“My name is Hall,” Hall whispers, to which Athena’s husband, Sean (Felix always pronounces it Seen, just to annoy him), asks, “Is that any relation to Hall and Oates?”

I beam. “Sure, why not.”

Felix is tapping furiously on his phone. “I don’t see anything on here about a forthcoming Jane Eyre movie. Besides mine.”

I kick him under the table. “Mom! Tell Felix to stop Googling us. It’s invasive.”

“None of that Googling nonsense!” Grandpa joins in, passing behind me. He slides a twenty-dollar bill under the lip of my dinner plate. “Here you go, angel,” he says in a gruff whisper. “Buy yourself some of those pretzel bites with the peanut butter in them. Get me a bag, too.”

“Thank you, Grandpa.”

My siblings glare, except for Kaia, who is being tut-tutted by our mother (“You need to stop vaping. What if it damages your voice?”) and declares, “Five of Wands. Five of Swords. Seven of Wands. Two of Swords. Are we predictable or what?” She puffs on her vape pen and blows the smoke sideways, concentrating. “All foreshadows conflict.”

“None of that is real,” Dad tells her, to which she replies, “That is such a Virgo thing to say.”

Dad’s gaze falls on the money Grandpa gave me, and he tries not to sigh. I know he’s thinking that I’m being spoiled. Lawrence Watson has always been calm, eternally unruffled (which maddens Dad when he’s looking for an ally against Grandma’s overbearing personality), deferring to his wife and going with her flow. Mom parented us like her father parented her, generous to a fault, which was a cause of friction between her and Dad because it meant he had to be the no to her yes. Now that we’re all older, he’s trying to alter that dynamic but is struggling to stop being that balancing force of opposition. According to legend, he was fun when they first met.

Sean pries Felix off Hall. “I want to know who he is!” my brother rages. “Tell me where she hired you from!” It shouldn’t surprise me that he suspects I’m lying. He and I are too similar.

Hall yanks me into the hallway, then with a flash and a bang teleports us to a small round room in the turret at the top of the house. He conjures a boulder to block the door, breathing heavily. “What is wrong with your brother?”

“We’re not very good at sharing,” I reply primly.

“No kidding.” His gaze catches on a framed rectangle of gray-blue construction paper resting on a shelf. I recognize the handwriting, two lines in scented brown marker.

He reaches. “What’s—?”

“Oh, don’t—” I move for it, but he senses my embarrassment and strikes too quick.

“If I’m lucky, I’ll get to be as old as you someday,” he reads. “I’ll really miss you then. Happy birthday, Grandpa! Love, Bettie.” He grins at me, the smile lines bracketing his mouth deep and devilish. “So, which Bettie made this?”

“I used to make cards for my family when I was a kid.” I flip it over and show him my logo—Hughes & Co., as if I had assistants, with a shapeless miniature leaf for pizzazz.