It took Dionisia a moment to figure out what "catastrophe adjacent" meant before realizing that oh, Zelda worked in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. (She was worried for a second that she'd avoided the newspaper — or Zelda's personal life, if it was a different type of catastrophe — for far too long.)

"I feel like there's a purpose to this conversation," she concluded, offering Zelda a knowing glance. "You've never spoken about these sort of things with me before. Did something, you know, bad happen?"