Page 57 of Mane Brew

“Neither will you.”

We sit there until the moon rises.

A familiar scent carries on the breeze. One of my lions approaches from the pride.

“Alpha, sorry to bother you, but Grandmother Peach has asked that both of you come to the Registry immediately.”

13

ZEPH

The Familiar Registry looks different at midnight.

I’ve been here dozens of times—registering Havoc when I first bonded with him, filing paperwork for magical incidents at the brewery, delivering samples when Grandmother Peach requested them for reasons she never explained. But I’ve never seen the building like this: every window dark except for a faint glow from the upper floors, the robin’s-egg blue paint turned silver by moonlight, the climbing roses somehow more alive in the darkness than they ever appear during the day.

The bell tower is silent. That’s what unsettles me most. The Registry bell rings when fated pairings form—it’s rung three times, once for each of the mated couples. Tonight, it sits quiet and watchful, as if holding its breath.

Rhodes’s hand finds mine as we approach the front steps.

The touch is natural now. Expected, even. After sitting on the border of Sunridge territory while the moon rose, his fingers interlaced with mine for hours without either of us pulling away—the space between us has shifted into something neither of us has named but both of us have accepted.

“You’re nervous.” Low. Observation, not judgment.

“I’m always nervous when ancient magical institutions summon me at midnight.” I squeeze his hand. “Also when cryptic matchmakers request the presence of ‘all relevant parties’ without explaining what relevant means.”

“Grandmother Peach told Marcus at The Crescent Cup that his marriage was ‘entering its most interesting century.’ He’s been visibly nervous ever since, and Thalia finds it hilarious.”

“See? Deliberately cryptic. It’s her brand.”

He gives an almost imperceptible smile. The tiny crack in his composure that means I’ve gotten to him. Before, I found them irritating. Evidence that the humorless bureaucrat was secretly laughing at me.

Now I find them a different kind of irritating entirely. The kind that makes my stomach do inconvenient things.

The front door swings open before we reach it.

Grandmother Peach stands in the doorway, backlit by candlelight that gives her silver hair a golden halo. She looks older tonight. More tired. The eternal sparkle in her eyes has dimmed to something that might be exhaustion or might be grief held so long it’s become part of her bones.

“Good. You’re here.” Her gaze drops to our joined hands. Holds for a moment too long. “Both of you. As I requested.”

“The others?”

“Already inside. Come.” She turns without waiting, her movements slower than I remember. “It’s time you knew everything.”

The filing hall has been transformed.

The endless cabinets still line the walls, their contents humming with the quiet energy of recorded lives and magical partnerships. But the center of the room has been cleared—chairs arranged in a loose circle around a low table laden with tea things and, inevitably, cobbler.

The three mated couples already occupy half the circle.

Leire and Aslan sit closest to the door—her sharp features softened by the candlelight, his tiger’s intensity focused entirely on her even as he tracks our entrance. They’ve been mated for a while now, the first of the new pairings. Sometimes I forget how recently everything changed.

Sakura and Torin have claimed the settee, his massive frame making the delicate furniture look like dollhouse accessories. Her hand rests on her belly where Little Bean is presumably doing whatever magical fetuses do at midnight. Weather magic sparks faintly around her—tiny clouds forming and dissipating above her head like anxious thoughts made visible.

Anouk and Caius occupy matching chairs with the composed elegance of leaders who’ve learned to present a united front. The wolf alpha’s stillness contrasts with Anouk’s subtle movements—the way she adjusts her sleeve, touches her claiming mark, glances at her mate with an intimacy that still surprises me after watching them dance around each other for years.

“Finally.” A thread of dry amusement runs through Leire’s greeting. “We were starting to think you’d gotten lost. Or distracted.”

Her gaze drops to where Rhodes’s hand still holds mine.