Ouch. Mika felt Jamie go very still beside her. Even Ian had been silenced.

Rosetta looked around at them. Her cheeks flushed guiltily, but she held her ground. “We talk about it, Terracotta, Altamira, and I,” she said. “I know Lillian’s given us a lot and she’s always been nice to us, but it kind of feels like she thinks of us as stray puppies she picked up from the shelter rather than as actual people. If she cared about any of us as much as she cares about whatever point she was trying to make when she took us in, she’d have stuck around more. Mika’s taught us more in a week than Lillian has in all the time we’ve known her.”

“It’s okay to feel that way,” Jamie said, his voice low. “She does care, in her own way, but her way is . . .”

“Not right for us,” Ian finished for him, which was a more polite assessment than Mika had expected from him. “Let’s just get it out there: she has done a lot of good, and she has enjoyed the warm fuzzies of doing a lot of good, and she has also stuck around for absolutely none of the real work.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Mika saw that Jamie’s jaw was tight and he was clearly conflicted, but he didn’t contradict Ian.

“I don’t pretend to know much about people,” she offered, fixing her eyes on the road ahead, “but one thing I’ve noticed over the years is that some people are nice and some people are kind. Lillian sounds like she’s more nice than she is kind. Does that make sense? Niceness is good manners, and stopping to give someone directions, and smiling at the overworked cashier at the supermarket. These are all good things, but they have nothing to do with what’s underneath. Niceness is all about what we do when other people are looking. Kindness, on the other hand, runs deep. Kindness is what happens when no one’s looking.”

“You know, my dear,” said Ian, sounding much struck, “I do believe you’re right.”

Mika cut Jamie a look. “You, for example, are not nice.”

He made a sound that could have been a laugh. “Thanks?”

“Meanwhile, Ken is both nice and kind.”

Rosetta and Ian nodded vigorously at this. “It’s true,” said Ian. “The man has no flaws! Not one! That is, apart from his refusal to partake in my many madcap schemes.”

“That’s not a flaw,” said Jamie wryly. “That’s having a spine, and a whole lot more common sense than you do.”

Mika laughed. “See? Not nice at all.”

“Did you see that?” Rosetta interrupted, bolting ramrod straight. “That sign back there? We’re close!”