Cade looked at her for a long moment, then seemed to think better of whatever he'd been about to reveal. "Nothing. We should get back to work."
But as they returned to their respective tasks, both of them carefully maintaining distance, an unshakable sense told her something fundamental had just shifted between them. The forced proximity protocol might have brought them together, but what she'd felt when she touched him was entirely separate from magical necessity.
And from the way Cade kept glancing at her when he thought she wasn't looking, she suspected he'd felt it too.
7
CADE
The magical explosions started three days after the porch incident and showed no signs of stopping.
Lyra had woken that morning to find every light bulb in the inn had blown overnight, leaving behind a constellation of shattered glass and the acrid smell of burned filaments. Her morning coffee had literally boiled over before she'd even turned on the stove, and when she'd tried to take a shower, the water had come out scalding hot despite the temperature setting being firmly in the lukewarm range.
By noon, she'd accidentally shorted out Junie's espresso machine, caused every piece of electronic equipment in Moondrip Market to start playing different radio stations simultaneously, and somehow managed to make the fountain in the town square begin spouting water in perfect spirals that defied several laws of physics.
"This is getting ridiculous," Lyra muttered, standing in the middle of her kitchen and staring at the pile of her belongings that had apparently rearranged themselves while she was out. Her books were stacked in perfect height order, her clothes had sorted themselves by color, and every piece of jewelry she ownedwas now arranged in concentric circles on the counter like some kind of magical mandala.
Her phone buzzed with yet another apologetic text to a local business owner whose electronics had been affected by her proximity. This one was from the hardware store, where apparently every power tool had turned on at once when she'd walked past the building.
"Right," Lyra said to the quiet room. "Time to admit defeat and ask for help."
She found Cade at his workshop, a converted barn on the outskirts of town that smelled of sawdust and motor oil and something indefinably wild. He was bent over a custom cabinet, his attention focused on precise measurements, and he didn't look up when she knocked on the open door.
"If you're here to apologize for whatever electronic chaos happened downtown today, don't bother," he said without looking up. "I already heard about the hardware store incident."
"Actually, I'm here to ask for help," Lyra said, leaning against the doorframe. "My magic is getting worse, not better. I need someone to teach me control before I accidentally level a city block."
Cade set down his measuring tape and finally looked at her. "I'm not a witch, Lyra. I can't teach you spellwork."
"I don't need spellwork. I need grounding techniques. Wolf magic is all about control and instinct, right? Maybe some of those principles transfer."
"Wolf magic isn't something you learn," Cade said carefully. "It's something you are."
"Then teach me to be something other than a walking magical disaster," Lyra said, frustration creeping into her voice. "Please. I'm running out of options, and the proximity protocol thing isn't helping. If anything, being around you makes my magic more volatile."
He didn’t speak right away, studying her face with the kind of focus that made her think he was reading her thoughts. "Why me? Nico's got more experience with teaching magic to non-fae."
"Because you're the one my magic responds to," Lyra said honestly. "And because I trust you not to let me accidentally hurt someone."
Something shifted in Cade's expression at her words. "Alright. But we do this my way, following my rules."
"What rules?"
"No arguing with my methods. No shortcuts. And no touching anything I tell you not to touch."
Lyra rolled her eyes. "I'm not a child, Cade."
"No, you're a chaos witch with unstable power levels and a tendency to act first and think later," Cade said bluntly. "Which makes you significantly more dangerous than a child."
"Gee, thanks for the confidence boost."
"I'm not here to boost your confidence. I'm here to keep you from accidentally killing yourself." Cade wiped his hands on a rag and moved toward the workshop door. "Meet me at the forest preserve entrance at sunset. And wear something you don't mind getting dirty."
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere your magic can't short-circuit anything important," Cade said. "And somewhere I can shift if things go wrong."
Six hours later, Lyra found herself following Cade along a trail that seemed to exist more as a suggestion than an actual path. The forest around Mistwhisper Falls was unlike any woodland she'd experienced—older, wilder, with an awareness that made her feel like she was being observed by invisible eyes. Ancient oaks and towering pines created a canopy so thick that twilight had arrived early, and the air hummed with the kind of ambient magic that made her chaos energy stir restlessly.
