“Hadn’t seen Cousin Irion in ages,” Somyellia said, perhaps wanting to shift the course of our conversation, “since playing in our family’s gardens as children. Then there he is, rapping at the doors. Right after Maecidion died, actually. Funny how a death in the family can change people. Irion acted quite differently, the way he moved and even how he spoke. A lot like Maecidion used to, in fact.”

“That’s fantastic—so listen, if he’s so low in your branches or what have you, why the servant-girl role whenever he graces our stoop?”

“When you talk like that sometimes it makes me think I really should have entertained Morfil’s advances,” she said, successfully irritating me. I watched her as she pulled out what she’d been looking for: her dark robe covered in family regalia. She wore it only when practicing the type of witchcraft that demanded her utmost.

It didn’t take living with a witch to know her work was outlawed. Along with the parchment plague of new maxims about labor class virtue nailed everywhere, many false witches had been rounded up in plazas and burned to kick off the Years of Peace. Now all that remained seemed to be the real ones. Although there were those practicing black magic who stalked the periphery, Somyellia’s House had, according to her, earned the trust of the evil gods. Such trust bestowed on the Ordrids the secrets of their trickery. But it came with a heavy price. When her family called, she said she had to listen. Noticing I was still waiting for an answer, she only said, “Tersiona weeps for a reason.”

“I’ll remember that. Who penned that lofty explanation for all life’s quandaries, you or Vandahl?”

“We’ve been over this,” she sighed. Somyellia knew I didn’t care for Irion. He lived somewhere in the Bustle, so it was rare he appeared at our door. But even during such rarities, I always found a reason to slink on over to Snier’s side.

“It’s just I hear so many times,” I said, launching my impersonation of her that made her blood boil, “my beast—my beast, I can’t do this or that or that and this—but then he shows up and your schedule’s wide open.”

“Seasmil.”

“Wide open.”

“Seasmil,” she said, culling a tone that started to bring me down out of webs in the rafters.

“Wide open as…like the Moliahenna River’s mouth after a damn flood.”

“Vandahl pen that?” she said, returning to bed.

—

“I’ll let you get to witchery then,” I said after we’d finished, climbing off of her. Irion’s most recent visit was to ask of Somyellia her major discipline. And she’d done her part. Somyellia had touched some warden who Morlia had somehow found a way to send barreling over to her. The curse had been locked by waves of her hand that she told me was passed off as nothing more than churlish girl anger.