Page 81 of Mane Brew

“We’re well matched.” She settles back against me, her head on my chest, her fingers drawing patterns on my skin. “What time is it?”

I glance at the window. Late morning light. We slept longer than I’ve slept in years.

“Past ten.”

“Ten?” She bolts upright. “The brewery—I should check on the brewery⁠—”

“The brewery is fine. You checked it three times yesterday.”

“But the new batch⁠—”

“Is fermenting at optimal temperature, according to the monitoring system you insisted wasn’t necessary but installed anyway.” I pull her back down. “The brewery can survive a few more hours without you.”

“That’s very un-Rhodes-like advice.”

“You’re a bad influence.”

She grins. “You said that last night.”

“It bears repeating.”

We lie in comfortable silence for a while. Outside, I can hear my pride stirring—voices and footsteps and the distant sound of someone shifting. The news of my claiming will have spread by now. Lions gossip almost as effectively as Sunny Clearwater.

“We should probably get up,” Zeph says eventually. “Face the world. Document things.”

“Probably.”

Neither of us moves.

“Or,” she suggests, “we could stay here for another hour and let the world document itself.”

I consider this. Run through the list of tasks awaiting my attention. The incident reports that need filing. The Network coordination meetings scheduled for this afternoon. The umpteen separate forms required to officially register a claiming with the proper authorities.

Then I look at the woman in my arms—chaos incarnate, brewery explosion waiting to happen, the best thing that’s ever disrupted my carefully organized life.

“An hour,” I agree.

She kisses me. Something deep and settled purrs through my whole chest.

Some things are more important than documentation.

We make it to town by early afternoon.

Mistvale has changed.

The difference is subtle—nothing dramatic enough to require a full comprehensive assessment. But the mist flows differently now, swirling in patterns that feel almost deliberate. The air tastes cleaner, sharper. Magic responds more freely, less constrained by the invisible boundaries that existed before.

The Severing is broken.

I feel it in ways I couldn’t before—the old magic stirring, the ley lines humming with renewed power. My ancestor was mated to a witch, Grandmother Peach told me. The Blackthorn line has always carried an affinity for witch-magic. Now that affinity sings through my blood, amplified by my own claiming.

“It’s beautiful,” Zeph breathes, watching the golden mist curl around the streetlamps. “I never realized how much was being suppressed.”

“Two hundred fifty years of containment.” I take her hand. “It will take time for everything to resettle.”

“Will you need to record all of it?”

“Extensively.”