“Mrs. Hudson?” Talia said faintly. She mustered up a smile. “I’m happy to see you so settled.”
Wow. We were really digging into the fantasy version of my life. I didn’t have the energy to tell her the dog was temporary. “Yup. Settled. That’s me. About breakfast—”
“Just a quick bite.” She smiled politely at the dog. “We can go somewhere with a patio so the puppy can come.”
Shoot me. She was being inclusive of the dog. Priya raised her eyebrows at me, like “You have to go,” and I rolled my eyes back in a “No kidding.”
“Great,” I said. “Let me get my stuff.”
Priya and Mrs. Hudson stayed with Talia, chatting, while I shoved doggy supplies into a backpack and grabbed my purse and leather jacket.
Breakfast happened on a heated patio at an upscale restaurant where Talia breezed us past the line-up. A server was instantly at our table to take our order: an egg-white veggie omelet for my mother and waffles with extra whipped cream for me. Then the two of us engaged in stilted conversation like minor skirmishes: me spinning lies about how fascinating insurance fraud was and my mother giving updates on the bill she’d written to dissolve House Pacifica here in British Columbia and put Nefesh governance back into Mundane hands.
That policy had worked brilliantly before Houses were created—so long as you didn’t mind pesky things like witch hunts.
It was already April and the provincial Parliament would end in late May. There wasn’t enough time to get the proposal into shape for this spring session, so the Untainted Party was gearing up for when Parliament returned in the fall. The bill would have its first reading in the legislature, with printed copies distributed to all parties. At that point, it would go to a second reading, where the proposal would be debated and a vote taken. Based on those results, it would proceed to the committee stage or die. If it continued, successful, it would go through more debates and a third reading. The last step was to achieve Royal Assent from our Lieutenant Governor, who represented the Queen’s official approval since we were a Commonwealth country. From there, the bill would pass into law.
Meantime, my mother and her cronies were getting the legislation word-perfect and feverishly making backroom deals to secure support across party lines. Support on an oppositional front would be Levi’s main priority right now as well.
It was hard to tell if Talia was honestly trying to connect with me or offering a warning to keep up my charade. I kept a bland smile on my face, but inside I seethed. How could she still be going ahead with this when she knew I had magic too?
“Our momentum on this issue is very exciting,” Talia said. And she did sound excited, like she used to get when she was helping me put jigsaw pieces together as a kid and she could see the whole thing coming together. Not like it was for something that would actively harm me.
The waffles turned to cardboard in my mouth and I dropped my fork. “Could we not discuss this anymore?”
She flinched, almost imperceptibly, but I caught it. I’d spent a lot of time in my teens deconstructing her every minute reaction. “The Party has always wanted this.” Her look was almost beseeching. “It just happened at an… unfortunate time.”
Unfortunate, as in her daughter went and landed herself with magic, but so long as I kept it hidden all would be well? Did Talia assume I’d value my own self-preservation over loyalty to fellow Nefesh, seeing as how recently I’d become one of them? I pushed my last piece of waffle around in the puddle of syrup. To be fair, I’d never been much of a joiner.
I wiped my mouth. “I need to get to work. My Mundane job. So Mundane.”
Her eyes flashed, but before she could answer, a cheerful voice boomed out, “Good morning, ladies.”
It was Isaac Montefiore, Levi’s father. The man who’d physically abused his son as a child and now was publicly backing the Untainted Party’s bill, despite the fact that this legislation threatened to destroy everything his son fought to protect.
Levi had inherited his father’s black hair, though Isaac’s was shot through with gray, and those blue eyes. On Levi, they were as dazzling as the ocean when he smiled. On Isaac they were flat and calculating.
Mrs. Hudson growled at him. I scratched her ears, reinforcing that behavior.
Isaac and Talia greeted each other warmly and then he turned to me with a hearty handshake. “Ashira.” He rolled the “r” in my name with his Italian accent.
Levi had the same accent since he’d been born in Rome, but it only ever came out when he lost control. I thought fondly of all the ways I’d ever made him lose said control and allowed Isaac’s small talk BS to wash over me.
Until he said, “I understand you’ve been visiting my son a lot at work.”
You Nefesh-hating fucker. I wouldn’t put it past him to have a mole at Levi’s office feeding information to Isaac that would at best discredit the House, and at worst help this horrible bill become law.
My mother shot me a sharp look. “It’s nice that those two have grown close.”
I almost snorted, because her tone made it clear that a boric acid enema would also be nice. To Talia, Levi was the enemy, so to have me fraternizing with him was a potential minefield. “My best friend started working for them on an IT project. I go to visit her.”
Talia gave a shaky laugh. “Priya. Of course.”
Isaac smirked. “My son’s loss.”
My father had worked for Isaac when I was younger and I’d bet he knew where all of Isaac’s skeletons were buried. Sadly, Adam wasn’t around, and Isaac would be no help in learning what had happened to Dad, since any business dealings they’d had had ended a couple years before my father left.
“I doubt Levi is too
