If Zechariah knew anything, it was not to trust a Ward’s cooking beyond survival. Rose had pretended to tolerate him (and spread true lies about him how far?!), and even that food had been a miracle to survive.

With the building trust between them, Zechariah picked the cup up and sniffed it. Smelled like hot. He set it back down, then drizzled in an excessive amount of milk and sugar, spilling some over.

“Thank you, miss.”

Then, he flipped through the music book on the piano.

“Who taught you to play?”

He had three guesses, and all of them involved no one.