Mika would have liked to tell Primrose that that man had no power over her at all anymore, but that would put rather a big hole in her carefully constructed lie. She swallowed another mouthful of scone. “I expected you to be more judgy.”

“You know my views,” said Primrose primly. “As a child, I instructed your nannies and tutors very specifically not to tell you what to drink, what to eat, and what to wear. That is because I believe what you put in your body is your business, and that,” she added, raising her teacup to her lips, “includes penises.”

Mika almost dropped her own teacup, betrayed into a fit of schoolgirlish giggles.

Primrose eyed her askance. “You’re thirty-one, Mika. Do try to act like it. And if you would care for my opinion, perhaps you might choose a worthier penis next time.”

Mika did not at all like the fact that a certain scowly someone came immediately to mind.

“Damn it, Primrose,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Mika said too quickly, then backtracked, seizing on the first thing she could think of that had nothing whatsoever to do with Jamie Kelly. “I just asked if you ever knew a witch with the last name Hawthorn?”

“Minerva Hawthorn?” Primrose said, pausing to signal imperiously for another pot of tea. “Of course I knew her. Lovely woman. She contracted a particular aggressive form of cancer about thirty years ago. She had a child,” Primrose added, stirring the dregs of her tea with a faraway look on her face. “A little boy. I met him once. I wonder what became of him.”

Mika kept her face studiously blank.

“How do you know about Minerva Hawthorn?” Primrose asked, those sharp eyes skewering Mika in place.

Mika took a chance on the fact that the second-oldest witch in the Society might also have known Ian’s mother. “Oh, Agatha mentioned her, but you know what Agatha’s like. Most of the stuff she says is only half-remembered.” And then, suffering only the smallest qualm of guilt for throwing Agatha under the bus, she added: “She also told me why we’re all orphaned.”

It was a shameless attempt to find out more about their history. Primrose had only ever referred in the loosest terms to a spell that once went wrong, and according to the girls, Lillian had done much the same.

Primrose looked unimpressed. “You know why we’re orphaned. The spell.”

“Yes,” Mika said, irked. “So you’ve always said. Agatha, on the other hand, told me a little more. At our last meeting, while the rest of you were talking about Zuzanna’s peonies.” She thought fast, sent a silent apology Agatha’s way, and fibbed: “She said the Witchfinder General cursed us.”