"In a sundress."
"People wear sundresses."
"Not usually to walk to vineyards at sunset." Ellie's eyes twinkled with barely suppressed amusement. "Unless they're hoping to run into a certain satyr."
"I'm not hoping to run into—" She caught herself. Too defensive. Way too defensive. "The festival committee has a lot of work to do. Thallos and I need to coordinate."
"Coordinate." The youngest sister didn't look up from her toenails. "Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"
"Janie," Winnie, the eldest sister, said mildly. "Don't tease."
"I'm not teasing. I'm making an observation. She's nervous. It's written all over her. And she's walking toward a man who's been mooning over her for two weeks. The conclusion is obvious."
"He hasn't been mooning?—"
"Dear girl." Winnie finally set down her knitting. "Do you know how many times he's asked us about you since the committee meeting? Whether you like chocolate. Whether you've mentioned him. Whether we think you might, perhaps, possibly be interested in someone who isn't entirely human."
Her mouth opened, but she couldn't think of a single intelligent response.
"Seven times," Winnie continued calmly. "Eight if you count the afternoon he pretended to need rosemary from our garden, purely so he could 'casually' ask if you'd seemed well at church."
"We don't go to church," Ellie added helpfully.
"He knows that. He was desperate."
Janie had finished with her toenails and was now watching the conversation with undisguised delight. "Are you going to kiss him again? Because Agnes at the bakery said she saw you two the other day, and?—"
"I have to go."
She said it too fast, too loud, and immediately wished she could sink into the earth. The sisters exchanged looks that communicated entire volumes.
"Of course you do." Winnie picked up her knitting again, the picture of serene innocence. "Have a lovely evening, dear. Anddo try to remember that not everything that feels dangerous actually is."
She stared at her. "What does that mean?"
"It means you're afraid of something that can't actually hurt you." Winnie's needles clicked softly. "Trust is a choice, not a surrender. The two feel similar, but they're not the same."
The words landed somewhere in her chest and stuck there, like a splinter she couldn't quite reach.
"I—" She swallowed. "Thank you. I think."
"You're welcome. Now go on. You'll miss the sunset."
She went.
She could feel their eyes on her back as she walked away, and she could imagine them settling back into their chairs and beginning to dissect every word she'd said. The Sanderson sisters were many things—mysterious, ancient, possibly supernatural—but subtle wasn't one of them.
*Eight times,* she thought, despite herself. *He asked about me eight times.*
It shouldn't have mattered. People asked about people. It was normal. It didn't mean anything. But the small, stubborn warmth that bloomed in her chest refused to listen to reason.
The vineyard looked different at sunset.
During the day, it was beautiful in a practical sort of way—rows of vines stretching toward the hills, workers moving between them, the business of wine-making visible in every corner. But now, with the sun sinking toward the horizon and the skystreaked with orange and rose and deep impossible purple, it felt like something else entirely.
Like a painting. Or a dream. Or the kind of place where magic was real and nothing bad could ever happen.
She paused at the edge of the property, suddenly uncertain. The grove was just visible from here—a dark cluster of oaks against the lighter sky—and she could see the faint flicker of what might be lanterns hung among the branches.
