Half past two in the afternoon.


“How goes the long hand of justice?”

Edgar hugged his daughter on the threshold of  Ascendio Italiano, where they usually agreed to meet for their monthly lunches. She squeezed back awkwardly, laughing. ”Not as long as the prosecution would like it!”

Adelaide Carstairs was slightly taller than her father, in heels (except for when he was wearing his heels of course) and she sported the same quiet but distinct manner of sweeping into a room like it was her very own parlour. They didn’t much resemble one another outside of that - she didn’t have those gaunt Morgan[1] eyes, nor the cunning elfin features. She was her mother’s daughter: the unmistakeable Carstairs brow.

And, thought Edgar as a waiter saw them to a window table, her mother’s hair. Virgil had it too. Golden and gleaming. They sat down to their meals with an overpriced glass of white wine each.

Set well apart from other occupied tables, conversation could flow freely and at a meandering pace to begin with. Theatre gossip over the amuse bouche and tarragon pea soup. Catching up on her awful dating life, his latest musical premise - seared duck with a sweet balsamic glaze.

1.	Edgar Carstairs is originally a Morgan, and took his wife's name in marriage.

As he placed their desserts before them, the waiter tried not to laugh at Edgar's impression of cousin Sol.

"I shouldn't, really," he smiled ruefully through the sigh, prodding at his mascarpone lime cheesecake. It was mean to poke fun at the head of the DMLE. "He has enough on his plate, Solomon does. Vampires, last month, werewolves now. Merlin knows how he forgets it all at the end of the day."

            "Bet you he smokes gillyweed or something deliciously ironic." Adelaide smirked around a spoon of chocolate mousse.

Edgar laughed. Even his imagination couldn't quite stretch far enough. "That's Virgil's modus operandi," the wizard frowned a little. "Speaking of which, I hope he's made up with Yavin by now."  His daughter swallowed and tilted her head to the side, quizzical. "They got into something of a spat. Didn't he tell you?"

Adelaide put down her spoon, clearly going off the food. "Haven't really spoken to V since Christmas, and not even then because he was so sick..." she crossed her arms on the white linen table. "What did Yavin do?"

 "Oh, nothing nothing," Edgar made a dismissive gesture. " You know what Morgenthau is like."

There was an awkward silence while he finished his cake and Adelaide looked out the window, across the sea. The water was getting choppy, a threatening dark blue beneath the greying sky. She was thinking. He knew, because she always fiddled with her napkin when she was deep in thought.

Once upon a time it had been impossible to shut her up if they were talking about Virgil. The way she fussed over him! Angela insisted that hadn't been inherited from her side of the family. Carstairs do not fuss.

"You were so close." Edgar folded his napkin, setting it aside as his daughter glanced away from the view. "It's a shame you aren't, anymore. I thought maybe you might have reconnected after he left school."

The last couple of years at Hogwarts had done it. He'd made more friends, started going to parties, dating boys and girls.

Adelaide shook her head, giving him a tight-lipped smile that indicated a wilful reticence. "Well," Edgar shrugged before flagging down their waiter for the bill. "I suppose he has his own life now, wings and all. At least we won't have to worry about him going near any vampires[1] again."

She stared, the blue of her eyes much darker and more pensive than either of her brothers. It made her confusion seem particularly ominous.

"Again?"

1.	4th Dec - It's the Freakiest Show - Virgil and Nemo provoke a coven of vampires.