Another time, he decided to be irksomely observant and came upstairs with a bottle of pink gin instead of the whisky. Then, while she used her mortar and pestle to grind dried lavender flowers, he scratched Circe’s head and said, “How come she doesn’t shed anymore? There used to be a lot of golden hairs all over the place when you first arrived.”

“Oh, I spell it away.”

“Sorry?”

“Her loose fur,” Mika explained, examining the lavender with a critical eye. “I use a spell to get rid of it twice a day. That’s why nothing rubs off on the furniture or carpets anymore.”

He stared at her. “But you didn’t used to do that.”

“I’ve always groomed her once a week, so I didn’t need to. Anything she shed in between just got hoovered up whenever I cleaned.”

“So why are you spelling it away now?”

Mika glanced up, irked. “It’s pet hair, not a diamond heist. What’s with the inquisition?”

“Curiosity. You seem weirdly reluctant to answer the question.”

Great. Now she was going to have to tell him. She pretended the lavender needed more grinding and watched it with the attention one might give a ticking nuclear device. “It bothered you, didn’t it?” she said. “The hair? Just like disordered books and chewed pencils and ink stains bother you? Well, I’m a guest in your home. Not making your home uncomfortable for you seems like the least I can do.”

He didn’t seem to know what to say. Mika decided the lavender flowers would be useless if she kept hammering away at them. She emptied the contents of the mortar into her cauldron, then set a witchfire underneath to extract the essence from the flowers.

By the time she was done, Jamie seemed to have rediscovered his powers of speech. “You don’t have to do that. I didn’t know you’d noticed.”

“It’s fine. Circe enjoys the spell.”

Another pause, and then: “You’re not a guest.”

Once, after a number of these late nights, they talked about what kind of future witches could expect. “A lot can happen in ten years,” Mika said, in response to his wondering what might be different in five, ten, or fifteen years. “I honestly have no idea what’s in store for us or what the world will be like by the time the girls are grown. But there’s every reason to hope that they’ll be able to have almost any life they choose.”

“Is yours the life you chose?”