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“Extremely competent and approximately the size of a small building, yes.” Valene looked at her. “You checked his shoulder, and he stepped back from the wall and let you.”

Fiora rested her chin in her hands. “This is the most romantic thing to happen in this town in two years, and I was not on that cliff path, which I note as a formal objection.”

“You were at wine night,” Garnet pointed out.

“I was at wine night two weeks ago. I should have been on that cliff path.” She sighed with feeling. Her glass refilled. “Continue.”

Bexley’s pen hadn’t stopped moving all night. She flipped the notebook around without warning. “For the record, I’ve been tracking couch time and shirt-borrowing frequency for six weeks. The trend line is not subtle.”

Fiora sat up. “You made a graph.”

“I made an observation with axes.”

“Bexley made a graph about my love life.”

“It’s a situationship chart,” Bexley said, with dignity, and turned the page so Fiora could see the line climbing steadily up and to the right.

Fiora stared at it. “This is deeply undignified.”

“It’s also accurate.”

“You can’t just chart a person’s feelings.”

“I didn’t chart his feelings. I charted his behavior. The feelings are implied.” Bexley capped her pen. “He’s going to say it before the end of the month.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know a trend.”

Garnet ate a cracker and said nothing, which the whole table understood to mean she agreed.

Fiora pointed at Bexley, then at Valene, then back at Bexley. “This isn’t supportive.”

“It’s extremely supportive,” Valene said, reaching for the wine. “We’re telling you it’s going well.”

“Only since the two of you stopped pretending not to notice each other at the market,” Bexley added. “I started small.”

Fiora looked at Althea, openly fishing for backup. Althea, on her second glass and surrounded by women with strong opinions about everyone’s romantic timeline but their own, raised her glass in sympathy.

They inevitably circled back to Drayce — groups always circle back to the interesting thing — from a slightly different angle each time.

“The fires in the square,” Fiora said, setting her glass down. “You said they went out before he reached the table. Before he was anywhere near.”

“The fight on the cliff. He wasn’t near me when the creatures retreated.”

“Right. But the fires still went out.”

“The magic responds to proximity⁠—”

“Of a stabilizing presence,” Valene finished. “I know the law. I’ve been here longer than you. The founding-line magic doesn’t stabilize for random passersby.” She looked at Althea, warm and direct — she’d known Althea since before Althea had opinions about her love life, and now had quite a few. “It stabilizes for the right ones.”

Althea picked up a cracker and set it down without eating.

“Also,” Fiora said, “he was there both times. Square fire: there. Cliff breach: there. Boardwalk: there. I am noticing a pattern.”

“He’s the sheriff. It’s his job.”

“He’s off duty at least once in those examples, and you know it because you described his jacket.” Fiora had the bright, deliberate look she got when she was building a case, one detail at a time. “You mentioned the jacket. Unprompted.”