“What is it, Zadie? I know something’s up.”

Zadie paused, the bated breath before a cork is popped. “Why won’t you tell us what your gift is?”

“I just did,” Nora replied glibly.

Zadie’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not a kid. You can’t fool me.”

She was right. Her daughter was no fool. She was sharp and cunning and rigged with booby traps.

“We’ve been over this. I don’t have a gift.” It felt like the truth. At least, from what she could remember, and there was a lot about her life that she did not remember.

“How is that possible if both your daughters do?”

Nora sighed. “I don’t know, Zadie. I don’t know how it works. Either you can believe that I’m just a normal person, or you can believe that I have eyes in the back of my head. Your choice.”

Zadie held Nora’s gaze for a moment longer before abruptly standing up from the table. “I’m reading Finn her bedtime story, then I’m going to cut holes in all of your hats,” she said with an impish grin.

Zadie was probably just bluffing, but Nora decided it would be best to hide her favorite hats just in case. But first she drained the water from the sink, headed to the living room, and switched on the TV (Law & Order was starting in ten minutes). Then she climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

Only she never made it to the top.

“It’s what I deserve,’ said Magnus aloud.”

Zadie was sitting cross-legged on Finn’s bed, the chapter book they’d spent the last few weeks reading open on her lap. Finn lay beside her sister, a starburst of black curls splayed across her pillow, her blanket so tightly tucked that she looked like a butterfly in a polka-dot chrysalis. Zadie imagined her emerging from it in the morning with huge spotted pink wings.

“‘After all, had he not chosen this life?’” she continued softly. “‘Growing up, he had always been a boy with his head in the clouds, so it was only fitting that he should end up here, a mile above civilization, invisible to everyone and yet unable to hide from the one person he truly despised: himself.’”

Finn whimpered in sympathy. Zadie turned to her sister, surprised. “You feel sorry for him?”

“He’s all alone up there on that mountain. He has no friends.”

“Yeah. Because he betrayed all of them.”

Finn shrugged, loosening the blanket around her shoulders. “I still feel bad for him.”

Zadie was continually impressed by her sister’s capacity for empathy. Not even a murderous wizard was beyond absolution in her eyes. “That’s the end of the chapter. Do you want me to keep reading?”

“Nope,” Finn said, her p popping like a corn kernel. “I’m tired.”