Page 1 of Mane Brew

1

ZEPH

The copper tanks are humming.

Not the normal hum—the comfortable vibration that means fermentation is doing its thing, and I can relax with a beer of my own. No, this is the excited hum. The one that makes the fairy lights in the beer garden flicker and the hop vines curl a little tighter around the window frames.

My latest batch is ready, and she knows it.

I press my palm against the largest tank, feeling the warmth pulse beneath the metal. Two weeks of careful attention, three minor explosions, and one incident involving sentient foam that I’m choosing not to document. Worth it. Revelation Red is finally done.

“You’re going to behave,” I tell the tank. “We talked about this.”

The humming intensifies. I take that as agreement, even though history suggests I’m being wildly optimistic.

Behind me, the taproom buzzes with the usual evening crowd. Shifters and witches clustered around mismatched tables, arguing about everything from ward regulations to whose familiar keeps stealing food from Sunny’s bakery. Old Henrick the gnome is telling anyone who’ll listen about the time he arm-wrestled a troll. He tells this story every Tuesday. The troll gets bigger each time—last week it had three heads.

The worn wooden floors have absorbed enough spilled magic-ale over the years that they occasionally glow when someone tells a particularly good joke. My grandmother did the original enchantment decades ago, and the wood’s gotten more opinionated since then. Last week, it refused to let a man with terrible taste in hats walk across it until he removed the offending garment.

I love this place. Seven years of chaos contained by copper and stone and sheer stubbornness.

“Zeph!” Sunny Clearwater waves from her spot near the fireplace, her toad familiar Biscuit perched on her shoulder with his usual expression of profound disappointment. Biscuit judges everyone. It’s his primary personality trait, and frankly, he’s excellent at it. “Is that the new batch? The one that’s supposed to enhance clarity?”

“‘Supposed to’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.” I grab a sample glass and hold it up to the amber light streaming through the tall windows. The liquid shifts colors—deep crimson fading to sunset gold, then back again. Beautiful. Unpredictable. Exactly what I’m going for.

Or at least, exactly what I’m claiming I was going for.

The truth is my magic hasn’t been fully under my control for two years. Not since Havoc died. My honey badger familiar matched my energy perfectly—fearless, unrepentant, absolutely committed to creative destruction. Losing him left my brewing magic adrift, responding to emotions I don’t always acknowledge rather than intentions I can explain.

I don’t talk about that part. I just smile and call it intentional experimentation.

Much easier that way.

“It’s gorgeous.” Sunny abandons her pastry to peer at the glass. Biscuit croaks disapprovingly—he takes pastry abandonment very seriously. “What does it do?”

“Enhances clarity. Helps you see what you’ve been missing.” I swirl the liquid, watching the colors dance. “Theoretically.”

“And practically?”

“We’re about to find out. I’m delivering a case to The Den tonight.”

Sunny’s eyebrows shoot toward her hairline. Biscuit puffs up in what I’ve learned to interpret as toad-speak for “this is a terrible idea and I’m very disappointed in you specifically.”

“The shifter bar? With untested experimental beer?”

“It’s tested! I tested it myself last week.”

“And?”

“And I had very vivid dreams about cheese. But I think that was unrelated.”

Biscuit deflates slightly, as if even he can’t argue with that logic. Sunny shakes her head, fighting back a smile.

“You’re chaos in human form, you know that?”

“I prefer ‘creatively unpredictable.’” I grab a crate from behind the bar and start loading bottles, the glass clinking with each addition. “Besides, the shifters love my stuff. They’re not afraid of a little adventure.”

“Adventure. Is that what we’re calling potential magical incidents now?”