Page 25

Bexley wrote. Nobody asked what.

Fiora picked up her glass, looked at it, opened her mouth, thought better of it, and sighed instead — a small, theatrical sigh — the kind that meant she was about to tell, again, a story she’d already told in pieces.

The glass refilled to the top.

Fiora looked at it. She looked at Valene. She looked at the glass again.

Valene looked at the glasses. “It’s calibrated for sighing. Sighing is in the same emotional family.”

“Valene.”

“The principle⁠—”

“Is sound, yes, I heard you.” Fiora sighed again, deliberately. The glass refilled. She did the mental math on a situation that had more benefits than she’d expected. “I’m keeping it. This is better than what you were going for.”

Garnet lifted her glass, studied it for a moment, sighed, precise as a woman confirming a hypothesis, watched it refill, then set it back down. “It works,” she said, and reached for a cracker.

Bexley added another line to whatever she was documenting. She had opened to a new tab for this. The tab was blue.

“What does blue mean?”

“Unexpected developments.”

“Is the wine glass a development or a data point?”

“Both.” Bexley capped the pen. “I’m keeping track of how fast the enchantment’s wearing off. Give me until the end of the night, and I’ll be able to tell you when it quits.”

Althea drank her wine. By the second hour, no one was sighing strategically. They were sighing freely, which she was increasingly certain was the original intent.

The town, apparently, had thoughts.

Fiora pulled out her phone as if she’d been sitting on information and had finally reached the moment to surface it. “The group text has been going since yesterday.” She scrolled. “Mira from the candle shop says, and I am quoting directly, ‘the ward line stabilized the moment the sheriff arrived, which has never happened during an active breach in recorded history, somebody explain.’” She looked up. “Several people have attempted explanations. None of them are boring.”

“What are the explanations?”

“Option one: her magic and the sheriff balance each other, and the wards like it that way.” Fiora scrolled. “Option two: he’s been holding this line together through sheer stubbornness for thirty years, and she finally showed up to give him backup.” She scrolled further. “Option three, from someone whose username I cannot verify: destiny.”

“Nobody said destiny.”

“Three people said destiny.” Fiora turned the phone around. “One of them sent a gif.”

Bexley was writing. Althea chose not to look at which tab.

“The apothecary owner,” Valene shared on the group text, “told the Wednesday market group that you assessed the wound before she could get there. Her exact words were ‘with complete professional composure, which was frankly more than the situation called for and also more than most people manage when the sheriff is bleeding.’” She reached for a cracker. “She seemed impressed. She sends her best.”

“I checked if it was deep. That’s not composure, that’s basic⁠—”

“Althea.” Valene’s voice was warm and patient. “The town’s sheriff has managed magical incidents on these cliffs for thirty years. In that time, has anyone ever walked up to him after a ward breach to check his shoulder for damage?”

Nobody answered.

“He let you.” Garnet set down her glass.

Nobody at the table moved on to a new topic.

Valene leaned forward. “He steps back from anyone who gets too close in field situations. It’s a whole thing. Deputy Corin told Mira from the candle shop, who told the Wednesday group. He once redirected Maelin to a patrol report. Maelin.”

“Maelin is⁠—”