“People will notice if I keep missing work. I already had to take a stress pass for yesterday.”

“I see.” But she didn’t move.

Annoyed as I was, I couldn’t help but wonder at her reluctance. I had expected her to be irritated, and instead she seemed alarmed.

“It won’t take long,” I said.

She wavered, unhappy, then nodded.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Osan brought you here? I would have expected more discretion from him.” She stepped backwards to open the door wider. “Come in.”

The entranceway smelled of beeswax polish and sandalwood. Small details drew my attention: fresh flowers in a glass vase, books arranged by colour on the shelf, hand-painted bookends in the shape of stretching cats. Pretty, homely things. Things I wasn’t supposed to see. Somewhere in the house, I heard a door close.

Rhyanon’s jaw was clenched. She watched me out the corner of her eye.

“Let’s talk in my study,” she said.

“Mom?”

A scrawny, straw-haired girl, ten or eleven years old, hung in the doorway to the kitchen. She chewed on the end of her ponytail.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Everything is fine, darling.” Rhyanon’s shoulders were tense. “This is Elfreda; she’s a friend of mine. Elfreda, this is—”

“Jaylen,” I blurted out as her daughter’s name finally came back to me.

The girl regarded me with large moss-green eyes. She had a turned-up nose, and a sharp chin. Unfriendly, unsmiling, steady in her gaze.

Rhyanon interrupted our staring match. “Yes, that’s right. Jay, I need to have a quick conversation with Elfreda, and then we can finish the costume. Can you go to your room until then?”

She nodded slowly. “Are you sure everything is fine?”

“Absolutely. Off you go.”

Rhyanon’s study was a mess. Papers were strewn across her desk and stacked in dog-eared heaps. Mostly financial statements and records of transactions, all bearing the stamp of the Department of Civil Obligations.

She closed the door behind me. “Take a seat.”

“Thanks.” I cleared a pile of folders off her spare chair and set them on the ground. “Costume?”

“For Moon Tide,” she said shortly. She drew her floral curtains across the street-facing window.

“Oh, of course.” I found it difficult to imagine Rhyanon sewing. Difficult, and faintly amusing. “You’ve probably forgotten, but I was at her name-giving.”

She paused, still holding the edge of the curtain. “You were?”

“You gave me sweets.”

Her brow furrowed.

“I remember Kirane being there,” she said. “She was the only person who didn’t congratulate me.”

Hearing her say my mother’s name gave me an odd, out-of-place feeling. I gestured apology. “She could be thoughtless.”

“I believe it was the opposite, actually.” Rhyanon shook her head. “So you saw my public meltdown?”

“I wouldn’t call it a meltdown.”

“Everyone else did.” She snorted. “Horrendously embarrassing. For years, I was a joke in Civil Obligations. The incident cost me a promotion, you know. Not to mention I got sent to the Sanatorium for a month.”