I snorted. “I do most of my magic with magic things. And some potions.”

“I suppose that suits you.”

“Better than having a pointless animal following me around and following someone else’s smoke globe into their house. And making illusions.”

“Illusions can be very useful if you know how to use them. And obviously so can following certain witches home.”

“Obviously,” I said. “What were you planning to do if I’d been living with someone?”

“Does your kind of witch even get married?”

“Not to anyone who assumes that pregnancy is the intended outcome,” I said dryly. “But I could have had a lover or a co-apprentice I was living with or another taken child - though if I’d already taken one I’d have been less insistent about this one, I suppose - or could have still been living with my teacher.”

“I cannot a bit imagine you with a lover. You’d chase him off with a stick.”

“Him?”

Millicent blinked at me, and then either Vercari made a noise or she decided of her own accord to flee the room.

“I was married once,” Millicent told me, while I was giving Vercari her bath.

“Oh, I’d been assuming you found out the moon wouldn’t have you by magic.”

“I don’t even know how I’d do that by magic. No.”

“Is that why you aren’t married anymore?”

“Well, it’s more complicated than - yes. It is.”

“More fool him. You make very good scones.”

Millicent laughed, and I almost smiled.

“He didn’t want to go to the trouble of taking a baby. It’s a little frowned on, in the westlands, taking babies.”

“If you can homemake them I suppose it would seem like a lot of hassle, and unnecessarily antagonize the mundanes, who never seem to think ahead how they’ll feel about the deals when they come due…”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But if you can’t homemake them -”

“Well, he can. He has done. Our handfast expired and he married someone else and they have a baby and another on the way. My brother wrote.”

“You’ve been receiving mail at my house?”

“I live here, don’t I?”

“I suppose.”

“I told my brother about Vercari Linda. He might come visit.”

“Might he.”

“I can introduce them out in the front garden if you don’t want him past the threshold.”

“Can you.”

“…If you don’t mind, Orawne, I would like to introduce our daughter to her uncle, at some point, and later grandparents too, and if you do mind, I would still like it and will still try to manage it.”

I rinsed off the baby. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“If,” I continued, “you use the fancy illusion magic to make it at least tricky and ideally impossible for any of these - people - to find my house without express invitations. I don’t want the place crawling with - people.”

“Oh! Oh, of course - they wouldn’t show up unexpectedly anyway, but if - yes, certainly, I’ll make the whole place look like a bit of forest and if they show up when I’m not expecting them they’ll get lost, will that do?”