Theodora wrinkled her nose.
‘Stop being cleverer than me,’ said Theodora. ‘You were only supposed to be an apprentice.’
‘I was supposed to be a sack of blood for you to barter with, actually.’
Theodora laughed at that. She wiped her eyes. Then, she said, ‘I’m not brave enough for any of this. Look at you, Dorothy. Your poor hand. You can barely stand, and yet you’re consoling me.’
‘Bravery comes in myriad shades,’ said Dot. ‘Sometimes in anger, or in honesty. Sometimes, I think, the bravest thing a person can be is themselves.’
Dot raised her hand. She balanced the cold and warm magic within her and pictured the rune forretrieveand added to it the symbol forclothingand the symbol forwarmand the symbol formidnight, and, shakily, with no discernible scent yet, the cottage door opened and a bundle of fabric dragged itself to them and fell in Theodora’s lap. Dot had found the garment discarded by the lilacs and covered in mud. It was clean now, with Lio’s help, and smelled of bergamot. Theodora held it up: a midnight blue thing of ivory buttons and wide sleeves and gold, embroidered stars. The witch stood up from the bench, shrugged it on and followed Dot inside the house.
When Stephen found his daughter at the kitchen table, he said her name as if in apology.
‘I don’t go by that anymore, Dad.’
‘It was your great-grandmother’s name.’
‘It’s not mine.’
A silence descended. Theodora was the one to break it.
‘I want to thank you for not casting us out. I half-expected you would.’
‘What choice did I have?’ asked Stephen. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re mixed up in. You could have set one of your friends on me. That spirit, or that girl with the strange arm.’
‘If you had anyone to fear, it would not be Belchamber or Dorothy,’ said Theodora. ‘It would be me. I had an empire, Dad. I had hundreds of staff. I was the Minister for Sorcerie and Magic. Surely, you’ve heard of Bianca De León?’
‘The one who caused that mess in the capital?’ asked Stephen. ‘Did you have a hand in that, Tessa?’
‘My name isn’t—’
‘Your name is Tessa!’ cried Stephen, standing up from the table. Theodora flinched. She was ten years old again. He loomed over her. ‘I’ll not have you sit here in my house telling me what your own bloody name is when I was the one who named you! When I was the one who sat through yourfuneral, while you were off doing Saints know what.’
‘I was doing magic,’ said Theodora, her voice growing loud. ‘I only took an interest in it because of you. I saw how excited you became because of that bloody book, and I thought, oh! How grand! Here is something at last that we can share. I worshippedyou, Dad.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Stephen.
‘I am being honest. You wanted so badly to be important and interesting.Ithought you were important and interesting, Dad, and then you struck me across the face with the book that youbought.’
‘Don’t you dare blame me.’
‘You made me feel it was all my fault,’ said Theodora, standing. ‘You berated me.When will you come home, Tessa? When will you fix what you did, Tessa?Never an apology for driving me away. Never warmth. I made one mistake, and that was all it took for you to cast me out.’
‘You were my daughter.’
‘You see?’ said Theodora, throwing out her arms. ‘Even now.Werenotare. Even now you choose that bitter, prideful path. You could fix this, Dad. Right now. You could fix it all and have me back. You just have to saysorry.’
Theodora watched him, her eyes stinging.
She had always wondered: if she had been honest with her father from the beginning, could she have avoided all this? If only she had told him how scared and small he made her feel, she would never have summoned Acanthi. Would never have met Opal. Would never have put Rupert in harm’s way. She could have been raised here, could have been happy as Tessa. She could have gone to university in the town nearby and had girlfriends and boyfriends and brought them home and kissed them in her childhood bedroom. She could have had birthday presents and someone to call on the telephone. Perhaps she would have been an engineer? A watercolourist? Perhaps she would have adopted two little dogs, or been a mother, or had no debt and no tea shop at all and no nightmares of bread knives plunging into flesh.
Theodora felt her chest swell with the long-buried craving she’d had since she was small to have this man love her and care for her. All she needed now was the barest acknowledgement that he understood some of what he had made her feel.
Stephen Blythe looked at his daughter.
He gazed over the person she had become.
He opened his mouth.
