“Because he let me wear it last night when I got very cold,” Mika said in what she hoped was an entirely unconcerned tone of voice. “Now move it, buttercup, or I might get so hungry I’ll have to make do with nibbling on you.”

“Don’t you want to get dressed?”

“Are you sure you’re eight years old?” Mika demanded. “Not, perhaps, eighty? Or eight hundred? No one is going to faint at the sight of a pair of bare legs, I promise you.”

“I thought you might get cold,” Terracotta replied, giving her an odd look. “Why would bare legs make anyone faint?”

“Never mind.”

They traipsed downstairs together, Mika knuckling sleep crust out of her eyes while the girls showed her the progress they’d made on their spellwork. Rosetta could now make her jointed wooden doll tap-dance on her palm, while Terracotta and Altamira had joined forces to animate a handful of origami paper swans. Mika was terribly impressed and terribly proud of all of them.

Surrounded by a flock of merry paper swans fluttering around their heads, they joined the others in the kitchen. Ian was crouched in front of the oven, his back to them, but Jamie looked up as they came in. His dark eyes snapped quickly to Mika’s, then snapped just as quickly away.

Ken stood at the table, filling up glasses with apple juice he and the girls had made themselves, and Lucie came directly over to get a good look at Mika.

“Well, you’re not feverish,” said Lucie, her cheeks rounding in a relieved smile. “You’re still a bit pale, but that’s probably because you haven’t eaten anything since Ian’s cookies last night. How do you feel?”

“Almost human,” Mika said cheerfully. She didn’t care one bit that she was a fully grown adult. She’d happily sink into Lucie’s embrace and be fussed over any day.

“It sounds like you were in a bad way yesterday. Do you remember much?”

Lucie’s eyes were completely guileless, the question utterly innocent, but Mika’s cheeks went hot and she forced herself not to shoot a look over at Jamie as she said, “I remember all of it.”

I remember being so delirious I forgot that restraint exists. I remember asking Jamie to kiss me and being very soundly rejected. What I don’t remember is him suffering from any such delirium, which makes me tragically certain that he remembers all of it, too.

She did not, of course, say any of this.

Instead, she went over to Ken and gave him an impulsive hug. “Thank you for yesterday.”

“It was no trouble at all,” Ken said softly, his arms tightening around her. His warm brown eyes crinkled in a smile.

Altamira peered up at them with something like concern. “Why are you hugging? Is someone sad?”

“The opposite, actually,” Mika explained. “Ken was very kind to me yesterday.”