The Reverend Daughter and the Necrolord Prime were having another of their silent "talks;" John occupied himself by stirring his tea, while Harrow stubbornly did not.

"Before the Resurrection, people sometimes tried predicting the future by examining the arrangement of tea leaves—I can't imagine it ever worked very well, but I suppose it could be considered a primitive and tangential attempt at spirit magic," John eventually mused.

Harrow scowled (more than usual) and added that factoid to her list of reasons for disliking tea—her own attempts at spirit magic were too often primitive or even tangential, after all.