Page 41 of Mane Brew

Sakura appears in late afternoon, glowing with pregnancy and barely contained weather magic.

“I can’t stay long—Torin’s being protective.” She settles onto the couch beside me. “But I wanted to check on you.”

I expect questions. Pronouncements. Another iteration of what everyone’s been carefully not saying all day.

Instead, she just... sits. Her hand finds mine. For a while, neither of us speaks. Little Bean does a slow roll that I can feel through our joined palms, and Sakura’s magic—weather and warmth and something deeply, quietly alive—hums alongside mine.

My magic settles. Not dramatically. Not the way it does in a story where all the pieces click into place at once. Just a slow steadying, like a brew finding its temperature.

“You’re calmer than I expected,” she says eventually.

“I’m choosing to interpret that as a compliment.”

She squeezes my hand. Doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t need to.

She leaves with a hug. The apothecary falls quiet. I sit alone with cooling pastries and the growing suspicion that everyone in Mistvale can see what I’ve been desperately trying to ignore.

Rhodes Blackthorn isn’t just in my life because of formal obligation.

He’s in my life because he wants to be.

He returns at sunset.

The bell chimes. The door opens. Rhodes steps inside with another folder under his arm and a look of determined formality that doesn’t quite hide the uncertainty in his eyes.

“The structural assessment is complete.” He crosses to where I’m sitting. Sets the folder on the table. “Repairs can begin within the week. I’ve arranged for temporary brewing equipment to be delivered tomorrow—basic setup, nothing like your usual facilities, but functional.”

“You arranged for brewing equipment.”

“You need to maintain production during reconstruction. Customer orders don’t pause for explosions.” He pulls out a chair. Sits across from me with the careful posture of a man bracing for impact. “I also spoke with Grandmother Peach.”

My heart stutters. “About?”

“About patterns. About magic that recognizes what minds refuse to accept.” He opens the folder. Inside, instead of reports and schedules, there’s a single sheet of paper covered in his precise handwriting. “She told me to give you this.”

I take the paper. Read it.

It’s a list. A very long list. Dated entries spanning back three years, documenting every interaction between us. Every argument. Every accidental meeting. Every time he found an excuse to visit my brewery or I found an excuse to deliver beer to Network events.

At the bottom, in handwriting that shakes slightly:

Documentation of a pattern I can no longer ignore. The chaos witch makes me better. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if it means anything at all. But I know that I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t exist.

I look up. Rhodes is watching me with an expression I’ve never seen on him—vulnerable, uncertain, completely without his usual restraint.

“I can’t promise this is what Grandmother Peach thinks it is.” The roughness in his voice betrays everything his words try to hold back. “I can’t promise that my presence will anchor your magic or help break the Severing or any of the other things she implied. But I can promise that I’ll be here. Whatever you need. For however long you need it.”

“Because of formal obligation?”

“Because of personal choice.” He holds my gaze. Doesn’t flinch. “Because your safety matters to me more than protocol. Because your chaos doesn’t terrify me anymore—it fascinates me. Because I’ve spent four years compiling every detail of your life into careful records, and somewhere along the way, I stopped being able to explain why. Devotion.”

The word hangs between us. Heavy. Significant.

“Devotion,” I repeat.

“Inadequate word. Accurate word.” The flush has crept back to his ears, but he doesn’t look away. “Grandmother Peach was right. I’ve been orbiting you for years. The only question is whether that orbit becomes a partnership or stays a lonely trajectory.”

I should have a clever response. A deflection. A joke that breaks the tension and lets us return to safe, impersonal distance.