"No, you won't," said Lyall firmly, as he buttoned his coat.

"But they're my family—they can keep a secret—"

He shook his head. "I can't allow that, Hope. No, not even your family."

"But Lyall, " I argued, "my Dad was in the war. He was entrusted with government secrets." (This was not strictly true. Daddy was a pilot.) "He never, ever let slip anything—"

"This is very different." A crease between Lyall's eyebrows indicated his seriousness. "The laws aren't up to me, Hope. There is a Statute of Secrecy, and the rules are strictly enforced. There could be legal consequences to any breach, and I would be held responsible."

"But you told me," I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder in what I hoped was a persuasive gesture.

"Only after we were engaged, and that's only because the immediate family of a wizard or witch is permitted to know. "

I sighed, sounding more petulant than I wished. "But they are my immediate family."

He shook his head yet again, and gave me a wistful smile. "I'm sorry, Hope, but it doesn't apply to you," he said. "You are not a witch or wizard." He touched my fingertips lightly. "I can't be flexible about this. I'm sorry, but I can't."

"Well, what about us, though?" I pleaded.

"What about us?" he said, sounding bewildered.

"When—if—well, we said we wanted to have children." Upon noticing his wide-eyed expression, I quickly added, "I mean, some day. Are they going to know?"

"Yes, of course," he replied. "Because they would be my children. And likely, they would be magical as well."

"And if they weren't?"

Lyall grasped my hand. "They would still be my immediate family," he said. "But I think you're getting ahead of yourself, Hope." He squeezed me hand. "I know there's a lot to take in, and I've given you quite a shock today. I think the most important thing to know is only that you mustn't tell anyone—unless they already know."

Lyall reached into the coat closet and removed my green coat, and I held my arms out for him. I noticed how much more slowly he worked at helping me into the coat than he usually would, and how much more often he seemed to touch me while he did so. I buttoned my first button, and saw a flash of disappointment across his face. He must have wanted to do that for me too, I thought, and flushed pink.

"Lyall, I don't understand," I mused. "How will I know if other people already know?"

"You won't; at least, not at first," he said bluntly. "Just leave that to me."

Finishing my last button, I patted my hair down and pulled on my gloves. Lyall was about to open his door, when I stopped him, with a hand on his forearm.

"Wait," I said.

Lyall smirked and stepped closer to me. "I know what you're going to say," he said quietly.

"Well..."

"You want another kiss," he whispered, and before I could reply, he leaned towards me and pressed his lips to mine. He smelled so lovely that I let him kiss me a second time before gently pushing his shoulders back.

"You're sweet," I murmured. "But...it wasn't what I was going to ask."

"It wasn't?" he said, his cheeks turning a shade darker than usual.

"I just...I just..." The words were tumbling around my mind, each bursting open like an over-ripened berry, and releasing a fresh torrent of questions and comments. I felt like my brain might overflow and spill words onto the floor at any moment.

"Hope?"

"I just don't know how I'm going to keep something like this a secret," I exclaimed. "How can I tell people about my life and just...just neglect to mention magic?"

Lyall smiled, infuriatingly amused. "I suppose it's your turn to live like I do," he deadpanned. "Good luck."

"But...but...what if I mess up and tell someone?" I cried.

"I doubt that will happen," he said confidently. With his grin, he looked as handsome as I'd ever seen him, yet I resisted the urge to smack him.

"What if I told Jeannie, hmm?" I challenged him. "How would you stop me?"

"Oh, I don't need to," replied Lyall, his voice even and measured. "You won't tell her, or anyone else, because if you even think about explaining it all, you'll realize you'd sound like a madwoman, and no one would believe you."

My mouth formed an 'O.'

Lyall opened the front door, and accompanied me outside, to the third-floor landing of his flat. We held hands, and stood together, peering down the railing of the old staircase. A great big window washed the stairwell in the golden-and-blue light of late afternoon sun reflected off snow.

"Your world seems very complicated," I murmured to him.

"You don't know the half of it," he muttered. "Do you still want to be in it?"

Though, at this point in my life, I would gladly throw all magical conveniences out the window and never so much as glance at a Chocolate Frog card again...though I'd give up anything to steal my son away from a war against the death cult this sick, medieval culture has produced, though magic has nearly killed my child, burnt down my house down and almost destroyed my marriage...and when all that was said and down, magic still failed to produce a cure for my Muggle illness...

Lyall, I still do.

"Yes," I breathed. And he said nothing, but squeezed my gloved hand and then walked me back to St. Dwynwyn's down a snowy path that seemed much shorter than it had been in the morning.


Having agreed that we were ready to share news of our engagement—but not Lyall's secret—with close friends and family, I returned home to St. Dwynwyn's in a mixture of joy, shock, wonder and excitement. I had decided to tell Jeannie first, knowing that she already had something of an idea about my feelings for Lyall. The trick was to get enough private time on the telephone without being spied on or interrupted by the other girls at St. Dwynwyn's, or by the matrons, who were equally nosy. We were limited to a maximum of twenty minutes per day on the telephone, and something told me Jeannie would want to stay on the phone forever, demanding all the juicy details.

Although my ring was in its little velvet case in my room, something of my emotional state must have shown on my face, for Norah commented on my expression when she saw me sneak down to the telephone, right before dinner.

"Everything all right, Hope?" she asked, somewhat slyly. "You look quite excited about something."

If she had said the same thing to me yesterday, I would have thought that she had read my mind entirely. After all, Lyall had come by to pick me up from the doorstep often enough that the girls at St. Dwynwyn's already believed him to be my beau. Today, however, I knew that there was no way in a million years she could possibly guess my secret.

"Good news from home," I said. "My, er, my cousin's just had a baby."

(It wasn't entirely false either; my cousin Morgan and his wife had just welcomed their daughter two weeks before.)

"Well, congratulations," she said. "You know, I delivered two babies this week."

"That must be the best part of nursing," I said, somewhat enviously.

"Not really," said Norah. "We only get the complicated and high-risk births at the hospital. The nice births all go to the midwives."

"That's a shame," I said, in a tone indicating the conversation was over. Norah picked up on the hint, and I waited until she had disappeared upstairs to pick up the telephone.

"—right, but it's still unfair, Eddie," said an older male voice. "The conversion rate's ridiculous, and when you consider the gold standard—

"There's somebody else on, I think," said a younger man. "Excuse me, this is a private conversation."

"I'm sorry!" I whispered, embarrassed, and hung up. We had a party line, and shared service with the house next door, which had been carved into two rented flats.

I waited by the telephone for their conversation to finish, sneakily picking up the receiver every so often to check if their conversation was over. I didn't want to go back upstairs, because if I left the telephone for too long, another girl was sure to claim it first. After several aborted attempts to phone Jeannie, I finally managed to find the line unoccupied. I telephoned our home number, thoroughly expecting that I would have to leave a message with my mother, for Jeannie was often out on the weekends at social events.

"Archie Howell speaking," said my father, who picked up at the very first ring. A ring of warmth spread through my stomach at the familiar sound of his voice.

"Daddy!"

"Cariad! Are you alright, my love? How is Cardiff?"

"Everything is alright, Daddy—more than alright. It's very good actually," I said, thinking of the awesome revelations of that morning, and the impossibility of ever communicating them. "I'd love to speak with you, but I don't have a long time on the phone, and I'd really like to talk with Jeannie, if that's okay."

"Oh, alright then," he said, sounding disappointed. "JEANNIE! Pick up the phone, love, it's Hope!"

After several scuffling noises, a distant female shout, a feline meow, and two clicks, Jeannie greeted me.

"It's so been so long since you've called," she complained. "Why don't you phone more often?"

"We hardly get any privacy on the phone here," I said quietly into the receiver. "And it's a party line too."

"I hate those," Jeannie said sympathetically. "I mean, except when I want to eavesdrop."

"You wicked thing! Anyways, I want to tell you something really special, but you have to swear not to tell Mammy and Daddy yet, because I'm going to tell them myself but not yet."

"Is this about Lyall?" asked Jeannie, sounding amused.

"I won't tell you anything until you swear not to tell a soul," I chided her.

"I swear I won't tell. Is that good enough?"

"You really, really promise?"

"Hope," she whined, "it's you that's the tattle tale not me. Now go on and tell me everything because I know you haven't got much time."

"Alright," I agreed. "Well, it's...it is about Lyall..."

"Oooh," she cooed. "He asked you out didn't he? Are you going steady?"

"Lower your voice," I commanded her.

"I'm in our room with the door closed," Jeannie said, "Don't you know me better than that? Did he kiss you?"

"Actually, er...he...he proposed," I whispered, glancing down the hall to ascertain that I was alone.

My sister's shriek was loud enough that I instinctively yanked the receiver away from my ear.

"Hush! You promised you'd be subtle—"

"You said you weren't going out with him!" Jeannie cried. "You said you didn't even fancy him!"

"I wasn't going out with him, I mean—not like that," I said defensively. "And...as to the...other thing...I may have lied."

"HOPE!" she squealed.

"Just a little."

"Did you bloody well accept?" Jeannie demanded. "Did he give you a ring? Did you set a date? Oh, Mammy and Daddy are going to be shocked—"

"Don't you even think about telling them yourself!" I said bossily. "Don't even breathe a word about this—"

"How did he propose?" Jeannie asked, sounding dreamy. "Where he do it? Tell me about the ring!"

"It's rose gold with a diamond," I whispered, letting the excitement creep back into my voice. "It's an Art Nouveau style—"

"So you accepted the proposal?"

"Well, of course I did!" I said, somewhat indignantly. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You'd make a rubbish criminal," said Jeannie, "you can't lie at all. I knew you were obsessed with him."

"That makes me sound like a stalker!" I laughed. "Listen—there's another thing too."

"Oh?" she said, sounding curious. "Have you picked a dress?"

"No, nothing at all! He only proposed to me on Saturday—how would I have had the time?" I exclaimed. "It's just that Lyall's getting a new job, a better one. So we're—remember, don't tell Mammy and Daddy yet, not a word—but when we get married, we're going to move."

"Where to?" breathed Jeannie. "Don't tell me you're going to America, I'll just die!"

Back then, Jeannie thought America was the home of all things modern and stylish and Hollywood. She was dying to visit either Hollywood or New York City, and had once declared all of Britain to be a stuffy backwater of conservatism, bad teeth and terrible weather. She had mastered an imitation of the trans-Atlantic accent that we, as teenagers, had rather naively believed to be the way real classy Americans spoke.

"Not that far," I said, "but pretty far. We're moving to Glasgow."

"Glasgow?" she whined. "But then I'll never get to see you! And isn't it freezing cold there?"

"That's where his job's going to be," I said, a little defensive. In truth, I hadn't really thought about Glasgow at all, not in light of Lyall's admitting to being in love with me, or, you know, revealing a world of actual magic. "And Lyall said it's a very beautiful city with good culture."

"I'll never get to visit you that far away," Jeannie complained.

I wanted to cheer her up, so I changed the topic. "Darling, you know I want you to be my maid-of-honour, don't you?"

"Really?" she cried. "Oh, Hope..."

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and glanced back; it was Edith, wearing lipstick and mascara, which was quite unusual for her.

"Of course I do, Jeannie. Don't you want to help me choose the flowers and everything? We're going to have such a good time."

"You have to let me do your hair, Hope," Jeannie pronounced. "We'll do something modern. You'll look like a movie star."

"I want to look like a bride," I pointed out. I heard the front door click shut as Edith went out.

"You'll be a beautiful bride, I promise," Jeannie said rapidly, before changing the subject back to—

"How did Lyall propose?" she demanded. "No, wait...how long have you been going out? Tell me everything!"

"Alright, but I have to be quick," I said, lowering my voice. "I don't get a lot of time on the phone."

I tried to give Jeannie a very abbreviated version of the past year, gliding lightly past the strange, inexplicable happenings that now made sense to me. But when I got to the part where Lyall and I went ice skating, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the sort of pointy tap that comes from long, sharp fingernails. That could only mean one person.

"Excuse me, Hope," said my nemesis sweetly, "but you've actually been twenty-five minutes on the phone already."

"I don't know how you'd know that if you hadn't been listening to me since I started," I said, covering the receiver with one hand. "And that would be eavesdropping, wouldn't it?"

Irene smiled. She was wearing pink lipstick and a green-and-pink patterned silk scarf, looking like a poisonous frog from the Amazon.

"I believe you've exceeded the daily time limit," she continued, ignoring my point. "And I do need to make a call." In her fierce blue eyes, I could see the unspoken addendum: You wouldn't want me to speak to the matrons now, would you?

"Hope? Are you there?" came Jeannie's tinny, muffled voice from the receiver.

I uncovered it and muttered to her, "I need to go. I'll talk to you soon—"

"Hope!"

"I'm sorry. Goodbye. Remember, don't tell a soul," I whispered, and hung up.

Irene laughed. "I hope you aren't keeping any terrible secrets," she cooed.

"Only a wonderful surprise," I said coolly. The delicious notion of Irene being terribly jealous of my engagement kept me calm and relaxed in her presence.

"Yes, well, we've had quite a few surprises in this house, haven't we?" said Irene, grinning with malice. "Very unexpected surprises."

"I don't know what you mean," I said shortly, and walked towards the stairs. Thinking about Mabli only brought down my good mood.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she replied, gazing up at me as I began to climb the stairs. "I forgot that you tend to be on the outside of things here—oh, what am I saying!" She pretended to giggle with embarrassment. "I suppose I only meant that you're lucky, you know, not to be confided in, not to have to burden yourself with other people's troubles."

"I don't see other people as burdens, Irene," I responded kindly. "Except, maybe, one person." And with that, I stormed upstairs and locked myself in my room for a ritual fuming session.


It had been one week since my engagement, as well as the commencement of my bathroom duty punishment. I still wore my engagement ring only in my room, or while I shopped or browsed anonymously in the city, hiding it while at work, or with the other girls at St. Dwynwyn's. I was being strategic, not shy; Lyall and I didn't have a date set yet, and I knew that once Mrs. Morris found out I was engaged, she would probably try to replace me right away. I wasn't a very good clerk anyway, and flashing a ring around the office might just push me over the edge. I didn't have as coherent a reason for keeping my engagement secret at home. Perhaps, it was just a lot to swallow all at once, and I wanted a little time to adjust to the prospect at becoming not just Lyall's wife, but a wizard's wife.

Lyall had confessed to over the phone on Tuesday that he had told his best friend Ogilvy about our engagement immediately after bringing me home on the day he had proposed. But he wanted me with him when he announced our engagement to the rest of his friends, and I understood immediately why. Lyall was very uncomfortable being the centre of attention for any reason, but especially with regard to his romantic life, and he knew the teasing would likely be lessened in my vicinity.

Lyall and I were going to join his friends at Blevin's Tea on Saturday afternoon. The two of us met up beforehand and walked around inside Cardiff Market for about a half hour. It was bright and warm inside the market, where afternoon light poured in through glass panels in the roof. We sidestepped so many women pushing baby buggies that Lyall wondered aloud if something had gotten into the water supply.

"Maybe it's a love potion," I said, which earned me a smirk from Lyall.

"Very funny," he said, "But you wouldn't believe the legal trouble people have gotten into when they've had children by way of a love potion. It's a nightmare."

"So they're real, then," I mused, and squeezed his hand.

"Yes and no," said Lyall, lowering his voice. I noticed the way he glanced from side to side, checking who was in our vicinity, and wondered if I would ever get used to living like a spy. "There are technically 'love potions,' if you would like to call them that. But they don't produce real love. It's only infatuation, and it goes away if you stop taking the potion."

"How do I know you haven't slipped me one?" I asked.

I was teasing, but he seemed to take me seriously, for his cheeks turned pink, and he hastily said, "Trust me...you would know. They cause obsession, ridiculous fixations...and if I were going to slip you one, I wouldn't have waited so long to do it."

I laughed. We passed by the fishmonger, who was haggling with an old woman over the price of cod.

"Have you ever had lobster?" asked Lyall, noticing my attention had drifted to the fishmonger. "I thought, perhaps, I could take you out for lobster to celebrate...we still haven't had a really nice dinner together."

"You do know I'm from Aberystwyth, don't you?"

"Yes..." he said, brow furrowed.

"And we are a resort town? On the coast?" I added.

"Alright, alright, point taken," he grumbled. "But still. I want to take you out for dinner somewhere fancy. You only get engaged once."

"I certainly hope so," I said, and he pulled me closer and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. We walked through the market, sniffing the fresh produce, and laughing at the florist's discounted Valentine's Day bouquets. The aging roses dripped petals onto the floor. "Try bringing that home to your wife after you've forgotten Valentine's Day," said Lyall. "I wouldn't."

When Lyall checked his watch and realized it was time to meet his friends, he guided me out through a side door to find Blevin's Tea down the street. I hadn't remembered that the little café was so close to Cardiff Market, but then again, the entire city seemed different than it had only days before. It was as though the streets had rearranged, the houses and shopped had changed colours and sizes, the cars sped by faster but the pedestrians were slow. Twice more, I would see my life change into something unrecognizable overnight. And neither time would be a change I appreciated—but I don't want to spoil the story.

A little bell above the door rang out as we entered Blevin's Tea. There were the little aquariums I remembered, each filled with tiny houses, streets, miniature trees and even tiny people moving around, pushing miniature buggies or waving to each other in the street. Unlike the last time we had been to the teahouse, it was busy, and a din of conversation filled the room. I didn't hear the waiter approach us until Lyall placed his hand on my forearm. He was wearing a deep turquoise dinner jacket and a flamboyantly plaid bow tie.

"Your friends are in the back room," said the waiter.

"Thank you, Demosthenes," said Lyall, and I realized with a start that this was the waiter who had been so rude to me the year before.

The waiter led Lyall and I between tables and booths to a set of frosted glass doors. He opened them for us, and we entered a smaller and quieter room. Lamplight gleamed off a low ceiling covered in stamped tin. Two tables had been pushed together to form a longer table, where I saw Felicia and Hoyt sitting together along with Ogilvy and Antony. Felicia looked up and waved to us.

Lyall was already grinning and flushing as we sat down at the two remaining seats. I awkwardly tucked my gloves into my coat pocket and draped my coat across the back of my chair, wondering whether I should be subtle about my engagement ring until Lyall was ready to share our news.

"Are we late, or are you early?" asked Lyall, picking up a menu.

"Oh, you know you're never late," scolded Felicia. "We're early."

"That's not true," protested Ogilvy, "he's never handed in a manuscript on time—"

"Research is different," said Lyall. "And you've never been on time for anything in your life."

"Boys, boys—" warned Felicia, smiling. I noticed that she was wearing a pretty necklace with a turquoise stone pendant that complemented her blue-green eyes.

"Are we ordering, or not?" complained Antony.

At the same moment, Hoyt said, "I'm starved."

"Let's go then," said Antony, prim but authoritative. "We needn't take all day."

Hoyt slid his hand into the inside of his sports coat, and a moment later, Demosthenes appeared at our table, as if summoned. He took orders from the table in stoic silence. Though Lyall and I had hardly had any time to read the menu, Lyall already knew what he wanted (cottage pie and pint of beer). I felt too excited and nervous to be hungry.

"Oh, come on," coaxed Felicia, "if you don't want lunch, you can skip to dessert."

"I'm watching my figure," I only half-joked, for I truly had a reason to do so now.

"You can share with me," said Lyall. "The portions are large. And Hope will have a cup of hot chocolate," he told Demosthenes, who nodded at him, (still refusing to look at me) and made his way to the kitchen.

"He must really like you," Antony said to me. "Lyall won't share food with anyone." He fixed me with a look through his gold-rimmed glasses that made me feel like I was under a microscope. "Oh course...perhaps he suspects you won't eat that much."

Lyall exhaled nervously, and I rubbed my foot against his. Across the table, Ogilvy was grinning at Lyall somewhat smugly.

"How's work going, Hoyt?" asked Lyall stiffly.

Hoyt shrugged. "You won't believe the taxes I'm facing..."

The men began to discuss business in obscure terms I couldn't recognize. I felt myself tuning them out, so I leaned forward to address Felicia.

"Your necklace is so pretty, Felicia," I said. "Where is it from?"

"Oh, this?" She touched the turquoise at her throat. "It was my mother's, and she gave it to me."

"It's beautiful." I could stop myself from reaching forward to touch it.

"Thank you, it's actually ench—oh!" She clapped a hand to her mouth. "Goodness, what a gorgeous ring! I've never seen you with that before!"

I hadn't realized I had reached out to touch her necklace with my left hand. I froze.

"Look at that," she breathed softly. "Ashleigh..." she tapped on his shoulder.

Hoyt turned to face me, and I watched his eyes widen when Felicia nodded towards my ring. My face flushed; I pressed Lyall's shoe with my own under the table.

"Yes?" he said, oblivious.

"Oh, Hope," Felicia breathed. "You aren't...or are you..." she trailed off, and glanced at Lyall, a look of tender concern on her face. Lyall's lips were pressed together. I knew he was repressing a smile. I didn't know whether to speak or let

"Are you going to have out with or, not?" blurted out Ogilvy. "I can't wait forever."

"What's going on?" said Antony. "Why is everyone acting weirdly?"

I burst into nervous giggles, and Lyall, unable to stifle himself any further, broke into a radiant grin, every one of his teeth shining like sunlight on melting ice.

Felicia squealed, and reached for my hand, knocking her hot coffee over in the process. "Whoops!"

"I'll help," I said, grabbing the linen napkin from my lap to mop up the spill. Felicia dabbed at the mess with her own napkin; none of the men even attempted to help.

"What happened? Are you together?" said Antony, eyeing Lyall. "Didn't you say you weren't a thing? Am I missing something?"

"Yes, you brainless gorm," needled Ogilvy. "Would you care to enlighten us, Lyall?"

Lyall glanced from me to Ogily, and then said, "Yes—well...we are—we're engaged." He was too shy to look up at his friend, but I saw him smiling from the corner of my eye, and I squeezed his hand under the table. Felicia piled up the soaked napkins in the corner.

"Are you bloody serious?" Antony's blond eyebrows shot up and melded into his snowy hair.

"Antony, you can't pretend that this is absolutely shocking," Felicia grinned. "We all knew there was something—"

"Oh no, don't say that," I clapped my hands over my face. "You can't all have known—"

"It wasn't like that," Lyall said tersely. "People might have had...they had opinions, or suspected—"

"Don't ruin this moment for us, Lyall," said Felicia, and she reached forward and patted his hand gently. There was something motherly about her touch. "Poor Gil has waited so long for this moment. Just let him dance on your grave a little bit, won't you?"

"What moment?" I asked. Antony and Hoyt chuckled; Felicia giggled along.

"Now, I don't mean to embarrass you—" began Olivy, in a tone suggesting he meant to do exactly that.

"You don't seem to mind embarrassing Lyall," said Felicia.

"Not at all, he deserves it. Anyways, this one over here—" he gestured to Lyall, who was staring steeply into the napkin spread on his lap, "has put us all though hell and back over the past year, what with the moaning that he's got no chance, and the begging for advice, and the absolute refusal to take any of the advice we gave him—"

"Alright, I think she's heard enough," muttered Lyall. I could feel the heat of embarrassment practically radiating through his coat, but I couldn't stop smiling like a madwoman. Fireworks were exploding in my belly; first the proposal, then the revelations about magic, and now this—

"—and we said, just ask her out like a bloody normal person," Ogilvy was adding. "On a date. But instead he pulls out a ring—"

"Obviously," Lyall said through gritted teeth, "it wasn't as stupid as you're making it out to be."

I leaned against Lyall's shoulder and rubbed his upper arm. "It was a bit stupid of you," I ribbed him, "but it's alright. I'm a bit stupid too."

Felicia sighed, and took hold of Hoyt's hand. He looked up at her with that same admiration I'd noticed on his face back at the engagement party where I'd first met them. "Isn't it wonderful," he said, "when you find someone the same kind of mad as you are?"

"I'd aim a bit higher," Ogilvy muttered.

"Congratulations," said Antony. "I do mean it. I don't think we ever expected Lyall to be the first one to the altar—"

"Well, it depends," said Felicia. "Do you have a date set?"

"There's the food," Hoyt cut in, anxiously. Demosthenes had arrived—did this place really have only one waiter? He was balancing five plates on one arm with rather extraordinary grace. Or maybe not just grace, I thought, and a shiver ran down my spine. Plates clinked against the lacquered pine table; Hoyt smacked his lips, and Felicia unfolded her napkin onto her lap.

"Excellent, thank you," said Lyall. Puffs of steam rose out of the punctured crust of his cottage pie. I inhaled the rich, meaty aroma. Lyall's glasses fogged over.

"We'll need a second plate and set of cutlery," he said.

"Oh, no," I assured him, "I won't—"

"Yes, sir," said Demosthenes. "I will be back momentarily with the drinks." He nodded at Lyall, and left swiftly through the frosted glass doors leading to the restaurant's main room.

"What kind of a restaurant is this, that brings the food before drinks?" complained Antony.

"A place where your kind of snob doesn't eat," Ogilvy huffed.

"You don't have to take everything personally."

Felicia shook her head at the men. "These two...just ignore them, darling," she said, smiling at me. "Let me see that ring again."

I twisted my hand before her eyes, letting the diamond scatter fragments of light. "It's rose gold. Lyall was so clever, he knew exactly what I would like."

"He's a secret romantic, we've always known." She beamed at Lyall, looking proud; her eyes crinkled up, cat-eye liner smudging at the corners. He returned her grin with a shy smile.

"It's an antique ring," he said. "I was a bit nervous...I thought maybe you wouldn't like to get something that someone else had first. But then, it looked so much like something you might wear, with the floral pattern—and of course, I didn't really expect that you'd say yes..."

"I never in a million years thought he would ask me," I confessed, as a mug of hot cocoa touched down before me. Desmosthenes wove deftly between the chairs, setting down drinks. Lamplight shone dark gold and amber through beer steins thick-capped with froth. Lyall cut into his cottage pie, releasing another dense billow of steam.

"Then you two deserve each other," said Ogilvy, quite frankly. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "Dense and denser

"Don't call her that," Lyall scolded.

"Don't worry about him, Hope," said Hoyt. "He's teasing because Lyall's been, er, not very subtle about his feelings for you—"

"Hush, love," Felicia clapped a hand over her fiancé's mouth. "We'll drive him into an early grave like this."

"Yes, you will," said Lyall. "And I'd rather live to see the wedding."

"Are we the first people you've told?" said Felicia.

Lyall and I both shook our heads.

"I told my sister over the phone," I said. "And you told Ogilvy first, didn't you?"

"He didn't just tell me," said Ogilvy ,who had already drained three quarters of his beer stein. "He Apparated into my flat unannounced and —"

But Ogilvy stopped mid-sentence; Antony had hissed at him, Hoyt was manically shaking his head, and Felicia was clutched her turquoise pendant in distress. A strange silence fell across the table. I glanced from Ogilvy's pale face to Antony's forkful of cheese soufflé hovering mid-air to Hoyt's tightly-pressed lips, and then I looked at Lyall. He laid his fork down on the table, and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin.

"Lyall?" I whispered. "Is it—did they—"

"It's alright," he said. "She knows."