“You don’t think they’re too over the top? I was worried they might be. This is going to be a big night for me. This is the first time I get to meet most of these amazing people, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m showing off.”

“They’re lovely.”

“I’m glad you think so. There have been cleaning crews in here for the last few days, getting everything ready for Sunday. Do you have your dress picked out?”

“I don’t know if I’m going.”

Gordon frowned. “What? But you have to go. This is your house.”

“It’s your house, and you don’t need me.”

He looked at her. “Tell me what the matter is.”

“I just had an interesting conversation with Fergus.”

“Oh?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that he knew about magic?”

Gordon blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I was giving the twins a lesson on the beach. He saw us, sent them away, started on a whole tirade about refusing to let me drag them into magic because magic had torn his family apart.”

“Really?”

“Very really.”

“That… that surprises me.”

“It caught me a little off guard too. He gave me the whole family history on the subject.”

“That must have been nice.”

“It was a bonding moment.”

“To be honest,” Gordon said, “I thought he’d convinced himself that none of it was real. He did such a good job with your dad, I thought he genuinely believed it himself. Once we got into our twenties, you see, we never argued about actual magic. We argued about the weirdos and the freaks I associated with, we argued about my lifestyle and my attitude, but by then he had stopped using words like sorcerers. I didn’t realise he was still… aware of it all.”

“Well, he was, and he still is. He even has some himself.”

“Fergus? Fergus has magic?”

“There’s definitely something there,” she said. “Without proper instruction he wouldn’t be able to do anything more than generate a spark, but even so…”

“Even so,” Gordon finished, “it shows he has magic. How I would have envied him if I had known while I lived.”

“You don’t envy him now?”

Gordon smiled. “I have so many other things to envy him for, my dear, such as living, that magic becomes insignificant. How did you leave it?”

“He told me not to teach the twins anything, and I agreed.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

Gordon shook his head. “That brother of mine is a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a cardigan.”

“Oh, there is something else. He said he regrets not speaking to you for four years.”