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For her. For her, for what? For why? “Don’t lie to me today,” Saga warned gently. Benevolent or not, she’d had her fill of lies.

“I am not lying.” Avery’s smile was reassuring. “May I come in?”

A minute nod and she stepped aside to allow the woman to pass her.

Avery grew still as she took a step farther into the apartment. “Were you casting? There’s a faint haze in the air and the smell of burning herbs…”

“I was,” Saga answered softly. “Riddle is the only person in this family who has been honest with me, and he managed to do it without even being able to talk to me properly, so I decided to fix that.”

Avery’s smile was gentle and a little sad. “How do you feel?”

“About the ritual? Fine… About everything else?” Saga could feel tears welling up once more in her eyes. “Are you hungry? I left before we got to the actual dinner part of dinner.”

“I will not have you cooking for me in this state,” Avery dismissed.

“No, I was thinking more like takeaway or something.”

“Takeaway,” Avery repeated, her brow furrowing adorably as she tried to work out the word. “To take away… Like stealing?”

“Ordering from a restaurant, then they deliver it to us.”

“Ah. Taking the food away from the restaurant and eating it elsewhere.” She spoke as someone might in writing down a notation for later. “Sounds delightful.”

“Great, how do you feel about Cantonese?”

Another frown of confusion. “The language?”

Saga laughed. “The food… You know, I’m just gonna order for both of us. My treat.”

***

Saga had been home from Leigh’s for quite some time before running into Avery, but she had yet to change, and the damp English air had kept her cold. While Avery read and waited for their food, Saga had taken a quick hot shower to warm her bones. She dressed for comfort but was still mindful that she had company. Company that she was, for better or for worse, still inconveniently attracted to. So rather than reaching for her pajamas, she had made a little effort. She wore an oversized Bordeaux-colored sweater that hung off one shoulder over a pair of shorts, matching over-the-knee socks striped with gold, and black ankle boot slippers. She did not reach for makeup, regardless of how tempting it was. That would have been a little too obvious.

They sat on the floor in the reading nook rather than at the table, and, after Saga had demonstrated how to use the chopsticks to dish food from the boxes onto the plates, they’d fallen into a comfortable albeit hungry silence.

It was as Saga was reaching for her second helping of soup dumplings that she finally felt comfortable to open up. “Am I being unreasonable?” Realizing she had begun the conversation as if Avery had been a part of her internal dialogue, she clarified. “I mean, is it just me or does everyone’s family keep incredibly large secrets from one another?”

“I am not certain my family experience should be the barometer by which you measure that,” Avery answered with a wry smile.

“Fair point.” Saga couldn’t imagine assassinating your father—the tyrant king of Winter—was the sort of thing accomplished in a family that kept communication flowing.

“Do you feel comfortable sharing?”

“I don’t think I should.”

“For your aunt’s privacy?”

“Because I don’t want to burden you with it.”

Avery sighed the kind of sigh reserved for when you are reaching for patience because you’d much rather tell someone the thing they just said was objectively stupid. “I want to know, if you are willing to tell me.”

Saga reached for her purse and pulled out the grimoire. “This probably won’t come as much of a shock to you since you’ve never met her, but it turns out not only was my mother happily married and in fact chose to have me instead of the ‘unfortunate consequence of a single night’s mistake’ story I was told my whole life…”

“You were told—”

“It is a phrase often used by my mother, yes.” If she ended up discussing that again, she didn’t trust that she wouldn’t start crying as well. “But on top of all of that… This evening I learned she used to be a witch. A very powerful one, by the sound of it.”

“Bound?”