Max caught Jasmine's eye. They'd heard the same thing, jumped to similar 'bad times' conclusions.
Discussion of Harriet gave him a few second to rule out possible culprits for the 'mirror man' in the staff. The creeps in the puppeteer's tent didn't qualify. As much as he was personally okay with James, the dude wasn't allowed near his kid. That left ... no one. He wasn't sure why Jaz had meandered off mid-sentence, but it drew his focus back to their chat. Harriet. Why was Harriet so familiar?
Like Artemis, this new book wasn't on he recognized. Jasmine's follow up question had his complete attention, however. He nodded thanks at her behind Annie.
"Nope, just Harriet," she said, turning a playfully overtorqued look over her shoulder at her solemn-faced Uncle. "He said I'd like it because you were a spy," she said with a small shrug, barely visible beneath the excess folds of her enormous borrowed shirt.
"Well that's not right," Max replied, forcing a bit of humor into a lopsided smile he didn't feel. A fist was forming in his gut. "Unless I'm super secret," he winked. "Did he tell you my codename or anything? Mirror guy sounds like he's playing jokes."