“I don’t expect you to.”

“What’s for dinner?”

“Omelettes. Orawne?”

“Yes?”

Lissy didn’t go on.

“Lissy, what is it?”

“I - it’s -”

“Is it about Vercari…?”

“No.”

“Have I been waking you up earlier than you like in the mornings? Are you out of leavening? Is your entire extended family going to descend on my house tomorrow morning -”

“No, no, no -”

“Are you having second thoughts about staying here -”

“No!”

“I’m not going to guess, apparently, Lissy.”

Lissy poured the eggs into the pan. They hissed.

“I’m afraid,” she said. “That you won’t react well - that if you react badly enough you’ll want me to leave.”

“Nightshade, Lissy, if it’s that bad - what do you want me to do, promise that you can borrow Vercari to teach her on alternate days no matter what you say?”

Lissy nudged the edge of the incipient omelette with her turner. Apparently it wasn’t ready to have whatever was next befall it yet. “Maybe promise that she won’t be a - a pawn, if it comes to that.”

“I’ll promise I’ll put her welfare first. I want a doubly witched apprentice as much as you do. Besides, you already told me that if I missed her deadline you’d stay here with her.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“…And?”

“I’m still afraid.”

“I’m a witch, not a monster.”

Lissy sighed. She sprinkled cheese onto the omelette.

“Look, Lissy, whatever this is, is obviously important. Can I help?”

“I like you,” she blurted. “I might be in love with you.”

And then she turned away and folded the omelette, but not before I watched her cheeks turn beet red.

I waited politely until she slid the omelette onto a plate before I kissed her.

We heaped the straw things around the firebreak around the basket.

I took Vercari from the moon, which was turned away new; I burned the straw around her and when it was consumed and the air was smoky and dark I read the rest of her dedication, and our eyes adjusted, and she gazed up at the stars until one dislodged itself from the sky and fell and fell and fell and landed, tiny and cool and still bright, in her hand. It winked out, leaving only a faint white mark.

“Is that it?” Lissy murmured beside me.

“That’s it,” I said, stepping over the circle of straw ash to scoop up our child from her basket. “The star is hers, now. If you work out a way to make the moon take her back it won’t leave her regardless, I think.”

“I think I’ll be able to figure something out,” Lissy said, and she stroked Vercari’s hair and then leaned over her and kissed me.

“Mother, Mother!”

“Yes, Vercari?”

“Cousin says stars don’t do the star things.”

“Cousin is only one kind of witch, Vercari. He doesn’t know about the star things.”

“But he said I lied!”

“Well, he’s not very well educated, then, is he?”

“When I have apprentices they will know about stars and rattles.”