“Well?” Kaden said, taking up the spot across from Maura. “What’s my fortune say?”

“More like intuition, omens, that sort of thing,” Irene said from the other side of the room, where she spooned herbs and tea into a mug of her own. A soft whistle filled the air, and she poured boiling water over the mixture.

“Why do my tea leaves matter to either of you?” Kaden asked.

Irene ignored him and sat down next to her mother. “What do you see?”

“His future has happiness and pain in it. A great love, but a great sorrow.”

“So, you think it’s an owl,” Irene said.

“Could be a swan,” Maura mused, and Irene laughed.

Her mother arched an eyebrow and said, “Why did you want me to read it?”

“I read my leaves the other day after Sylvia stopped by the shop.”

“Bitch,” Maura murmured. She cast a cursory glance at Kaden but didn’t apologize.

“The comet, the clouds, the flowers, the bird, all identical to this,” Irene continued. “The only difference was that mine showed a visitor. A man.”

Maura’s eyes widened. “I see.” She looked back in the cup. “There’s more. This hawk suggests a spiteful enemy.”

She tilted the cup toward Irene. When Irene had looked earlier, that particular smattering of herbs had looked like nothing to her, but at her mother’s words, the shape took form.

“And this at the bottom,” Maura said with a quick glance at Kaden, “looks like a fern.”

Irene took the cup from her mother and pressed the tip of her finger to the clump of leaves. Addison had seen the same thing in her leaves before this whole mess with the Bonner funeral started.

“This has been fun and all, but if you’re not going to explain it to me—” Kaden started to push his chair back, and Irene clamped her hand down on top of his. His eyes flashed, the forsythia blooming behind them a sign of anticipation.

“Don’t go,” she said. The universe had sent him here. Irene may have had no intention of falling for another Bonner, but that didn’t mean she was going to let this man walk out that door after they had almost exactly the same reading.

“Tell me what this is about,” Kaden pressed.

Maura glanced at them, the lines between her eyebrows growing deeper. She took off her glasses, folded the sides in. For the first time since she’d addressed him at the front door, she looked right at Kaden when she spoke to him. “A fern is a sign of magic.”

“Haywood magic?” he asked.

“I’m not sure what else it could be,” Irene said.

“Why do you ask?” Maura said.

He shook his head. “I’ve been gone for a long time. Wasn’t sure if things had changed.”