He spread his hands in a gesture of futility. Although he knew Lila didn’t take him the least bit seriously, he was grateful for the opportunity to clear the air. She already knew, on some level, that his financial situation was precarious enough that it didn’t allow him to purchase a service dog without the help of the Auditory Guild. If that hadn’t convinced her that he was a man of simple means, then one look at his house and the trusty—and now pee-soaked—minivan would have given her a clue. Single parenthood and hefty medical bills were no joke in this neighborhood.

It was a sobering thing, admitting his penury out loud. Or rather, it was until Lila spoke again.

“Yet you have an elven sword at the ready?”

His crack of laughter brought Jeeves trotting into the living room, Emily not far in his wake.

“What is it, Daddy?” Emily asked, her eyes wide with curiosity. They remained that way until she saw Lila standing there with her hands on her hips, betraying by not so much as a flash of that dimple that she’d bested him at his own game. “Oh, it’s Princess Lila. She’s making you laugh this time.”

“Yes, moppet,” he said as he dropped a kiss on his daughter’s hairline. Once again, that sapient, all-seeing child had managed to sum up the situation in a few disconcerting seconds. “I imagine Princess Lila is always making the young, unmarried gentlemen laugh.”

At that, a look of pain swept across Lila’s dark gaze. It was a brief flicker and nothing more, gone so fast he might have missed it. But he hadn’t missed it, and he didn’t care for the way it snagged and caught in his chest.

Before he could do any probing into its cause, however, Lila turned to Emily. She waited until she had Emily’s full attention before speaking, but it was obvious she had something serious to impart. “We’re going to have a very important tea party today, so I need you to go to your room and put on your prettiest dress,” she said.

“A tea party?” Emily breathed. “For real?”

“For absolute real,” Lila replied. “I brought an obscene number of cakes and cookies with me, so I hope you’re hungry. And, um, that your dad doesn’t mind if I pump you full of sugar first thing in the morning.”

“Why not? I can always sleep when I’m dead.”

“There are treats for Jeeves, too,” Lila said with a casual disregard for Ford’s state of well-being.