"Sweetheart," Rhoda said. Then, with a small frown at the hour, "How long have you been up."
"A little while." Honey repressed another yawn.
"Where's Roam," Rhoda said.
"With Daddy. Out back."
Rhoda took Honey's place at the stove. She touched her daughter's hair as she passed. "You've done enough, sweetheart."
Edgar came in from the back porch with Roam behind him. He kissed Rhoda's temple on his way past, lifted a hand toward the cast-iron, and the eggs began to crack themselves into the pan. Edgar crossed to the window beside Roam, watching the lawn.
Lazlo came down the back stairs. "Good morning, my friends."
"Mornin', Lazlo." Edgar did not look away from the window. "Sit. Eat."
"Lazlo, you look better this morning." Rhoda smiled at her friend.
He sighed, sat at the far end of the kitchen table. "I barely slept, but something about the stillness of night can still give you peace." Duchess slid up onto his lap. His silver eyes slid fromRhoda to Edgar to Honey, warm and concerned, as they had been since he arrived.
Sean McLeary came back through the back door with the easy step of a man who had been in this kitchen on a hundred ordinary mornings. He squeezed Rhoda's shoulder, nodded to Edgar at the window, and took the seat at the foot of the table. He set a small black notebook beside his cup.
"Rhoda. Edgar." Sean tapped the notebook once. "Roam and I'd like to speak with Mrs. Byrne and Madam Pierce this mornin', formal-like, for the record. If that's alright with ye."
"Of course," Rhoda said.
"We'll send for 'em," Edgar said.
Maeve and Oona came down separately. The night had been hard on each of them in different ways. Maeve was tight-mouthed, Pepper pressed against her ankle. Oona's hair was pinned up wrong, and Bramble looked like he'd bit an electrical cord.
Rhoda poured two cups she had already set out for them. "Sit, my dears."
"Mrs. Byrne," Sean said, with the small bow of a man who knew the day he was about to give a woman. "We'd like to speak to ye about the incident. We'll start in Mrs. Hadwin's study."
Maeve's face reddened but she didn't speak. She set down her cup. She kissed the top of Pepper's head, and followed Sean and Roam down the short corridor to Rhoda's study, and the door closed behind them with a quiet click.
In the kitchen Oona started talking.
"Now, Edgar," she said, "I've been thinking about that lavender of yours. That's a Cherokee thing if I've ever seen it. My grandmother had a man on the Tennessee line could shine a whole barn with a wave, just like you do, but he was a Methodist, you know, which was a complication, and his wife…"
"Mm-hmm," Edgar said from the window.
"…but his wife had no tolerance for the husband's magic in the kitchen, on account of her sister Verena had once had a wash-pot rise up off the line and chase her around the yard for a full half-hour, which Verena maintained until her dying day was a kitchen accident and not a curse, but the women on that side of the family…"
On the kitchen rug at Maeve's empty chair, Pepper had not moved. He had pressed himself against the chair leg and his eyes were wide and fixed on the corridor. He opened his mouth.
"Missus is terrified of butterflies. She has been since she was six. The last one that landed on her, she cried for an hour and told everyone it was hay fever."
He clamped his small mouth shut and pressed himself harder against the chair leg. Oona stopped mid-sentence.
"Oh, I knew it." She slapped her knee. "I knew it. She went pale down the lane yesterday when we passed that meadow. Pepper, sugar, the woman's a hedge witch and she's afraid of a wee fluttery thing with paint on its wings, you couldn't make it up."
Pepper made a small wet sound and pressed himself harder against the chair leg. At the far end of the table, Lazlo's hand drifted into the inside pocket of his coat. His thumb found the worn foot of fur and began its slow work.
The corridor door clicked. Maeve came back through into the kitchen with the red high in her cheeks. Pepper rocketed off the chair leg and into her arms. Maeve closed her eyes. She had expected the worst and gotten the next-worst.
Oona pivoted on her stool, her eyebrows up to her hairline. "Well?"
"Cleared," Maeve said.
