“No,” she said after a moment. “They didn’t know. Not to start with. When I was very young, I lost control of my power just like you do, so they always found out sooner or later. Primrose would replace them as soon as they saw anything they weren’t supposed to.”

“But didn’t they ever tell people what they saw?” Altamira asked, wide-eyed.

Mika shook her head. “Primrose took away their memories when they left. It’s a very powerful and difficult spell, one she’s never shared with the rest of us.”

What she didn’t say was that Primrose had not just taken away the nannies’ memories of magic. She’d taken away their memories of Mika. She had seamlessly replaced every memory of Mika with false memories of another, perfectly normal girl. “Better they move on to their next position with nothing about you in their heads, poppet,” Primrose had said when Mika had protested. “Better safe than sorry.”

And so all those nannies had gone on with their lives and none of them, not one, remembered a little girl named Mika Moon.

Mika could feel that Jamie’s eyes were still on her, but she didn’t dare look up at him. She conjured a smile. “It’s probably for the best that the rest of us don’t know how to mess about with memories anyway,” she said to the girls. “I don’t know about you, but the idea of breaking into someone’s mind and stealing away their memories feels a bit icky to me.”

Terracotta did not look convinced. “Sometimes you have to do icky things to protect the people you care about,” she said, arms crossed tightly over her chest. “It sounds like Primrose understands that even if you don’t.”

Rosetta blushed a deep red, obviously embarrassed, but Mika smiled at her. “It’s okay. I don’t mind you saying stuff you think I might not like. I’d rather you did that than lied to me.”

“Ken says lies are okay if you’re saying them to be kind,” said Altamira.

“Those are called white lies and, yes, I suppose Ken’s right. If you have to choose between being kind or being truthful, it’s usually better to be kind. That said,” she added firmly, “I think I would prefer the truth from the three of you.”

Goodness, this lesson had gotten way too existential. Maybe a small explosion would be a good diversion?

Then, with the blessedly short attention span of a child, Altamira interrupted Mika’s decidedly irresponsible plans.

“Do the fish have names?” she asked, lying on her belly with her chin propped on one of the smooth stones of the pond. One little hand trailed in the cold water, waiting for the koi to come give her a friendly nibble.