I don’t even have to worry about leaving Simon alone this year because Lady Salisbury is going to throw him twenty years’ worth of Christmases. He’s probably going to get a train set and a rocking horse.

Daphne has paused in her strawberry spreading. She’s beaming up at me. “And we hope you’ll bring a guest.”

“A guest,” I say.

She leans forward. “A guest.”

My stepmother is a very pretty, dark-haired woman with a toothy smile and toned arms. She’s less substantial than my mother in every way. Thinner. Smaller. Less opinionated. Less powerful.

“It’s like,” my aunt once said, “your father decided after a lifetime of drinking gin that he wanted a glass of water.”

Aunt Fiona meant that as an insult. She always makes it sound like my father left my mother for Daphne—instead of mourning my mother for years and then washing up, a shell of his former self, on Daphne’s shore.

“Like . . .” I say, taking a scone from the basket, “. . . a friend?”

“Like . . . whomever you might like to spend Christmas with,” my stepmother says. “I was thinking Simon Snow might appreciate having a place to celebrate.”

My mouth drops open. My tongue actually clicks. “Simon Snow.”

Daphne is still beaming. “Yes. Your friend.”

“My friend Simon Snow . . .” Talking to my family is like playing tennis. You just keep lobbing euphemisms back and forth to avoid saying what you actually mean.

“I’ve spoken to your father, Basil—”

“You have?”

“And we both agreed that it might be very nice for you to have company at Christmas, someone your own age.”

I drop the scone on my plate and commence rubbing my eyes with both hands. “Mum. You sound like you’re suggesting I bring a friend along on a ski holiday . . .”

“Basil, I thought you’d be happy about this.”

“Happy?” I look up at her. “You know I can’t bring Simon home for Christmas. Firstly, because he drained every last bit of magic out of the Pitch family estate—”

“We’re prepared to let bygones be bygones. Your father was very impressed with Snow’s role in the whole . . . mess this summer.”

(The mess. When my stepmother joined a magickal cult. And my boyfriend saved the day.) (My boyfriend. Simon Snow.)

“And,” she continues, “we agreed to set the past behind us.”

“So . . .” I spread my napkin in my lap with a flounce. “Nobody’s going to mention the Mage or the Mage’s Men or that time Simon arrested Uncle Cyril . . .”

“Why would we? Your father can’t stand your uncle Cyril.”

“All is forgiven?” I say. “All of it?”

“Basil, none of it will even come up.”