That was the trouble with certain friendships, maybe.
They became part of the way you moved through a room.
At some point, while Ymir was trying and failing to convince everyone that his room had the “healthiest energy,” Madaline stepped away to the kitchen for a second, if only to clear her head from the volume of all of them at once.
The quiet there hit immediately.
Not total quiet. She could still hear the others from the living room in bursts, laughter catching, words overlapping, someone speaking too loudly to be understood. But compared to the noise she’d just stepped out of, it felt abrupt. Like slipping underwater.
She reached for the counter, meaning only to stand there a second.
Then she heard it.
A sound from upstairs.
Not voices.
Not footsteps exactly.
More like something light shifting across the floor above her. Slow enough to be careful. Brief enough that she almost doubted it as soon as it stopped.
Madaline straightened and looked toward the ceiling without thinking.
The sound didn’t come again.
Behind her, laughter broke loudly from the living room—Ymir, almost definitely. All of them were downstairs. She knew they were. She had just walked away from them.
For one irrational second, the back of her neck prickled anyway.
Then a hand touched her elbow lightly.
Madaline startled and turned too fast.
Mira pulled back half an inch, eyes widening. “Sorry—”
“No, it’s okay.” Madaline let out a breath, hand rising briefly to her chest. “You scared me.”
“I noticed.” Mira glanced toward the ceiling, then back to her. “What happened?”
Madaline hesitated.
If she said it out loud, it would sound stupid.
Still, Mira had already asked her once not to make her feel crazy.
So she said, quieter, “I thought I heard something upstairs.”
Mira didn’t laugh.
Didn’t brush it off immediately either.
She just looked at her for a second, expression unreadable in a way that was unusual on her.
Then she glanced toward the living room, where the others were still talking, still loud, still very much downstairs.
When she looked back, her voice came soft again. “Maybe the house is settling.”
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe Ymir left a piece of his ego up there and it’s moving around on its own.”
That pulled a laugh out of Madaline before she could stop it.
The tension eased, if only a little.
Mira smiled faintly at the sound. “Come back in there before Katarin starts calling us suspicious again.”
Madaline nodded, but before they stepped away, she looked once more toward the stairs beyond the hall.
Nothing moved.
Nothing sounded.
Still, as she followed Mira back toward the living room and the warmth of everyone else’s noise, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the house had just reminded her it was there.