A/N: This chapter is an interlude that has nothing to do with the main plot; it focuses on Zena's parents.

To the highest bidder, secrets are sold,

And to curious ears, stories are told.

They say: man and wife can live in lust,

But there will be no love if there is no trust.

She starts paying more attention after Professor McGonagall visits them with Zena's invitation to Hogwarts. She tries asking Aindrea if his family has any magical ancestors; he is tense at first, though she decides that that has more to do with the fact that she prefaces her question with the words "I need to ask you something," than it has to do with what she asks.

He relaxes almost immediately after the words leave her lips. "As far as I know, my side of the family is non-magical," he tells her, chuckling slightly, like the thought amuses him. "You're sure it's not from your side, Yumiko?"

She shakes her head. "I suppose it could be, but I certainly don't know anything about it."

Aindrea hums thoughtfully, but says nothing in reply. She falls asleep waiting for a response that never comes.

After that, she starts paying more attention to what's going on within her family. Of course, she can't keep as close an eye on Zena, who is gone more often than not, and though she sends letters from school each week, it's not the same as having her at home. But then her daughter hasn't really been home for over four years, and Yumiko rather thinks her son will be going the same way. Zyan, too, requires less attention than Yumiko first thinks. He's just recently turned eleven, and though he hasn't received a letter yet, he - like Zena - spends more time away from home than at it.

She doesn't think that either Zena or Zyan dislike being at home, but she wonders, sometimes, because they're always somewhere else, even when they're physically present. She wonders, sometimes, late at night, if the fact that she doesn't fight harder to keep her children close - if the fact that she doesn't fight for their attention or affection or love - makes her a bad mother. She never asks anyone, of course, but she thinks about it every now and then. She never manages to come up with the right answer, and it's not a question she wants to ask in the presence of others when she's already asked it in the privacy of her own mind.

Once she starts paying attention, it's Aindrea who requires the most observance. And isn't that funny: the oldest one in their little family of four is the one who needs to be watched. When she finally mentions anything to him, it is a question that she has asked the mirror and revised again and again because she doesn't want to seem accusatory when she finally asks him; when she finally asks him, she's got six years of peculiarities as evidence, plus her conversation from that first meeting with McGonagall to draw on. Maybe she's seeing things, or imagining them. Maybe she's looking for things to poke at, when there's nothing there at all. Yumiko has accused herself of all of it, and has asked herself if she's subconsciously trying to break their family. She doesn't think so. She's not intending to shatter the people she loves most in the world, and she hopes that's not what ends up happening.

So she starts paying attention, and it's little things. Aindrea is discreet, and he's cautious. She wants to think that he's careful enough that no one would notice, even if they were looking for something, unless they know him well.

So it's little things: it's increasingly more notes lying around the flat. She flips through one of the wads, once, when Aindrea isn't home, and it adds up to just over five-hundred pounds. After discovering these, she heads to their bank, just to make sure, and sure enough, their account balance is the same. The only deposits are the bi-weekly ones from Aindreas' office job, and the meagre cheques that Yumiko has deposited from her various odd jobs. There aren't any unusual deposits, nor are there any odd withdrawals; their taxes are all up to date, when she bothers to check, so there's nothing unusual on that front.

There are other things, too, like how he's away from home more often than he used to be. She supposes that whatever he's caught up in can have more priority now that their children are older. His absences aren't even particularly strange; he always has an excuse - a meeting with his boss, or with clients, or going out for lunch with an old friend. He always makes time for her, too. She doesn't feel as though he loves her less, or like he has less time for her. At least, she doesn't until she wakes up one night to find his side of the bed empty; the sheets are cold, and so she gets up. She's a bit worried. She can't think of what might have him out of bed so late at night. He's not anywhere in the house at all, in fact, and when she makes her way outside, wrapping her terry-cloth robe tighter around her body to fend off the cold, Aindrea is nowhere to be found. She goes back inside and sinks into his favorite chair with a glass of warm milk. She watches the door awhile, and then picks up the crime novel she's been reading. She yawns a bit later, and her eyes droop, but Aindrea still isn't home; she uses her thumb to spin her wedding ring around her finger, wondering where he is. Perhaps he'd gotten a call from a friend who needed help, and she's worrying over nothing.

She wakes up in her own bed the next morning, Aindrea's arm draped across her waist. Her robe and slippers are in the same place they always are, and when she heads downstairs to start breakfast, her milk glass is nowhere to be found. She looks in the cupboard, and there are rows of clean glasses there, none of them out of place. She frowns slightly. The kitchen is exactly how she'd left it before she and Aindrea had gone to bed last night, and she starts to wonder. Perhaps it had been a dream.

"What are you thinking about?" Aindrea asks her, coming up to stand behind her. He wraps his arms around her waist and rests his chin on the top of her head. She leans back into him and sighs.

"I thought I woke up last night and you were gone," she tells him thoughtfully. "I was waiting for you. But it seems like it was just a dream."

Aindrea hums and leans down a bit to kiss her cheek, and moves into the kitchen to help her with breakfast.

It really was a very vivid dream, she realises a few days later. She finally has some free time on her hands to read, and so she picks up the crime novel she's been reading. She has a sense of deja vu; she's certain she's already read this bit, but it's the same page she'd been on before that dream. Perhaps she's just gotten so into the book that she was able to predict what would happen next while she was dreaming. It certainly isn't the first time a few pages have seemed awfully familiar, though she knows she's never read them.

As is his wont, Aindrea comes home with a new piece of jewelry for her. It is an elegant piece of work, the silver metal intricately woven and holding tiny, multi-faceted green gems. He walks through the front door, and catches sight of her where she's standing at the sink in jeans, a cotton shirt, and a stained apron. He takes her hand in his and draws her close to him, spinning her around, and then they are dancing through every room in the house. Aindrea dips her back so far that her hair touches the floor, and Yumiko raises her arm high above her head while he ducks down and twirls wildly, almost losing his balance, and then the two of them are racing up the steps in dramatic movements, hand in hand, hand on waist, hand on shoulder, until they reach the balcony at the top, where they slump down against the wall, their legs stretched out in front of them, leaning against each other, breathless and laughing.

"Yumiko," he tells her once he's caught his breath. She looks up at him, marvelling at the fact that he looks almost the same as he did when they first met. It's been almost eighteen years, and his hair is still red, his eyes still bright and clear when they light up to match the dimples pressing into his freckled cheeks in a smile. "I have something for you."

She arches an eyebrow at him, and he reaches into the pocket of his slacks, pulling out something delicate and silvery that pools gracefully in the palm of his hand. He frowns down at it, and picks at it carefully, untangling the pliable metal. He holds it up for her to admire, and it glitters underneath the ceiling lights.

"It's beautiful," she tells him.

"Not as beautiful as you," he replies, leaning forward to kiss her briefly.

"Put it on me?"

"Of course." He gestures for her to turn around, and she scoots forward, facing away from him. He settles her hair over her shoulder and reaches around her, letting the necklace rest against her collarbones. The metal is cool, and she shivers when it touches her skin.

"That was cold," she tells him reproachfully.

"Sorry," he whispers, and leans forward to brush his lips against the back of her neck. He hooks the piece carefully, his elegant fingers sliding across her skin as he does so. She can feel the warmth of his breath. He pulls her hair out from beneath the necklace, letting it tumble down her back again. His hands trace the lines of her shoulders before falling away. "Turn around? I want to see how it looks on you."

She turns, and he nods in satisfaction, his lips quirking at the sight of it glinting against the pale gold of her skin. He steps forward to draw his fingertips across the silver, his callouses setting her nerves alight. "Now it's beautiful," he says, looking down at her.

So it's little things. It's things so small that she'd never have thought twice about them if she hadn't been looking. It's the extra money hidden in their house, the normalcy of their bank account, the mysterious absences, the flawless explanations, the - when she takes it to a jeweler out of curiosity - obscenely expensive jewelry. On their own, these things aren't suspicious. Even put together, they're hardly cause for worry, but she can't get it out of her head.

Once she starts thinking about it, she starts noticing things. Or, more accurately, she starts wondering about things that have been part of her life for nearly two decades. She's always thought that Aindrea's parents don't approve of her, and now she wonders if it's because they know what Aindrea is caught up in, and think she can't handle it. She tells herself she's being stupid; she's never been good at reading people, so maybe they like her, and they're just aloof, or maybe they simply believe she's not good enough for their son. Maybe Aindrea isn't caught up in anything at all, and she's just reading too far into things.

She reminds herself that she's not nearly as clever as the detectives in the novels she reads so often.

She lets it go for a while - years, really - and tries not to pick at things, but once she starts looking, it's hard to stop. She realises one day that she doesn't know what, exactly, Aindrea does for a living. She knows it's an office job of some sort, but that could mean anything, really. She feels like she's a terrible wife when she realises that she doesn't even know what her own husband does for a living. She tries to remember if he's ever mentioned the specifics of his job, but all she can recall are vague deflections whenever they strayed too close to the topic.

It's little things, hardly noticeable. But once she does start noticing, it's hard to stop, and suddenly all these little things pile up into a huge thing, and she doesn't know what it is. She and Aindrea have built a relationship and gotten married and birthed and raised children on a secret she didn't even realise existed.

Yumiko mulls it over for weeks before she says anything, and during that period of time, Aindrea asks her more than once if something is wrong. At least they know each other well enough that they can tell when something is off. But then, if she's right in thinking that there's something, she's not the one who's been keeping secrets; it makes sense that Aindrea can tell that something's wrong, because she's not the one hiding things.

"Do you trust me?" she asks him at dinner one night. Maybe he doesn't, and that's why he's never told her about whatever he's hiding.

Aindrea looks up at her. He sets his fork back onto his plate, frowning slightly. His eyebrows furrow when he frowns, she notices; Yumiko doesn't think she's ever realised that before. She wonders what else she's been missing. "Of course I do," he tells her, and she knows him well enough to know that he's telling the truth.

She offers no explanation for her question, even when he asks for one. She is too caught up in her own thoughts. Trust is not a problem, then. Maybe she really is imagining everything. Maybe she's paranoid because of one conversation she had years ago with a woman she hasn't seen since. Maybe she's just ignorant.

"Aindrea," she says one rainy morning, when Zena and her friend are still fast asleep upstairs, and he pauses with his hand on the door handle. She has decided to admit her ignorance so that she can stop being so suspicious all the time. "What do you do for work?"

He turns around slowly, his hand falling to his side, and shrugs off his coat. He sits down across from her, leaning forward with his elbows balanced on his knees and his fingers laced. He smiles at her, and unfolds himself to lean back in his chair. He crosses an ankle over his knee. "I've been waiting for you to ask," he tells her.

"I didn't know there was something I was supposed to be asking."

"Then why are you asking now?"

"I've been thinking about something Zena's professor said when she first visited us. I've been thinking about it for years, really, and I started noticing things."

"And what have you been noticing?"

"Little things. Extra money in odd places around the house, your practiced excuses for meetings after work. How immaculate our bank account is, and how prompt our taxes are, and the fact that you shouldn't be able to afford the jewelry you buy me on your income."

He grins at her. "And what did Zena's professor say that got you to start noticing all this?"

Yumiko shifts uncomfortably in her seat. "She mentioned that someone in her family ran a crime ring, and that they were well-off because of it. She said that that side of her family was kind of secretive, and after that I just couldn't stop drawing parallels. I couldn't stop wondering, but there's no conclusive evidence."

Aindrea tilts his head. "Even without conclusive evidence, I think you know the answer to your wonderings."

She remembers the night she'd dreamed that Aindrea was gone, and all the meetings he'd had after the kids had both started school. "That night," she says tentatively, "when I woke up and you were gone? That wasn't a dream, was it? That really happened? And I fell asleep waiting for you?"

Aindrea has the decency to look slightly ashamed. "Yes. I carried you back up to bed and put everything away. I've wanted you to find out for years, but I've also been… afraid of what might happen if you did."

"How did you know what page to put my book back to?"

He gives her an amused glance. "I deal in information. It's my job to know things. And you're my wife. I may not always do what you say, but I do listen to what you say. You always tell me what's happened in the book you're reading."

"I really thought that was a dream! You told me it was a dream, Aindrea."

"No, I didn't. You said it was a dream; I just never corrected you. Believe it or not, I do make a point to not out and out lie to you, Yumiko."

"And what do you call telling me that you have an office job?" she hisses, suddenly furious. "What is that if not a lie, when you're really part of -" she breaks off, lowering her voice to a whisper; this isn't something either of them want someone overhearing "- a crime ring? "

He chuckles, and Yumiko scowls at him. "That's not a lie, Yumi. I do work in an office. It's our cover, and it's legal; it's how I get a great deal of my information, actually, given that I collect intelligence. So I do work in an office, like I told you, but it's a job that encourages my… extracurriculars."

"Fine. So you weren't lying." She can see that he knows that she's not happy about not having been told about his activities in the first place.

"Think of it as me giving you plausible deniability."

She gives him the look that always manages to get Zena and Zyan to fall in line. She is glad to see that it works on him, too.

"Okay, okay. I should have told you before we got married," he relents.

"Yes. You should have."

"I just worried that you wouldn't marry me if you knew."

She grants him a baleful look. "Clearly you aren't half as good at collecting intelligence as you seem to think. Of course I would have married you. I love you, you twit. And that doesn't excuse the fact that you didn't tell me until I asked you about it."

The look he gives her is reminiscent of the ones Zyan contorts his face into when she catches him doing something he shouldn't: it is all big, pleading eyes. "I'm sorry, baby. I'll tell you next time. Forgive me?"

"Of course. And you'd better. I'm not fond of secrets, Aindrea; if there's anything else you need to tell me, now would be a good time."

"And if I don't?"

Yumiko arches a dark eyebrow at him, leans back in her seat, and crosses one leg daintily over the other. "I assure you that I'm plenty creative enough to make you regret it. I'm sure you can figure out what I mean, since you claim to be so good at collecting intelligence."

He swallows and unbuttons his shirt collar. She watches in satisfaction as he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Um, yes. I understand, Yumiko. There's nothing else I can think of at the moment." He clears his throat, shifting again.

She smiles serenely at him, and her words are syrupy sweet. "I'm so glad we've reached an accord, darling."