By the time the tea was done, she felt like her calmest, coldest mask was in place. She took the cups out to the front room.

“The girls miss you,” Jamie said quietly. “We all miss you.”

“Did you tell the girls why I left?”

“We told them everything. They’re furious with us.” He smiled faintly. “Not for lying about Lillian. For taking you away from them.”

Mika swallowed. She returned to her spot on the sofa, holding her hot, comforting teacup close. “Why are you here, Jamie?”

“I’m leaving a window open.”

“Am I supposed to understand what that means?”

He sat down on the opposite end of the sofa, giving her space. He didn’t look at her, staring instead at the cup of tea in his hands. “It means we know we fucked up. We know why you might leave for good. But we wanted you to know that we want you to stay. Not just for now. Always. So we’re leaving a window open so that, if you ever want to come home, you’ll know you’ll always be wanted.”

God, he’d only been here ten minutes and she was already about to fall apart. She swallowed, the lump in her throat almost too painful to bear. “The thing is, it would be so easy to forget the lies and the tricks,” she said. “Because I know why you did it. You did it for those three children and for the weird, wonderful family you’ve made together, and that’s something I understand. You didn’t want a spell to break an ATM. You wanted me to help you save your family. I can forgive that. I have forgiven that.”

She stopped, her breath shuddering out of her. He waited, knowing she wasn’t finished.

“The part I’m struggling with,” Mika said, “is the fact that I can never know how much of it was real.”

He put his cup down with a thump and turned to face her dead on, his brows knitted. “It was all real. Mika. Look at me. The only thing we lied to you about was why we needed your help. Everything else, everything, was real. Is real. The way we feel about you is real.”

A wayward tear escaped, and she dashed it off her cheek. “No, I don’t believe that. If you really knew me, if you really trusted me, you would have told me the truth a whole lot sooner. But you didn’t. You thought I’d tell the other witches!” Her voice throbbed with anger. “Why would you think that? I didn’t tell them the girls existed! Why would I tell them this?”

“Because of the wards,” Jamie said hoarsely, and understanding struck her like a blow to the chest.

“The day we took Rosetta into the city . . .”