All things considered, this was not how Theo had wished to meet Henry’s family. Then again, he’d been unsure about meeting Henry’s family in general—not that he did not want to, not that he was not honored by the very idea of it, of Henry offering that.
He was simply not terribly good at small talk, families, polite society—and much less so when he had the worst headache in the history of magic, and he’d just killed a man, and he was worrying about Henry, who looked both elated and guilty, a fire relit but guttering at the cost of new flame.
But Henry had asked, and Theo was, after all, lying propped up by pillows in the Tourmaline family’s guest chamber, and therefore: Theo would meet Henry’s family.
They did knock. There was that.
Henry’s mother came in first, with a smile, with a tr
