She called Priva at seven and said: "Can you come over."
Not a question. Priva heard the register of it and said: "Twenty minutes." She arrived in fifteen, which was Priva, and she came through the door and looked at Neva's face and put her bag down without being asked and went to fill the kettle. By the time Neva sat down at the kitchen table the kettle was on and Priva was in the other chair and Bram was in his room with the door half-open, already in pajamas, negotiating internally with the concept of bedtime.
"Tell me," Priva said.
Neva told her.
She started at the beginning — not four weeks ago, not the alias, not Ember Pack. The real beginning. A Moon Ceremony. A white dress. Her name spoken in the ritual form by a man who had not looked at her eyes while he said it. The scar for
