"Mummy—"
"Both girls are lucky, aren't they?" She smiled at him. "You're happy to see Kozuki again, aren't you?"
"Mummy please get out of the car please please please —" He shouted. Or did he?
She reached one hand back over the seat to brush his cheek with patient maternal calm — and a new laugh came from his side, light and warm and familiar in a way that made his small heart spike, and his head whipped to the seat beside him —
From Aunt Melissa.
Twenty-eight years old, cream sundress. Dark hair loose over her shoulders. Mouth still curved from the laugh she had just produced, eyes warm and amused and looking down at him with the small patient indulgence of a young aunt who had been delighting in her seven-year-old nephew for the entire car ride.
The small phoenix at her throat caught the light.
Oh no.
Oh, no.
Because Phei knew this car and everything that was happening this... this afternoon.
This was the day.
That day.
