Layton carefully deliberated over the array of ice-cream flavours, hands held behind his back as he bit his lower lip. It was a miserable Saturday for frozen treats - chilly with a rain falling across London - but he had come on the off chance that Maya Elliot would fulfil her weekend routine this afternoon. It wasn't a guarantee but more often than not she did bring her daughter here as a treat.

He supposed he might try the chilli cranberry or a soothing lavender blueberry. They came in bright, non-threatening colours that would subconsciously pique the interest of children. Or one child, in this case.


Maya's professional capacity and emotional vulnerability made her an attractive prospect.

"The blueberry, please?" Layton looked over the glossy glass encasement at the freckled boy serving customers. The young man reached for a scooper and glanced next to Layton, then a few feet down.

            "And your li'l girl?"
"Beg your pardon, my wha-- oh!"

A pair of large, wondering eyes looked up between him and the server. He recognised the young girl from photographs he had taken whilst tracking Maya's routine over the past two weeks. His meditative smile unwound into a chipper, silly one  as he feigned a confused blush and peered around to see if the child's mother would come to his rescue. Layton was counting on it.

It didn’t matter if there was a storm overhead on a Saturday morning, Katrine Elliot woke her mum each morning with an excited chime of ‘eyecream’ ‘eyecream’. The tradition had started when Bug had left. Katrine hadn’t understood why her Daddy wasn’t around anymore. She got further upset when suddenly her Mommy was taking her somewhere else to leave her for what felt like forever. On the days that Maya didn’t work (most Saturday’s unless Solomon Carstairs decided otherwise), Katrine was brought to Fortescues.

The cheerup method and time to bond had become a regular and now Maya cursed such things as Katrine pulled away from her mum and started to run into the shop, toddling on tiny legs, wet curls bobbing up and down.
“Katrine!” Maya snapped, moving quicker through the rain and into the store. Katrine was already at the ice cream counter stood beside a stocky wizard mulling over the choice of ice cream. She was practically glued to him, oblivious as tiny hands were on the glass and she stared, transfixed at the glittering colours.

“Herregud, Katrine!” She said something in Norweigan to the small child before pulling the hood up and glancing to the stranger. At least he seemed friendly; he wasn’t scowling at the toddler. “Keeping a child from her eyecream is impossible.” Maya grinned as she realised the mistake. “Ice cream.”

As if by magic, that started up another chorus of Katrine’s favourite word.
“eyecream eyecream eyecream!”

Layton tolerated children. He liked the precocious one's best - his employer's niece had always made an impression on him - but Katrine Elliot was still too young to be exceptionally likeable. His smile broadened as the girl's mother intervened, coming in out of the rain.

"Oh it's no bother," he laughed and mirrored Maya's grin with his own self-deprecating expression. "Used to enjoy a spot of eye cream myself, at her age. Bit of on occasional treat nowadays."

His rambling was self-conscious, obviously affected by the prettiness of the witch next to him. She was still young enough to be flattered by the effects of her beauty on older men. Layton looked back down at Katrine and raised his eyebrows comically.

"What's your favourite kind of eye cream then?" a quick wink at Maya, and he gestured playfully at the display signs that the little one could not read. "Flobberworm flavoured? Handful of newt sprinkles?"

The wizard was friendly, seemingly enthusiastic about his trip to the ice cream shop. Maya would have found it slightly strange if she wasn’t glad for the conversation with an adult. Far too often, at the weekend she was able to go from Friday evening to Monday morning with her only conversation being with a 15-month old toddler with an exceedingly limited vocabulary. Anyone that didn’t repeat the same new word five times and bang their fists on anything solid was worth chatting to during the long days.

He even seemed to like kids, Maya considered as the wizard asked about eye cream and gave a wink. Katrine, unfortunately, wasn’t paying any attention to the wizard trying to engage her. She was too interested in staring at the exciting colours and sparkles behind the counter. She always stared, captivated before pointing to the same one every time.

So Maya waved her hand, giving a shrug.
“You’ve no chance.” She offered an apologetic smile. “The ice cream is far more interesting than anything else.” Giving a shrug, Maya put a protective hand on her daughter’s shoulder, smiling at the stranger. “I can recommend the fairy dust and eucalyptus puss fudge. With the spicy cone. It’s not a normal combination but it comes with lots of little surprises.”

Layton tried not to look to relieved that the child was too preoccupied by ice-cream to give him much attention - children were more intuitive than adults and he would rather work on Maya, whose reactions were by and large less unpredictable.

"I can't blame her," he smiled amicably and raised his eyebrows ever so slightly and her suggestion of flavour. "Oh, gosh. You sound like you've worked your way down the variations."

The implication was that she spent a lot of time here; in spite of having tracked her movements, the wizard rarely made an appearance inside the parlour if he could help it. Others would have noticed and his face would have become familiar even to the inattentive young adults manning the counter.

          "That instead of the blueberry, sir?" asked the server, scoop in hand.

Layton flushed, as if though realising he'd been ignoring the purpose of his being there for ice-cream. "Yes please," he cleared his throat self-consciously before glancing back at Maya. "Are you and your husband a big fan of the eye cream as well then?"

"Are you and your husband a big fan of the eye cream as well then?"

“We were,” Maya didn’t miss a beat, looking seriously at the friendly stranger. “He gorged himself to death on eucalyptus puss fudge.” She offered him a smile before shaking her head.

“Mama!” Katrine chirped from below them, tugging on Maya’s trouser leg. Wide eyes stared as the attendant passed the icecream cone over the counter to the stranger and asked if there was anything else.

“Not yours.” Maya told the little girl, “So greedy.” She bent down and lifted the child up onto her hip so Katrine could get a better look at the ice-creams.

Maya wasn't pretending to be in a relationship, which boded well for Layton - lonely women were either open to being chatted up or they became cold fish. She wasn't showing any signs of reluctance so he knew he could continue to intrude on their afternoon together for a little longer.

"Thanks mate," a quick smile at the server before he clumsily dug out the right change to pay. "Just that." The smile turned itself on to the little girl and then to her mother - the wizard chuckled at the remark.

So greedy, something better off said of adults.

"Oh they're allowed to be at their age. My niece was just the same." The corners of Layton's eyes crinkled happily, and he tried some of the strange concoction that had been handed over - it was sweet. Very sweet. He hated sweet things. "Oh. Gosh, that's something isn't it?"

Layton cleared his throat, coughing and blowing his cheeks out. "Can't say I'm used to these things. Bit of a treat in my age..." he trailed off deprecatingly. It would have been easy to offer to pay for Maya and the girl but his altruism would have rung false as she might've suspected he was trying to make her feel indebted to him.

The kindly stranger struggled with the extreme sweetness of his chosen ice-cream while Maya ordered Katrine’s favourite but nothing for herself. Money was tight. A treat for Katrine was one thing, indulging in ice-cream just for the sake of it for herself was silly when she had bills to pay and a pitiful wage to pay them on. Nearly every day she cursed Bug for abandoning them.

The small icey treat had been paid for and Maya turned to look at the wizard who mumbled something about treats and his age. Katrine happily shoved her face into her cone, getting it covered in bright blue and pink ice cream while Maya offered the wizard a small smile.

“So what brought you to trying some today?” She could be polite and make conversation.

The little one was content with her ice-cream, which was a relief - children being wild cards were at their worst when discontent and throwing tantrums. There was no tactful way to deal with them; except, it seemed, with ice-cream. Layton smiled to himself as Katrine gleefully indulged in the treat. To be young again.

And lucky, to have a mother who cared.

       “So what brought you to trying some today?”

He looked back up at Maya, smile fading slightly. "My niece suggested it," the wizard tasted the ice-cream again and managed to make a pretence of enjoying the noxious thing. "A grown lady now, she is. Wrote to say she wished we'd spent more time doing things like this when she was younger."

Layton did not have any nieces - though he considered Ira's niece to be his own, and she was far from likely to write telling him to have a cone of ice-cream for old time's sake. Raine was not one to write letters about ice-cream; he liked that about her.

"Aren't you having any for yourself?" he asked, indicating the array of flavours. "Don't seem the sort to, ah, watch your figure. Not that you need to," his gaze faltered at this, awkwardly.

It was a cute sob story about his niece and their need to share more time together. Maya listened politely after she’d paid for the ice cream. Katrine was already wondering out of the small shop, her face already covered in sugary gloop. She wasn’t at all bothered by this wizard’s presence but her mother was starting to find it a little odd. Who thought of wanting to spend more time with their niece and then went to buy ice cream? She was half surprised he hadn’t bought one for his niece…

"Don't seem the sort to, ah, watch your figure. Not that you need to," The wizard seemed awkward but there was something Maya couldn’t put her finger on. She pressed her lips together and stared at him.

“You’re not buying one for your niece? To pretend you’re with her?” Maya couldn’t help herself. She did, however, resist the urge to tell him that he seemed the sort.

       "You’re not buying one for your niece? To pretend you’re with her?"

Layton laughed, this time unable to bite it back, trying to picture himself and Raine Almasy wandering in here to buy a cone of ice-cream each. It was an alien image. He slipped one hand into his pocket and pretended to take his time with the sugary treat in the meantime; as soon as Maya was out of sight, it would go right in the bin.

"You're teasing me-" he pointed out kindly, easily letting his humour pass for having a laugh at himself. "- but I'm a sentimental man, so maybe I deserve it. Comes with age, you begin to miss things you never thought you would."

Which, he supposed, was half true if not in this context. Sometimes he missed his early days of when he returned to the United Kingdom: the thrill of it, of Ira, had now long fallen into complacency. They could predict one another too well.

Almost as easily as he could predict Maya Elliot. "I won't interrupt your, ah, weekend treat." Layton glanced at Katrine who was wandering away, more content with ice-cream than a grown person would be with riches. "I'm glad to have met you."