Chapter 88

Damian packs a bag of top-quality tea cakes to square his account with Anya: repayment for her sparing him a Tonitrus and for steadying him during the bus hijacking. His plan is to hand them over, be done with her, and reestablish the distance their social standings demand, but pride requires the exchange happen away from witnesses. Every attempt fails. His friends and Becky interrupt him at the school entrance, forcing him to hide the bag, though Anya has already plucked the secret from his head and cheerfully accepts a gift he then loudly denies offering before fleeing.

Convinced the sweets must matter to Operation Strix, and hungry for them besides, Anya enlists Becky, who proposes a note summoning Damian to the courtyard at the next break. The first note is unreadable, the rewrite barely better, and Ewen and Emile interpret the mangled invitation as a challenge to a duel. Both children ditch their entourages for the meeting; both entourages tag along anyway, and the rendezvous devolves into bickering and a chase. When a fed-up Damian moves to abandon the whole errand, Anya grabs his arm and pleads with him not to go, meaning the cakes, and his heart betrays him with a flutter. Henderson then appears, pointing out the warning bell has rung, confiscates the sweets as contraband, and sentences the pair to written apologies in his office after class.

The punishment softens into an impromptu tea party as Henderson serves the confiscated cakes to both offenders. Damian thinks back to a call from Jeeves revealing that his mother Melinda went to considerable trouble sourcing them, apparently pleased at the thought of her son and Anya growing closer, news that leaves him stunned. Full of cake, Anya offers friendship on the spot. Baffled by the offer, Damian replays her arm-grab through a mental filter that renders Anya far cuter than reality, flustering himself, while Anya reads the image telepathically and recoils. She withdraws the offer, another squabble erupts, and an exasperated Henderson orders them both home.

Damian spends the day trying to privately repay Anya with premium tea cakes, only for Henderson to confiscate them and discipline both children before sharing the sweets over tea in his office.

Jeeves discloses that Melinda personally arranged the cakes in hopes of nudging her son toward Anya, and Damian's flustered reimagining of the arm-grab, seen through Anya's telepathy, torpedoes her short-lived offer of friendship.

In the flashback on page 22, Melinda is drawn with noticeably longer bangs than her earlier depictions show. Damian alone graces the cover, and no corresponding anime episode is listed for this chapter.