“Yeah.” I don’t feel like talking. I need to sit in a horrified stupor for a while.

When Lex and I get to my apartment, my parents are sitting on the couch in the main room. They’re drinking cheap wine and talking over the cooking show they have on, which is their favorite thing to do together. I breathe in, and the scent of freshly baked bread fills my nose. We got a super-fancy TV for free from Mom’s job, so the scentwork patch on the TV generates the scents from the food on-screen.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Lex,” Mom says. She lifts her feet off Dad’s lap and turns to face us. “Thought that maybe Shay was hiding you from us.”

“Nope, I’m just busy,” Lex says cheerily. “Don’t have as much time to hang out.”

“Well, we always like having you around,” Mom says, her tone pregnant with meaning. “So you come over any night of the week, and I’ll make you dinner. Anybody special to Shay is special to us too.”

Dad takes a sip of his wine, his eyes sparkling with amusement. I think he finds Mom’s insinuations about me and Lex funny, even though he’s never said anything about them.

Mom looks like she’s going to say something else, but I start backing away from her. “Lex and I are going to go practice for the MATs in my room.”

Dad raises his glass to us. “You two are some hard-working witches.”

Mom’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Leave the door open.”

Lex snickers so quietly that only I can hear it. “Will do,” I say.

We retreat to my room, stopping on the way to grab supplies for drill practice in the kitchen. I leave the door to my room open. It’s ridiculous that I can’t be alone with friends of any gender. She’s been like this with the few boys that have come over to do school projects too.

“Do you want to start with change of state?” I say, placing the full water glass I grabbed from the kitchen on my dresser.

“Sure,” Lex says lazily, barely lifting her head from where she lies on my bed. She goes hazy-eyed, and the magic flows in the water arrange themselves swiftly into a lattice framework.

“Hey, let me time you!” I protest as the water begins to freeze. “And don’t break my mom’s glass.”

“Roger that,” she says, her lips curving into a devilish smirk. The lattice of magic unwinds, then spirals faster and faster in the center of the water.

“Lex!” I snatch the glass away before she can send the ice straight into gas state. “Come on, be serious.”

A flash of annoyance passes over her face, but then she rolls her eyes and laughs. “You’re too serious, lady.”