Iwoke the next morning to the pleasant feeling of light and warmth. From long habit, the first thing I did was scan the future for danger, looking for the telltale flashes of threats and violence. Absolutely nothing came up and I stayed relaxed, turning to get my head out of the light before opening my eyes. The sun was streaming into my bedroom, the rays lighting up my bed and carpet in brilliant colour, and glancing up through the window I could see a bright blue sky. It was going to be a clear summer’s day.

My bedroom’s a comfortable size, with two tall windows that let in the morning sun and give a view out onto the rooftops of Camden. The walls are white and bare except for a couple of pictures I inherited from the previous owner, and there’s a long desk that’s usually cluttered with whatever magic items I’m working on at the moment. A door leads into the living room. From under the door I could smell something tasty coming from the kitchen and I didn’t even need to look to know that Anne was there.

I wasn’t in a hurry so I just lay there in my bed, enjoying the sun and quiet while lazily looking through the futures ahead of me. Once I was completely awake I got up and took a few steps on the carpet in my bare feet, stretching my legs before dressing and opening the door.

The living room was neat and clean except for the corner with Variam’s camp bed, which looked as though it had been converted into a nest for a medium-sized tornado. Variam has a ridiculous amount of energy and only sleeps about six hours a night, which usually means that by the time I’m up he’s already left the house. I washed, shaved, and wandered into the kitchen, where Anne was making breakfast.

Since Anne and Variam had moved in last winter, my home had gone from a fairly lonely place to something more like a shared house. It had been eight months since Anne and Variam had arrived, and between seeing them and taking lessons from me Luna was spending so much time here that she might as well be living here too. We’d all had plenty of time to learn each other’s quirks, and one of the first things we’d found out was everyone else’s cooking styles. My cooking can be best described as functional. I’m one of those people who doesn’t care much about food—I like it enough to appreciate it when it’s done well but not enough to learn to get really good. The end result is edible, but I don’t think there’s much chance anyone’s ever going to get excited about eating it.