“Well, you don’t particularly like me,” Mika reminded him reasonably. “As such, guilt seems like the likeliest explanation for your concern. Why? Am I wrong? Oh!” Face-palming as realisation struck, she laughed. “Of course! You’re afraid that if something happens to me, I won’t be here for Edward’s visit. No, honestly, I’ll be fine. I’ll be here.”

He seemed to be at a loss for words. The incredulous expression on his face had turned into something she couldn’t decipher.

“Are you okay?”

“Hasn’t anyone ever been worried about you just because?” Jamie asked, his voice low and rough. “Because, to be perfectly honest, this conversation suggests no one’s ever cared about you.”

Mika’s smile vanished. “I’ve told you about the way I grew up,” she said tightly. “Do I really have to explain it again?”

“No,” came the gravely quiet reply. “I think I get it.”

“Okay. So I’ll see Primrose tomorrow, then, and I’ll let you know how it goes when I get back.”

“Okay,” he said, and that was that.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mika picked a café in a formidably posh hotel in Cambridge, the kind of place that met Primrose’s exacting and snobbish standards, and, when it was time to leave the following afternoon, used the Broomstick’s speed spell to get her there in fifteen minutes.

She regretted the folly of this as soon as she stumbled out of the Broomstick on wobbly legs, feeling nauseated, exhausted, and entirely too weak to put on a convincing show. The Disaster had fucked her up in a big way, casting and maintaining a powerful spell for several minutes had done her no favours, and, much as she hated to admit it, Jamie had probably been right to tell her it was too soon for her to be gallivanting about the country.

But she was here now, and she had to get her mask firmly in place. She glanced at her watch. Two-fifty-five. She took a few deep breaths of damp, cold, clean air (well, clean-ish, considering she was in a hotel’s carpark), then ducked back into her car to reapply her eyeliner, dust her face with setting powder, twist her hair up into an approximation of elegance, and text Ian to let him know she’d got here safe and sound. (She didn’t bother texting anyone else because she had no doubt Ian would tell them himself. He was probably already shouting at Lucie across the house and texting Jamie and Ken, who had gone out earlier in the day.)