Nobody planned it.
That was the thing about ordinary days. They did not announce themselves. They arrived the same way every other day arrived, through the same door, at the same hour, and only revealed themselves as the particular kind of day they were going to be once you were already in them.
This one was a Saturday in late winter.
Aelara knew it was going to be one of those days when she came downstairs at seven and found all of them already in various states of being in the kitchen, which was unusual for a Saturday, when the house tended to come together more slowly.
Mira was at the counter making something that smelled of cardamom and warm butter, the specific smell of the thing she made on weekend mornings when she felt like making it, which had no name that any of them knew and which Caelum had attempted to document the recipe for twice without success because Mira measured nothing and remembered the amounts differently each time.
