“When I was doing my research, I couldn’t find much about them,” I explain.

“I don’t know anything about those people.”

“That’s a shame. It’d be really interesting for my readers to know if one of Sylvie’s biological parents also had her gift.”

“All I know is that they died in a small plane crash,” Hana says, lips pursed as she slices broccoli lengthwise.

“Where was the crash?”

Hana touches her neck. “Someplace in Oregon.” She scrapes vegetables into a glass bowl then pours shiitake mushrooms from a paper bag onto the cutting board. The brown nubbins bounce along the scored wood. Using a damp towel, she carefully cleans them.

“Do you know the name of the town?” Sylvie asks.

I glance at her. Sylvie shrugs like she’s just being helpful.

“I don’t,” Hana tells her. “Neither does Wess. We never asked. When the foster care woman came up the driveway with you, we didn’t look back.”

She’s awfully quick to answer for her husband. “Huh. You mentioned foster care.”

Hana slices the mushrooms, skillfully flicks them into the bowl with the other vegetables. “What about it?”

“They don’t have much of a record from your daughter’s time with them.”

“They’re overwhelmed, I suppose, can’t be easy trying to find good homes for so many kids. A lot of them stay in the system until they age out at eighteen. They never have a family.” Hana glances at Sylvie to make sure her point landed.

“Loud and clear,” Sylvie says with a crooked smile.

I fight the urge to say something cutting to defend her. But this isn’t my fight and Sylvie isn’t my girlfriend. I’m here for the truth, no matter how ugly.

Pulling a twist of ginger from a silver colander, Hana uses her knife to separate the rough bark from the off-white flesh with short, violent strokes.

“You’d think there would be something,” I press. “At least the names of other families she was with before you.”

Hana’s head snaps up. Her eyes drill into Sylvie’s. “Do you recall other families?”

Sylvie shakes her head.

Hana glowers and says, “Then I guess once you left them, they didn’t matter to you anymore.”

SIXTEEN

Sylvie

Mom glares until I look away. You don’t have to be psychic to wonder if she just lied about my birth parents’ plane crash. Her body language—the neck touching, pursed lips . . . Hell, even Thomas, who I’m sure has spent the past year studying the tools of a psychic’s trade, must’ve registered it. But Hana Young has always been brutally honest, no matter the consequences. I recall her losing old friends over issues of morality, and she never spared my feelings when she lectured about doing the right thing. Thomas’s questions felt invasive, insulting, and her physical reactions were pure discomfort.

Mom dismisses us. “Get settled in your bedroom. Dinner will be in half an hour.”

Tires screech. She thinks we’re going to share a room.

“I wouldn’t want to be disrespectful,” Thomas smoothly says. He sweeps Chris, who has been winding around Moose’s legs, into his arms. “I can sleep in the guest room or on a couch.”