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Montrose, always careful with his words, couldn’t hide his concern. “I don’t trust what the thieves might do next.”

“Come stay with me,” Grace offered. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I won’t be alone,” Fia said stubbornly.

Grace gave her an annoyed frown. “Finnick doesn’t count.”

“I’m not bringing you into this mess.” Fia spoke firmly, and for once, Grace didn’t push the way she normally did.

Instead, she countered with a grin. “Then ask the Madbury to stay.”

Ask the Madbury to stay.

The words rang in Fia’s head the rest of the night, but of course, she wasn’t going to do any such thing. She would be fine alone, just as she always was. Because really, even when her mother had been there, they’d floated around each other—Fia drifting into whatever room her mother was in, her mother drifting out, a hand running lovingly through Fia’s hair as she passed.

“It’s just been a long day,” her mother would say, pausing in the doorway.

And Fia would scramble for words to draw her mother back. “I thought we could—”

“Oh, Fia, I’m all talked out.” Sable’s words used up by her customers, with none left for Fia.

“We could just sit together? And read or something.” She would have accepted the quiet, if only to have her mother near. “I won’t say anything.”

“You silly girl.” And her mother would laugh, not cruelly but carelessly, sometimes returning, sometimes leaving Fia in the parlor alone.

Now, as the night went on, the shop emptied bit by bit until finally Fia stood in the doorway of Sable Spells, seeing off the last two patrons. Reluctant to leave, the sisters kept looking over her shoulder, hoping for a final glimpse of Penbrook Madbury.

“Thank him again, will you? From Morella…”

“And Katrine Sinclair.”

“Yes, I’ll tell him,” Fia said, even as their offered names slipped from her mind. She was simply too tired to hold on to them.

“Good night, Mr. Madbury!” the younger of the sisters called, and in farewell, she lifted her hand—bedecked with an illusioned moonstone ring.

Soft as smoke his voice carried out from the warmth of the shop, bidding them “Good evening, and pleasant dreams.”

Laughing in delight, the siblings finally went on their way down Carrow Lane, with all its shuttered storefronts that had closed at a more reasonable hour. Their figures grew smaller and smaller beneath the hazy lamplight, and then they were gone.

Fia let out a long sigh, taking in the chill of the night, and the quiet, before going back inside. She locked the front door as the clock above the counter struck eleven. It was even later than she’d realized, well past the time she normally closed up.

“What a wild day,” she murmured as the golden butterfly swept up from her hair, circled once, then settled again in the strands. She hated to think of how it would be gone in five to seven days, wisping away as if it had never been here at all.

And Penbrook—though he was flesh and blood and not an illusion, Fia had to remember that he was only here temporarily too.

In the same manner she’d found him in the bookshelves earlier, he was now slouched against a cabinet of potions, arms crossed, eyes half closed, dark hair disheveled. But… it wasn’t really messy so much as it was annoyingly charming. He was practically falling asleep on his feet, and she felt a twinge of guilt that she’d let him carry on for so long.

“Mr. Madbury—”

“Penn,” he said, lifting his gaze. Intentionally or not, he’d allowed the curtain to drop from his face, and he looked less like some peerless magician and more like a boy who’d overworked his magic.

She played with the sleeve of her sweater, treading carefully. Not wanting to say anything that might close him off again. Gently, she asked, “Where did you say you’re staying?”

“Did I ever say?” He frowned, like he couldn’t quite grasp his memories.

“Maybe not.” She really hadn’t asked him that many questions—not that first day and not since. Certainly not as many as she should have. Like why he had to come all the way to Trivoris from Fantillian. There must have been plenty of shops closer to his home where he could take up a position like this one to provoke his father. “So where, then?”

“The Gilded Gargoyle.”