Cassiopeia, who had attended the celebration, wasn’t certain that she would classify it as “fun.” She had stayed only a little while, and left before the venue became too crowded and the terrible modern music too loud and the muggles too drunken. Ravenmoore really was not her sort of place. It wasn’t the fault of Mrs Jarvis, though, she supposed. Perhaps the event had been very fit for purpose. She knew that she didn’t belong there, and she had made an appearance for her own reasons. So she simply nodded her agreement as Mr Jarvis explained things to her.
As for the other matter? Once she told him the truth, there would be no taking it back. Not unless she wanted to go to the lengths of casting memory-spells, and that wasn’t something Cassiopeia cared to do to a muggle who had never offended her. The side-effects could be ghastly if the spellcasting was inexact.
It could do no harm, she told herself. Living here, he already had to know most of it, and the rest could be guessed at. After taking a long, careful sip of her tea, she looked towards him intently, and spoke in a low voice.
‘What if I told you that what you believe simply isn’t true? That there is a magical element to Britain, a society which exists in parallel to the one you know, and in secret? That witches and wizards exist who are able not only to speak with ghosts, but to use magic for all manner of purposes, from the mundane to the spectacular?’ She paused, her gaze flickering away from him momentarily, and then back again. ‘I know this,’ she told him, ‘because my family line is the oldest and purest magical one in the country. I am very accustomed to the strict secrecy at home, but here? It hardly seems necessary any longer.’
Now she would see the truth of it: if he panicked, or called her a liar, or mad – or if she had been right to tell him.