He looked up, obviously startled to see her, and then gestured for her to come in. “Watch out for the glass,” he said with a cursory glance at her bare feet. Well, she assumed it was supposed to be a cursory glance, but then he noticed that the rest of her legs were bare too and he blinked. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

“Because it’s half past two in the morning?” Mika rolled her eyes. He, of course, was perfectly decent in a white T-shirt and grey sweatpants. “Before you call a priest to cleanse my soul, please do behold that my T-shirt is practically down to my knees.”

Reluctant amusement tugged up one corner of his mouth. “We’ll have to save the exorcism for another day, then.”

“A wise decision. I knew you could be sensible when you put your mind to it.” Winding a tendril of magic around her finger, Mika summoned all the tiny pieces of glass and collected them together in a neat, glittering ball that hovered in mid-air and sent reflected light dancing across the room. “Disco or bin?”

“I think you know I’m going to say bin,” he said, still sounding amused.

“It’s true, I would have keeled over dead if you’d agreed to a party. Into the bin it goes, then.” There was a rattan wastebasket in the corner of his bedroom, so she floated the pieces of glass into a sheet of loose paper and scrunched the paper securely around the glass. “So what happened?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I decided to try that time-honoured tradition of drinking myself into oblivion. Dropped the empty glass before I could even start.” He gestured to his desk, where a bottle of whisky and a second glass tumbler still sat.

Over the past couple of weeks, with Edward’s visit drawing nearer, Jamie, Ian, Ken, and Lucie had all, in their own ways, been showing signs of increasing nerves. Ken spent even more time in the garden; when he wasn’t flat-out avoiding her, Jamie was moodier than usual; Ian had been getting shrill; Lucie was constantly rushing around the house and keeping herself almost manically busy; and Mika had spotted all four of them in intense, whispered conversation on a few occasions. She had tried to assure them, repeatedly, that the girls were gaining more confidence and control by the day and she had the magic well in hand, but she supposed it was easier for her to say it than it was for them to trust in it.

Mika assumed now that this was at the root of Jamie’s insomnia, but she also suspected he wouldn’t want to talk about it (not to her, anyway), so she kept her mouth shut.