“I turned nineteen in February.” I eye the mug again and picture shattering it. Would the shards go everywhere or would it be a neat break?

“That can’t be right.” He looks genuinely baffled, staring at me with a slightly bewildered smile.

“I’m fairly certain I’m right.”

“Well, I guess you would know.”

“My own age? I— yes, I would.”

He settles back in his chair and takes a sip of tea from another mug. There are so many stupid, discarded mugs in this room. He can’t remember to put away his dishes the same way he can’t remember to take care of the children he fathered. “So, what brings you here, across the world to see me?”

He’s speaking to me like we’re old friends, like I’ve known where he was all the time. “You don’t seem surprised.”

He shakes his head. “No, no. I’ve learned not to be surprised. I’ve always hoped you would come visit.” There’s something sad in the way he says it.

The tenuous control I have over my facial expressions breaks. “You never told us where you were,” I say sharply.

He scrunches his face up. “Surely, I did. I meant to. Your mother, she knew. That’s for certain.” He may be telling the truth. But I have no interest in talking about my mother.

“So, this is what you’ve been doing all this time? This is why you—” I want to say abandoned us, left me behind. But I didn’t come here to fight with him. I’ll never get what I want from him if I let my rage win. “This is why you left New York?”

“Oh, not the entire time. I’ve been doing a little of this, a little of that. You know how it goes.”

“No, actually. I don’t.”

“I’m an academic. A magical researcher. I’m sure your mother told you.” He waves his hand like he’s annoyed he’s being forced to tell me something I should already know.

“She didn’t. I’d like to hear it from you, the whole story, if you’d be so kind.”

For months I’ve been searching for answers as to why my magic is behaving strangely. None of my classmates have been affected by this strange shift. Lena and Maxine are as powerful as ever, as are Sara, Cora, Alicia, and the rest.

My mother, even now that she lives at Haxahaven, still all but refuses to do magic. Her power comes in the form of small object manipulation, never anything more than scooting a butter dish across a dining room table.

We’re different in so many ways, my mother and me. Magic is the love of my life. In her mind, magic ruined hers.

I had only two people left whose power was connected to mine who I could seek for answers.