**Chapter 56 – The Dorm That Shouldn't Fit Six People (But Does)**
** September 6, 2029 – Blackbird-Coyote Dorm, Top Floor, Aerie Academy**
The door to our dorm opens before any of us touch it.
It swings inward on silent hinges and the smell hits me first:
pine smoke, desert rain, ozone, burnt cinnamon, and the exact scent of the ridge the night we bound our oath.
Home.
The room is impossible.
One minute it's a loft the size of a basketball court.
The next it's a desert canyon with a ceiling of stars.
Then it's a thunderstorm frozen mid-flash, furniture made of lightning and cloud.
It keeps shifting, deciding what we need before we know we need it.
There are six beds (no, hammocks, no, clouds) arranged in a loose circle around a firepit that burns without heat.
Above the fire, someone has already carved our oath marks into the air itself.
They rotate slowly, glowing.
A titanium half-pipe runs straight through one wall and out the other, looping the entire dorm like a racetrack.
Seras drops her duffel, armor dismissing in a shower of gold sparks.
**Seras (voice cracking with awe)**
"This is bigger on the inside than the outside has any right to be."
Lucian steps in, wings folding tight so they don't knock over the floating lava lamp made of actual lava.
**Lucian:**
"It's reading us.
The dorm is alive."
Kayo is already bouncing on what might be a bed or might be a cloud shaped like a fox.
**Kayo:**
"It has a kitchen that cooks whatever you're craving.
I just thought about strawberry mochi and—"
A tray appears mid-air, steaming.
Rowan walks straight to the bookshelf that wasn't there a second ago.
It's full of books that haven't been written yet.
**Rowan (whispering):**
"I'm never leaving.
You'll have to drag my corpse out."
Remy drops his bag, toes off his boots, and pads barefoot across the floor that feels like warm red dirt.
He finds the corner that's suddenly a perfect replica of his grandmother's porch (complete with creaking swing and wind chimes made of coyote bones).
He stops.
Turns to me.
His eyes are liquid gold.
**Remy (quiet, rough):**
"It remembered her porch."
I cross the room (floor shifting under my feet to match every step I've ever loved) and stand beside him.
The swing rocks gently, even though there's no wind.
I take his hand.
**Celeste:**
"It remembered everything."
There's a wall that's just windows now (looking out over six different skies at once):
the ridge at golden hour,
Mount Atago at sunrise,
the lake the night it tried to take our truths,
the football field where we burned our names into the turf.
Another wall is nothing but weapons racks.
Hellebore Mist is already hanging in pride of place, humming like it's happy to be home.
My titanium board with the Crimson Fangs Sticker (*Sânge Furtună*) leans beside Remy's claw-and-wind deck.
Seras flops onto the biggest cloud-bed, arms spread.
**Seras:**
"I'm calling dibs on the sunbeam that follows you around.
For napping."
Lucian sits on the edge of the firepit, wings draping like a thundercloud cape.
**Lucian:**
"We're really doing this.
No adults.
No prophecy.
Just… us."
Kayo raises a mochi in toast.
**Kayo:**
"To the dorm that knows us better than we know ourselves."
We all raise whatever we're holding (mochi, coffee that just appeared, a lightning bolt I pulled out of thin air).
**All together:**
"To never being normal again."
The dorm answers.
The oath marks above the fire flare bright enough to cast six shadows on the wall (shadows that look like us, but older, crowned, winged, burning, wild).
Then the room settles.
For the first time since summer ended, everything is quiet.
Remy pulls me down onto the porch swing that shouldn't exist.
We fit perfectly (always have, always will).
**Remy (mouth against my temple):**
"Coyote Club rule number eight:
When the universe finally builds you a home that remembers every promise you ever made—
you stay."
I close my eyes.
Outside our impossible windows, six different skies blink once (like they're winking).
Tomorrow we start classes.
Tomorrow we learn how to fight the Sky Court on their own terms.
Tonight?
Tonight the dorm holds us like it was waiting centuries for exactly this pack.
Tonight, we sleep under stars that already know our names.
And for the first time in forever,
none of us are afraid of what comes next.
Because whatever it is,
we face it from here.
Together.
Home.
**Quiet Lightning**
**September 7, 2029 – Blackbird-Coyote Dorm, after midnight**
The others left hours ago.
Seras wanted to see the midnight duels in the Void Bowl.
Lucian followed because someone has to keep her from setting the stratosphere on fire.
Kayo dragged Rowan off to raid the restricted library before curfew even existed.
The dorm gave them a door that opened straight onto the main plaza and then politely locked it behind them.
Now it's just us.
Remy and me.
The room has decided what it wants to be tonight:
the ridge above Hot Springs at golden hour,
warm red dirt under bare feet,
fireflies that are actually tiny harmless lightning bugs drifting between the rafters,
a wide, low bed made of stormclouds and coyote blankets in the exact center.
Remy stands at the window-that-isn't-a-window, shirtless, braids loose, moonlight sliding over the lines of his back like it's scared to linger too long.
I walk up behind him and slip my arms around his waist.
He exhales like he's been holding his breath since we were fourteen.
**Remy (soft, almost shy):**
"Been waiting for a night that was only ours for a long time, storm queen."
I press my forehead between his shoulder blades.
**Celeste:**
"Me too."
We don't rush.
There's no prophecy breathing down our necks, no lake demanding truths, no sky court counting days.
Just the quiet sound of two heartbeats finally allowed to speak the same language.
He turns in my arms.
His hands find my face like they've memorized it in the dark.
We kiss slow, deliberate, like we're learning a new kind of thunder.
Clothes fall away the way stormclouds part for sunrise (quiet, inevitable, beautiful).
When we sink onto the bed, the dorm dims every light until only the lightning bugs remain, drifting lazy circles above us.
Skin to skin, breath to breath, we map every scar, every oath mark, every place the universe tried to break us and failed.
There is no hurry.
Only the hush of promises finally kept.
His name in my mouth like prayer.
My name in his like answer.
Later, much later, we lie tangled under a blanket that smells like pine needles and desert rain.
My head on his chest, listening to the steady drum of coyote heart and thunder heart braided together.
His fingers trace the ring on my left hand, then the glowing oath mark on my wrist, then the faint scar on my ribs where a hellhound once got too close.
**Remy (voice rough with wonder):**
"Still can't believe you're real."
I press a kiss over his heart.
**Celeste:**
"Still can't believe you stayed."
He laughs, low and warm, and pulls me closer.
Outside our borrowed sky, the campus is no sound except the soft hush of wind chimes made of coyote bones and the occasional crackle of gentle lightning.
Inside, there is only us.
No titles tonight.
No crowns.
Just Celeste and Remy, eighteen and infinite, learning how loud silence can be when it's full of love.
We fall asleep with the fireflies still drifting above us, hands linked, rings touching, oath marks glowing soft violet and gold.
The dorm holds its breath around us like it knows.
Some storms don't need to roar.
Some lightning is quiet enough to live under your skin forever.
And when morning comes, we'll put our armor and claws and crowns back on.
But tonight, the sky gave us this room, this bed, this hush.
And we took it.
Finally.
Completely.
Ours.