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Dis sniffs, entirely unmoved. “That is no excuse for inaccuracy.”

Further down the row, Hex is having the time of his life, wheezing with laughter every time the creature does something Hex apparently finds hilariously, catastrophically wrong. “It’s got the wrong number of eyes,” he announces, delighted, not remotely quiet about it. “Why would it have that many eyes? What would it even do with them all?”

“Shh,” says a stranger three rows back.

“I’m sorry,” Hex calls back, sounding not remotely sorry, “but there are mushrooms in the lower realms that are more terrifying than this thing.”

Dark, beside me, hasn’t said a single word about the film.

I glance over to find him watching me rather than the screen, a box of popcorn balanced between us that he’s slowly, methodically working his way through with the same careful curiosity he brings to everything new, occasionally passing a piece to his mouth and considering it with the gravity most people reserve for wine tasting.

“You’re not watching,” I whisper.

“I have seen real monsters,” he says. “This holds considerably less interest than watching you enjoy your popcorn.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say, even as something warm unfolds in my chest at hearing it.

“It is also true,” he says, entirely unbothered by the accusation.

I take a piece from the box myself, mostly to have something to do with the warmth spreading through my chest. His hand finds mine again in the dark, fingers threading through properly this time, and I spend the rest of the film only half aware of the plot, entirely aware of him.

Further down the row Hex lets out another delighted cackle at the creature’s apparent inability to teleport, and beside him Dis mutters something about incorrect Latin.

I think, sitting here in the dark with my hand in his and popcorn going steadily missing between us, that I couldn’t have designed a better evening if I’d tried.

By the time the credits roll, the creature has been dramatically, unconvincingly defeated, and we spill out of the cinema into the warm evening air still arguing about it. Hex loudly recapping his favourite bits while Dis outlines, in considerable and unwanted detail, everything the summoning scene got factually wrong.

“Chips,” Felix announces, cutting through it. “By the harbour. I’m not debating this.”

Nobody debates it.

We end up sitting on a bench along the waterfront, paper parcels of hot chips passed between us, thick-cut and golden and doused in salt and vinegar.

The boats bob gently in the dark water, and the fairy lights strung along one of the bars further down, catch the surface in scattered gold.

Bristol at night has a particular kind of magic to it, warm and a little scruffy around the edges. Buskers packing up their guitars, someone’s laughter carrying across the water from a boat moored further along. Across the harbour, the old crane sits lit up against the dark sky. Somewhere behind us, the bells of one of the churches mark the hour, ordinary and lovely and entirely unbothered by anything that’s happened tonight.

“So,” Felix says, around a mouthful of chips, looking between me and Dark with the satisfied air of a man who has personally orchestrated this entire outcome, despite having done nothing of the sort. “How long has this actually been going on?”

I check my watch, more for effect than information. “Twenty eight hours.”

Adam nearly chokes. “Twenty eight hours?”

“You two are rubbish at keeping a secret,” scoffs Felix.

I grin and squeeze Dark’s hand. “Why would we want to keep it a secret?”

Felix blinks and mutters something. Adam smiles and looks proud.

Hex leans over, stealing one of my chips without asking, entirely unrepentant about it. “For what it’s worth, I’ve been betting on this since the fight. Dis thought it would take you both until at least the autumn.”

“I stand by that estimate,” Dis says, with the dignity of a man accepting a loss gracefully. “The variables were considerable.”

Hex leans back in his seat and puts his booted feet on the low harbour wall opposite, insufferably pleased with himself. “I won fair and square.”

“You won because Bunny has no sense of how much longing he could have wrung out of Dark,” Dis says, unimpressed. “Your bet was luck, not skill.”

Hex shrugs, entirely untroubled by the distinction. “A win is a win, Dis.”