“My mother had about, oh, fifty sisters,” Justin said to Kris. “They sort of…reproduce like cats, like a really big litter…that’s a bad analogy…so most of them don’t care much, they aren’t interested in anything but the present and the next meal—sorry—but one or two of them decided I needed to know about my heritage, so they show up every once in a while and set my apartment on fire.”
“Once. We did that once, and that was your aunt Ylse, not me.”
“Those’re probably the only two you’ll ever meet. Maybe Aunt Raissa at some point, if she gets tired of her current toy senator, but anyway this one’s Aunt Mara, hi, did you want something other than interrupting us?”
“Yes.” She waved at Justin’s open beer; it landed in her hand. “I was checking up on you. Ylse said she heard about a New York D
