Kira’s first thought is not again, as soon as the hand starts tapping.

Get off, or I’ll punch you like a siren is her second. The owner of the hand doesn’t know that she wouldn’t.

‘Kira.’ The hand keeps tap-tap-tapping.

Kira screws up her face. ‘Mmm,’ she manages. ‘Sleeping, Romy.’

Balling up the blankets, she screws her eyes tight. The air mattress dips regardless. ‘You can sleep downstairs,’ Romy whispers, as Jay harrumphs in a dream. ‘I thought you might like to swap.’

Kira cracks her gummy eyelids. ‘What?’

Romy leans in. ‘I said, we can swap.’

She’s a wraith pale with moonlight, her hair high in a bun. ‘Swan,’ Kira mumbles. White, long neck. Like a swan. ‘Never see your neck.’

‘Okay.’ Romy flicks her, and again. ‘Good to know.’

A third flick. Kira swarms awake. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey, yourself.’ Romy bends her legs in a lotus. ‘Someone’s down there huffing and puffing, and now you’re awake, you can ask what’s wrong. Also…’ She winks, wicked and cheeky. Her breath smells like chocolate. ‘You’ve not been alone that much. This definitely isn’t happening because he’s driving me mad.’

Now you’re awake. Huffing through her nose, Kira rolls over. She is now. ‘Fine.’ Nudging her cherished blankets down, she groans her bones upright. ‘Did you eat all the chocolate?’

Romy flashes a grin. ‘If I’m craving anything, I’d rather it made me fat. Even better, it’s helping.’ Settling into Kira’s space, she sighs. ‘Oh, so warm. By the way, that’s a yes.’

In leggings and a vest, Kira shivers. Her feet are shrivelling. ‘How nice of you.’ Curling her toes, she hugs her ribs, skirting the air mattress to the door. ‘You definitely did it for yourself.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Romy wriggles contentedly, snuggling into the blankets. ‘See you on the flip side, lovebirds.’

On the stairs, it strikes Kira that she could have said no. That it might look more than strange, intruding on Callum when he’s trying to sleep. That Carol will probably hate them tomorrow, as she did when she caught them on the couch last year. That she really, really, really should start thinking things through.

Too late. Padding across the wooden floor, she perches on the sofa. Romy’s blankets bunch at the end, and she pools them around her waist.

She’s so awake now. Outside, the wind is gentle, creaking at the walls. The cuckoo clock ticks, the fire settles. It still smells of woodsmoke, mixed with carbonara. It should be gross, but it’s homely.

We have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. Shifting the blankets to her shoulders, she smiles. She recited that line so many times that she’ll probably never forget it; she only had the one, and damn, it would count. She clutched her cloak the same as now, but then, as far as she remembers, it was fashioned from a sack race reject. She made a good wise man.

Yawning, Callum rolls over. ‘I see she sent the cavalry.’

Trust him to have falcon eyes in the back of his wildling head. When she came downstairs, he was facing the fire. ‘I’m cavalry, now, am I?’

Her retort is hotter than his humour required, but suddenly, she’s awkward. Awkward, and abashed, caught reenacting the wise man from her eight-year-old nativity. She wriggles around, avoiding his scrutiny. If only she’d woken up more before Romy got in her bed.

‘You tell me.’ He stretches wide. ‘I’m not the silent ninja gremlin.’

Kira scowls. ‘I’m not a gremlin.’ She unravels her cloak, scrunching the blankets down around her waist. ‘And I’m not the cavalry, either. Romy said you were huffing and puffing, and that I should ask what’s wrong. She’s taken over the air mattress, so’—she shrugs—‘I guess we’re stuck.’

She leaves out the rest. It’s raw enough already, sat in the bare moonlight in pyjamas, without Romy’s not-so-subtle hints. Her nudge-and-wink insinuations kissing Kira’s skin.

The cuckoo clock strikes three. Kira’s shoulders shiver. It all feels different, late and illicit. They’ve never had this; this quiet, this promise. They’ve always had to talk, to plan, to move, and if they haven’t, they’ve not been alone.

‘Can’t sleep.’ Callum scratches the side of his head. His hair is frustrated from tossing and turning; Kira just wants to stare. ‘You’d think I’d be out like a light, but no. My mind won’t stop. Are those roses?’

‘Are what roses?’

His lips twitch up. ‘Your vest.’

‘Oh.’ Kira glances down. Now they’re both looking at her chest. Her cheeks heat. ‘No.’ She wills her fingers not to fidget. ‘No, I think they’re cherries.’

When she looks back up, he’s smirking.

When she looks back up, she registers, for the first time, that he’s shirtless.

For the love of God, stop staring.

‘What are you smiling at?’ she murmurs, dropping her gaze to the rug. She can only hope that the moonlight keeps her face a ghostly pale; she needs a temperature gauge, and by God, she needs it now.

Focus on something. Anything. The dream Romy dragged her from, something about a church; the night chill of the living room; the dribbling cat on the mat. She still doesn’t know its name.

A shiver cools her skin. Good. She drags her eyes back up.

‘You,’ Callum says at once, as if he’d been waiting. Knowing him, he was. ‘You’re fidgeting.’ He cocks his head. ‘It’s cute, but why?’

Kira shivers again. This room is cold.

‘Oh, come on.’ Callum shifts in his blankets, budging closer to the fire. ‘You’re cold.’ He gestures beside him. ‘You know you’re cold, and I know you’re cold. Whatever’s making you awkward, it’s not worth being cold.’ He gestures again, more vaguely. ‘It’s the same as New Year, but not on the couch.’

It’s not the same.

But it’s what Romy wanted.

Kira quickly banishes this, but all of a sudden, the room feels charged.

Callum lifts a waiting eyebrow. The silence stretches out, and she wills her fingers still. Maybe she’s imagining it; she’s almost certainly thinking too much. A room can’t feel like it’s holding its breath.

‘You realise no one’s forcing you.’ Amused, Callum watches as, with a sigh that sounds more cross than accepting, Kira slides from the couch.

‘I know.’ Lifting the duvet, she slots herself in. She seized the moment this morning; it shouldn’t be different now.

This morning’s the problem.

Stop. Shut up. There might be no moment to seize.

‘So?’ Kira lays her cheek on her palm. ‘Seeing as I’m the cavalry, are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Before the home invasion, I was nicely dead to the world.’

Callum’s eyes widen.

‘What?’ she asks.

He starts to laugh. ‘“Before the home invasion.”’ His voice is level and dry. ‘“Dead to the world.” How is that a better comment than mine? Not only did it nearly happen, but it came with a home invasion.’

Kira pulls in her lips. From under her lashes, she smiles a tiny ‘… Oops?’

‘“Oops?”’ Callum should have glasses, to lower in disapproval. ‘“Oops?”’

‘Oops.’ Kira smiles, coy. ‘It sounds like I have an echo.’

The way Callum looks at her, the coyness almost quails. Her body warms, from the inside out. The pillows overlap. The blankets hold them close. Her skin is wired. Quailing isn’t right; it leaves the ashes, becomes a phoenix, and flies to fire, to flames.

She should make thoughtless comments more often.

‘That’—Callum leans in, with mock severity—‘sincerely deserves a “woman.”’

He’s close, so close, so close. Kira’s insides leap, like a foregone conclusion, the foregone conclusion they are. ‘Nothing deserves a “women.”’ She rests a finger on his lips. Warm. Soft. Breathing. ‘I’m not the one who made a joke about dying.’

‘True.’

Somehow, he’s closer still. The space between them is tangibly hot, and he’s real, so real. It hardly makes sense; he’s always been real, and hard to ignore, but now, he’s more solid. More physical. More here, now, with her.

He cups her face. She shuts her eyes. She can smell him, taste him, feel him, pulling her in, kissing her slowly, full. Her hands are cold on his back. His muscles tense beneath his skin. He presses her to him, everything hot.

In the middle of the night, she falls.