I spent two hours brooding. After letting myself have that time, I admitted I was being stupid. My husband and my sister hadn’t done anything I wouldn’t have done, if I’d been able. Their only (very big) mistake was not telling me about it right away. I actually was pouting, as Eli had said.

Time to be a better person.

When we were alone in the car on our way to the afternoon party we’d been invited to—well, Felicia had been invited, and “with escort” had been added at the bottom—I told them I was sorry for overreacting. The words were bitter in my mouth.

“It’s okay,” Felicia said, before I’d even finished. “I understand.”

Eli nodded. “Me too. We should have told you right away.”

“The whole thing made me sick,” Felicia confessed. “Irina begged and begged. Not for herself, but for Paul.”

Ugh. “Was Paul sorry, even a little bit?” I know, it was dumb to ask.

“He was only sorry we took the money from them. That was his future, he kept saying. Until he knew he didn’t have one.”

“What did you do with it?”

“The money? We gave it to the fund for indigent grigoris,” Eli told me.

“There are indigent grigoris?”

“Not many, but some. We have a building for them, small apartments but nice. Their food is served to them in a dining room in the building, and one of the nursing grigoris checks on them every day.”

That sounded pretty good to me. Gunnies had no such organization. Of course, most gunnies didn’t live to get old. I thought maybe that was one of the reasons I hadn’t kept up with what was happening in the world. I had never expected to live long enough for it to matter to me.

I fell to imagining old grigoris who didn’t even remember what the herbs in their vests were for, what damage they could cause.

Working in the home for indigent grigoris would be hazardous.

The nursing grigoris truly earned their wages.

It was something to think about, besides my own ignorance, and why my husband and sister had chosen to keep the deaths of Irina and Paul from me… as if I would mind that they were dead.

Felicia’s party that afternoon was a games party, grigori style.

It had been well organized by the Swedish group.

A small city park had been reserved for two hours (don’t ask me how they swung that).

Of Felicia’s friends, only Anna had been invited, and Anna was only a sort-of friend.

There were forty Listed there, twenty girls and twenty boys, most of them on the cusp between youth and adult.

Hormones and power pulsed through the air like dandelion fluff in the wind.

“I’m glad to be a bystander on this one,” I muttered to Eli.

He nodded. “Keep an eye on that Greek boy; he means mischief.” Eli was relieved I was talking to him like everything was okay between us.

“Got it.” Linus, the Greek boy, whom I’d seen at other gatherings, looked a little like a bull.

Linus’s face was broad and his eyes small; his brown hair was curly and thick, and he was muscular.

He also had a very broad sense of humor and could make fart noises with his hands.

The younger girls made big eyes at him, and that made him behave even more outrageously.

Anna in particular was openly admiring. Linus must have money, or maybe Anna had a hankering to live in Greece.

When the Listeds were paired up in teams, Anna and Linus were together. She did a decent job of not smiling too happily.

Jason Featherstone and his mother, Penny, had been invited. Jason was glad to see Felicia, who had been so nice to him and introduced him to Fenolla Gregory.

Felicia had told me Jason and Fenolla really liked each other. Since Fenolla had not been invited to this party, Felicia was a safe partner. Felicia and Jason smiled when they were paired.

The oldest Swedish man, in his forties, stood in front of the teams to explain the rules. They were simple. No sabotage by magic or by human means, and if he blew his whistle, everyone stopped where they were.

“Do you all agree?” he called. He looked from Listed to Listed.

“We agree,” they said, every one of them.

There were German and Japanese Listeds mixed in with the others.

Eli was keeping a close eye on them. Today they might be simply carefree young people like the other guests, but they might not.

The haughty young woman who’d approached Felicia in the Japanese Friendship Garden was there.

Her partner was an Italian about the same age.

The “games” were not hard. There was a sack race, with each of the two Listeds having one leg in the sack, so they had to hop together to the finish line. There was lots of squealing and yelling and general enjoyment. A Norwegian team won. They each got silly crowns to wear. Much laughter followed.

Some folding chairs had been provided for the “escorts.” Neither Eli nor I sat down. There was too much going on. So far, this party looked like youthful silliness, but after the past few days we weren’t taking chances.

The contests went well, for a while. I was almost ready to relax. The Listeds were blowing off steam, out in the open, dressed in everyday clothing. Felicia’s hair came down and she didn’t seem to mind. Everyone had followed the rules so far. It was all smooth until the obstacle course.

There was a net of ropes knee high to get through, then a wall about chest high to climb over—the idea being the boys would help the girls and then scramble over themselves, since of course girls would not know how to do that—and then another wall probably three feet tall and five inches wide at the top.

Each Listed had to walk the wall. It zigzagged and was actually about twenty feet in length.

After that, the Listed jumped down to run the last few yards, going over four low hurdles, only a foot off the ground.

One of the Swedish escorts was timing this for each Listed pair.

Felicia did well, but I’d known she would.

Jason was less awkward than I’d expected.

When he was not in a social situation, he was much more relaxed.

(I could appreciate that. Same for me.) He and Felicia were in the lead until Linus tripped Jason when he jumped down from the balancing wall.

Jason hit the ground and yelled in pain.

Felicia was beside him in a second, ready to defend Jason while he was down.

She wanted to raise her hands so much that she was shaking.

Immediately, the whistle blew.

Eli and I hung back, since the Swedish man was on top of the situation. Linus, who obviously didn’t realize he was in trouble, laughed. I could see Felicia’s temper popping.

So could Linus’s partner, Anna, who stepped back from Linus, palms out, as if to say, I had nothing to do with this. It’s all him .

The Swedish referee decided Linus needed to quit laughing, so he punched Linus in the face.

I almost clapped, but decided since I was an adult, I shouldn’t. Some of the Listeds did, though.

Linus hadn’t come with any escorts, so he was on his own. He was too shocked to bluster much. But he did protest, loudly. Since he was speaking in Greek, no one understood.

Then Linus made his second mistake. He pointed at Jason on the ground with scorn and made a “boo-hoo-hoo” face to mock the boy, who was in real pain.

Penny Featherstone was hurrying to her son when she saw Linus being an ass.

Here’s another thing Linus didn’t expect: Penny stepped up to Linus and slapped him full in the face with all the force she could muster.

I’d been pretty sure the Swedish referee’s punch had broken Linus’s nose.

His shriek after Penny’s slap told me I was right.

Felicia turned her back on Linus pointedly.

She crouched by Jason and began asking him questions and touching him here and there to find if he’d broken any bones.

He shook his head and held out his hand so she would help him up.

Felicia gave a yank, and Jason shot up like a cork, though he leaned heavily on Felicia’s shoulder since he didn’t want to put his left foot on the ground.

He even managed a smile. He got a round of applause from the other Listeds.

Penny, seeing Jason was up, walked back to the sidelines to stand beside us.

“Well played,” Eli said quietly. I clapped silently. Penny gave a jerky nod as she began trying to come down from her surge of anger.

Linus was marched out of the park by the older Swedes. I kept my eye on him, just in case. He stood on the sidewalk, wobbling back and forth. Maybe he was trying to figure out how to get back to his hotel. Finally, he started walking, his bloody shirt causing passersby to shrink away.

It was very satisfying.

After that, the party ended with punch and cake. Even the Germans and the Japanese Listeds had a great time.

“That’s the most fun I’ve had this week,” Felicia told us on the way home.

They’d gotten to act like kids for a while, I thought. Playing silly games out in the open.

“There’s more to Jason than I thought,” I said. I was driving, this time.

“I hope he gets along with Fenolla,” Felicia said. “And his mom is a firecracker. She’s on her own. Mr. Featherstone died two years ago.”

“What kind of magician is Jason?” Eli was interested.

“He’s a pattern seer.”

“Explain?” I’d never heard of that.

“He can see patterns in events, and deduce the probable outcome of those patterns, so he can predict money things? And political stuff?” Felicia sounded none too sure. “He explained it to Fenolla. She was really impressed.”

“He’d be very valuable to the English armed forces, if the English weren’t so willfully blind about magic. But then, they are excellent about closing their eyes when they don’t want to see,” Eli said, sounding especially grim.

“You’re referring to something in particular,” I said. “What?”