“What are we doing up so late, Da?” Starling asked, plonking herself on the log beside him. Twelve hung back, feeling awkward and resentful, unable to take her eyes off them.

“Waiting for a shooting star,” he said mysteriously, waggling his eyebrows at her.

Starling did not look amused. She gazed up at the clear, star-filled sky with a scowl and pointed a moment later. “There’s one!”

Her da snorted and rolled his eyes. “Not just any old shooting star, a special one.”

Starling pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, her expression skeptical.

“This one appears every fifteen years,” her da explained, “and it’s supposed to be lucky for those who see it.”

“Oh!” Starling looked more interested now. “How will we know which one it is though? They all look the same.”

“Your ma says this one is unmistakable,” he grinned. “She saw it as a girl and the next day she met me, thus proving its luckiness!”

Starling laughed and threw her head back to stare at the sky unblinkingly.

“Doesn’t she want to see it again?” she asked as her eyes began to stream.

“You think she could get luckier than meeting me?” her da exclaimed in mock outrage. “Impossible! No, this is just for us.”

“Not Poppy?” Starling asked, glancing at her da out of the corner of her eye. Spending time with him alone was a precious rarity.

“She’s still little,” he said. “We’ll let her rest.”

“Just me, then,” Starling grinned, unable to keep the triumph from her voice.

The smile faded slightly from her da’s face as he gazed at her, frown lines appearing between his brows.

“Yes, just you,” he said. “Your ma suggested this might be a good opportunity for us to talk.”

“Talk about what?” Starling asked breezily. There was a new tension in her posture though. Her eyes, still upturned, no longer scanned the sky.

“The way you’ve been treating Poppy recently,” her da said carefully.

Starling scowled and kicked her legs away impatiently, folding her arms across her chest. “She’s annoying. Always following me, pestering me, copying me . . . !”

“You used to not mind that,” her da replied, his scowl mirroring Starling’s exactly. “She looks up to you. She’s your little sister, your family—you should treat her with respect.”

Starling made an undignified snorting sound. It was the wrong response—her da’s gaze hardened.

“You should be a little kinder and more forgiving of the faults in others,” he snapped, “since you’re hardly perfect yourself . . .”

He broke off at the look of shock that passed over Starling’s face.