Page 51 of Mane Brew

“Tell me what you find.”

We work in silence for nearly an hour. He explains the documents—timelines, supply routes, communication intercepts. I read through them with the particular attention of someone who’s spent years noticing details others miss. My chaos magic may be unpredictable, but my mind isn’t. I see threads. Rhythms. The way individual pieces form larger designs.

“Here.” I push a stack toward him. “These three shipments. They all passed through the same checkpoint on the same day of the month for six months straight. That’s not coincidence—that’s schedule.”

He examines the documents. His eyebrows rise fractionally—the Rhodes equivalent of open astonishment.

“I missed that.”

“You were looking for obvious patterns. This one’s subtle. Hidden in the noise.” I lean back in my chair, watching him process the information. “My magic works with living systems. Living systems are chaotic, but they’re also consistent in their chaos. You just have to know what randomness looks like to spot when it isn’t random.”

His gaze lingers on my face. Intent. Appreciative. Hungry in a way that makes my breath catch.

“You’re remarkable.”

“I’m observant.” The deflection comes automatically. “There’s a difference.”

“There’s an overlap.” He reaches across the table. His fingers brush mine—brief, deliberate, electric. “Thank you.”

“For reading your classified documents?”

“For being here.” The roughness in his voice strips away all pretense. “For always being here, even when I don’t ask.”

The Den empties around us. The bartender—a grizzled wolf with a scar across his muzzle—makes pointed comments about closing time. The fire burns low in the grate.

I should leave. Should say goodnight and walk home and spend another night listening for footsteps I’ve learned to need.

“Walk me out?”

He stands immediately. Gathers his papers with efficient movements while I watch. The controlled grace of a predator who’s never wasted a motion in his life. We leave side by side, our shoulders nearly touching as we pass through the heavy door into the misty night.

The streets are empty. Just us and the mist and the distant sound of the Warding Line humming its eternal protection.

We walk without speaking. Past the corner where I should turn east. Past the boundary of the witch quarter. Into the neutral ground that lies between our territories.

Our shoulders brush.

I lean into it. Just slightly. Just enough to make the contact deliberate instead of accidental.

He doesn’t pull away.

We walk like that—shoulder to shoulder, not quite touching, then touching, then not quite again—until the road meets Sunridge. The natural place to part. He stands at the edge of his territory.

“Goodnight.” His voice is rough. Not what he wanted to say—I can hear the gap between the words and whatever is pressing behind them.

“Goodnight, Rhodes.”

I turn east. Walk toward my brewery, my damaged home, my well-behaved magic that I’m finally starting to understand.

His footsteps don’t echo behind me.

I make it three blocks before I hear them. Measured. Deliberate. Following at a distance—not close enough to be intrusive, but close enough to ensure I get home safe.

Of course he is.

Of course he’s following me home at two in the morning, adding another data point to his records, another night to the rhythm he’s been building for longer than I knew.

I fall asleep that night with his voice in my ears and his need burning in my chest.