“I will do all of the laundry.” This with a significant look at the baby in my arms.

“Upstairs, first door on your left,” I sighed. “I keep early hours, don’t clatter around after nine in the evening unless the baby needs something.”

“Thank you, Orawne,” smiled Millicent.

“Don’t mention it,” I growled.

“We’re going to need to name her,” she said.

“Vercari.”

“I was thinking Linda.”

“What in the world kind of witch is named Linda? For that matter, what kind of witch name is Millicent?” I said.

“Oh, I come from a long line of witches with ordinary names. I’ll settle for middle name placement if you’ll let her switch what she goes by later should she like to.”

“Vercari Linda,” I mused.

“Oh, and I must insist on using my last name. Apprentice reasons.”

“…Vercari Linda what, then?”

“Murk. Acceptably witchy?”

“Yes. Fine. Whatever.”

“We’re going to get along famously, Orawne, I just know it,” beamed Millicent.

She did the laundry. She made pie. Vercari liked the milky potion she fixed up better than mine. Meanwhile, I made preparations for what I was going to need to properly dedicate the baby as my apprentice - Millicent didn’t seem to need any such ritual, and it made me nervous about whether mine would take, properly, with a claim on her like that. But it was too late to trawl the continent for peasants willing to bargain away their imminent children. It was hard enough to find someone who’d make the promise when they weren’t already expecting.

“Honestly, what were you planning to do with a baby and all this work to do?” Millicent asked, rocking Vercari while I made straw figurines to burn.

“Not sleep much,” I muttered.

“Do you even like babies?”

“They’re all right. I won’t be able to teach her much until she’s four or so, maybe three if she’s precocious. She’s still cute, just - this isn’t the part I was planning for as much.”

“I’ll have a bit of a head start, then, I have a rattle that she’ll be able to get some use out of soon, not to accomplish much, just to train the right reflexes.”

“How soon?” I asked. Straw crunched in my hand.

“After you’ve dedicated her. Don’t worry, Orawne, I’m not going to kidnap her out from under you, we agreed on sharing, didn’t we? I keep my promises.”

“She likes you more. She -”

“I hold her more. In six months you’ll be done with your straw… things… and you’ll -”

“Watch her wave around your magic rattle. What kind of magic do you do, anyhow?”

“I don’t know if the tradition strictly has a name. I’m from the westlands, anyway.”

“And in the westlands you can follow other witches’ smoke globes and make magic rattles to train babies’ reflexes when they’re less than a year old and make better potions?”

“But I couldn’t actually use a smoke globe, let alone make one,” countered Millicent. “We’re differently specialized, I’m hardly omnipotent.”