"Your crystals are humming."
She glanced at the rose quartz on the side table. It was, in fact, vibrating faintly and emitting a noise like a cat's purr. "They do that when the apartment's ambient magic is?—"
"Happy?"
"I was going to sayharmonically elevated, but yes."
From the bedroom doorway, Raven cleared her throat with surgical precision.
"Humans mate for life, correct? Because if you hurt her, I know where you sleep."
Nate released Hazel's waist but kept hold of her hand. He met Raven's green stare with the steady composure of a man accustomed to being evaluated by powerful creatures.
"Noted."
"Third-floor apartment, Victorian conversion, northwest bedroom. Single deadbolt. Laughable security for someone in magical law enforcement."
"Also noted."
Raven held his gaze for another three beats, then dropped from the doorframe to the floor with liquid grace. She padded to the saucer of cream he'd set by the refrigerator, sniffed it with elaborate indifference, and began to drink.
The front door burst open.
Mrs. Shufflewick swept in wearing what appeared to be a silk dressing gown over her usual tweed, a feathered pen behind oneear and reading glasses perched at a dramatic angle. Her silver hair had escaped its bun in tendrils that bounced with each stride.
"Ohdarling, young love! The spirits are simply beside themselves with joy!"
Mrs. Shufflewick clutchedboth hands to her chest, and her dressing gown rippled into something that looked suspiciously like a Regency ball gown. The feathered pen behind her ear multiplied into three.
"The cosmic alignment! The harmonic convergence of two souls destined across the ages!" She seized Hazel's free hand and pressed it between her own. "Jane would have wept. Charlotte would have swooned. Emily would have written something brooding and magnificent about the moors!"
"Mrs. Shufflewick, how did you even know?—"
"Thewards, dear girl. Your protective enchantments have been singing since dawn. The entire building is radiating contentment. My teacups have been waltzing." She turned to Nate with the evaluating gaze of a woman who had cataloged every significant text in three libraries. "Young man. You will treat her with the reverence one affords a first edition."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Excellent." Her outfit flickered back to tweed. She blinked, touched the feathered pens, and removed them with the dignity of someone who hadn't just been possessed by the collective romantic yearnings of nineteenth-century literature. "Well. I'll leave you to your morning. The Bronte channeling passes in an hour or so."
She swept out. The door clicked shut.
Raven licked cream from her whiskers. "Brace yourselves. She was just the advance scout."
Main Street sparkledunder mid-morning sun that caught every crystal hanging in every shop window and threw small rainbows across the cobblestones. Hazel had managed glasses, real clothes, and a semblance of composure. Nate walked beside her with his hand resting at the small of her back—a warm, steady pressure she felt all the way to her teeth.
They made it eleven steps past the library entrance before Delilah Hart burst from the doorway of Crystal Clear Visions like a woman who'd been waiting behind the glass since sunrise.
"I KNEW IT!" Her purple dress billowed. Her magnifying glass caught the light and threw a prism across Nate's startled face. "I called this from day one. Sam owes me twenty dollars!"
Sam Rodriguez appeared from the bookshop next door, coffee in hand, expression caught somewhere between resignation and genuine warmth.
"Fine, but I bet they're engaged within six months."
"That's—we just—" Hazel's voice climbed an octave. "We hadone kiss."
"The psychic vibrations say otherwise, sweetheart." Delilah tapped her temple.
"You can't even see your own future, Delilah."
