Color rose in her cheeks. “It responds to a lot of things lately. The surge?—”
“This isn’t the surge.” He heard himself say it before he could stop the words.
Cassia’s chin lifted. “Then what is it?”
He drew on centuries of practiced control and stepped back, putting distance between them.
“I don’t know yet. That’s why we’re researching.”
Her eyes narrowed. She knew he was lying. She just didn’t know about what.
“Fine.” She turned back to the monitor, dismissing him with her posture. “Let’s research, then.”
FOUR
AERO
The morning passed in a haze of data collection and barely suppressed tension.
Cassia Gale was, Aero had to admit, brilliant. Frustrating and emotional and entirely too dramatic, but brilliant. Her intuitive understanding of atmospheric magic exceeded anything in his research databases. She didn’t just read the weather, she felt it, her body responding to pressure changes and humidity shifts before any instrument could register them.
She was also completely incapable of following instructions.
“Your methodology is flawed,” she announced, two hours into their work.
Aero looked up from the sensor he was calibrating. “Excuse me?”
“You’re treating the surge as a constant variable. It’s not.” She was pacing, her boots clicking against the stone floor, her hands moving as she talked. The woman couldn’t stand still. “It fluctuates based on emotional intensity in the area. More mate bonds forming means more ambient energy. You can’t measure it in isolation.”
“I’ve documented surge patterns across forty-three different communities. I’m aware of the variability.”
“Then why aren’t you accounting for it in your baseline measurements?”
Because he hadn’t expected Haven Shores to be different. Because the data from other sites had been consistent enough to establish a standard protocol. Because he’d been doing this for a long time and hadn’t needed a storm witch to tell him how to do his job.
He didn’t say any of that. “What do you suggest?”
Her eyebrows rose. She’d expected an argument. He could see it in the tension of her shoulders, the way her hands had curled into loose fists at her sides.
“I…” She faltered, then rallied. “We need to map the emotional energy patterns alongside the atmospheric readings. Cross-reference them with the ward anchor outputs. The surge isn’t just affecting the weather—it’s affecting everything, and the weather is responding to that.”
It was a sound methodology. More nuanced than his current approach. He should have thought of it himself.
“All right.” He set down the sensor. “Show me how you’d set up the emotional mapping.”
She stared at him. “You’re agreeing with me?”
“You made a valid point. I adjust my methods when presented with better data.” He allowed himself a slight tilt of his head. “Did you expect me to argue purely for the sake of ego?”
“I expected you to be like every other ancient supernatural male I’ve dealt with. Convinced you know everything because you’ve been alive since dirt was invented.”
“Dirt predates me by several billion years.”
Her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “My mistake.”
They worked in something approaching a truce for the next hour. Cassia’s approach to magical measurement was unorthodox—half intuition, half improvisation—but her results were undeniable. When she placed her hands on the wardanchor interface, the readings stabilized in ways his instruments alone couldn’t achieve.
She was a natural conduit. Her body processed atmospheric energy the way his processed fire and lightning.
