She blinked quickly and swiped an unsteady hand across her eyes. Jamie was furious to discover that, after days of wishing Mika’s sunshine good humour into oblivion, it turned out he did not like the total absence of it.

“Yes,” she admitted, addressing his shoes. “They always knew I was different. It took me years to work out how to behave like I was expected to.”

His voice was shot through with anger again, but this time it wasn’t directed at her. “You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

She turned to go. Circe followed her.

At the door, Mika paused to look back at him. Her gaze was steady as she said, “If the girls want lives outside of this house, they’ll have to learn to fit in, too. I wish they didn’t, but the world isn’t as kind as we’d all like it to be.”

“It could be,” he said, and couldn’t quite believe those words had come out of his mouth. When had he become the optimist?

Mika smiled then. “Maybe.”

CHAPTER TEN

Where’s your family?”

Mika glanced up at Altamira, sitting on the other side of the cauldron between them. She’d been lucky, she supposed, that it had taken a whole week for someone to ask that question. Given she’d already had to field questions like, “Do witches’ reproductive organs work the same way as other people’s?” (Rosetta), “Why do some people call a penis a willy?” (Altamira), and “Would you prefer poison or decapitation?” (Terracotta), this should not have been the question that threw her.

“Keep stirring,” Mika reminded Altamira, partly because the mixture in the cauldron did need stirring and partly to buy herself a few more seconds.

“You didn’t answer the question,” said Altamira, who felt it was her duty to point out any failings in others.

Mika added a drop of lavender essence to the cauldron. “I don’t have any family,” she said. Amazing that she could be so used to that fact and yet find it so hard to say out loud every single time. “I grew up in Primrose’s house, remember? My mother and grandmother were both witches, so I was pretty much on my own from the start.”

“If you never knew your family, how do you know your mum and grandma were witches?” Altamira pointed out reasonably.

“Primrose told me, and I have no reason not to believe her.”

“And the reason all our parents died when we were little is because of the spell that went wrong?”