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“Let me make you some tea, at least.“ She places her book on the side-table and is already getting up.

She’s changed out of her usual elegant dress into an elegant silk robe, her bare feet delicate on the parquet floor. I’d half expected her to still be wearing heels.

I look around the room while she’s gone. One of the walls is taken up by ceiling-high windows and a pair of sliding doors leading out into a small conservatory, which has been stuffed to the brim with potplants. A large ginger tomcat lies curled up on a rusty chair and stares in at me spitefully. The garden beyond looks a little overgrown, though it’s hard to tell from the bare winter branches.

The opposite wall is covered floor to ceiling in shelves, though there are less books here. Rather, the shelf is filled with paintings, vases, bizarre little dancing sculptures that walk the line between cool and creepy, and a record player which is the source of the music. I pull my legs up onto the chair and place my chin on my knees. I would turn the figurines around so it doesn’t feel like they’re staring at me but otherwise, I wouldsolive here. Maybe I should become a hot crime lord –of course,I ammend in my thoughts,I don’t think Celeste is hot. ButIwould be.

She returns not with a simple cup of tea but with a tray – teapot, milk, sugar, fancy little spoons, the whole nine yards. After placing it on the coffee table between us, she returns to her seat.

“It’s honeysuckle, you’ll like it.”

“Thanks,” I say, though I notice she didn’t let me chose which tea she actually made.

She smiles and takes a sip of her wine, picking up her book from where she left it. I pour myself a cup of tea, including spilling some, and then promptly burn my mouth on it. Though I suppose we don’t have much to talk about, I still feel awkward as she begins reading again. The silence makes me feel like someone has sucked all the air out of the room, even though Celeste seems completely unbothered by it.

I take out my phone and check my texts. Mav wrote, “Are you coming home tonight? Do I need to be worried?”

“Staying at a friend’s house,” I lie, then delete the words and write, “Got a work thing,” just to then also delete those words. Finally, I retype the first message and send it.

Mav replies immediately. “But I’m your only friend??”

I suppress a smile and put my phone away. The cat in the conservatory has gotten up and positioned itself before the sliding door. It blinks at me with big, yellow eyes.

“I think your cat wants to come in.”

Celeste looks up and throws a narrow glance out of the window. “He’s not my cat and he knows that. Besides, he leaves hair everywhere.”

“Whose cat is he?”

She shrugs. “Not mine,” she repeats.

“He’s probably a stray. He doesn’t have a collar.”

Celeste gestures at me while returning her gaze to her book. “I have a one-stray-a-night policy. He’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

The cat looks grumpy, although no more than he has been the whole time. ‘Sorry,’ I mouth at him and return to my tea. Celeste turns the page, eyes scanning from side to side.

“Can I ask you something?”

She briefly closes her eyes, letting out a long, deep sigh and shuts the cover of her book. “I can’t stop you, can I?”

I squirm. “Uh…”

She holds my gaze, her head slightly tilted, until I can finally get the words out.

“That time at the club, you said… you said those guys would remember it as the best night of their lives.”

She nods slowly. “Yes?”

I bite the nail of my thumb. “Did youcreatethose memories?”

“Oh, no.” She shakes her head. “That would be impossible.”

“Then what do they remember?”

“They should remember nothing real from the moment I entered the room. I used monkshood and vervain to cause a sort of… ecstatic waking dream. I saw them taking some kind of pill before going in, I thought they’d probably think they got too high to remember the details and fill the rest with their imagination.”

Struggling to make sense of that with the comments I’ve received from Alastor, usually praising my hard work while grabbing my ass, I keep chewing on my nails.