Well, one thing I could say with absolute confidence- Mama Hale made a killer lasagna.

I hadn't had much to eat since earlier in the morning, and I hadn't realised just how famished I was until those beautiful aromas filled me up.

I abandoned all reason and thought as I attacked piece after piece and let Evie ask all her questions first. Mine could wait.

I did not think well on an empty stomach, anyway.

We munched in silence for a bit, Mama Hale and Cupid spending more time watching me eat than eating something themselves.

Evie broke the silence first, "What is going on, mama?"

She raised her hand to show the 'soul string' to the two immortals. I still hadn't entirely come to terms with the fact that Mama Hale had been alive since the business started, literally a thousand years ago. The fact that the god of love was sitting right next to her, who also happened to be responsible for her entire situation didn't help matters as much as one might think it would.

Mama Hale and Cupid exchanged glances at each other. I wondered if Cupid could see right through the shade, straight into her mechanical eyes.

"We thought it was about time that my family started getting matched, again," she replied curtly.

The cryptic answer was the exact replica of what my father often used to excuse anything and everything he wanted done. Particularly when the said thing involved inputs from my brother and I. It is about time our family did this and did that.

Evie saw through the bullshit, too, and groaned, "I'm gonna need more than that, please. What does this even mean? I can't even touch it, mama!"

The last bit was news to me. I assumed that by touching it, she meant the soul string because I would let her touch me in whatever way she liked, anytime. In fact it was one the few things I did not mind having a soulmate for, if you get my drift.

Mama Hale turned to Cupid, hoping to get some help, and Evie stiffened beside me. She really did not like the world's first matchmaker.

Her actions did not go unnoticed by Cupid, who simply raised an eyebrow, "You were the one we decided to begin with for this very reason, you know. Your disdain towards me almost rivals the hate Angelica's first children possessed."

His voice had a European lilt to it. Almost an Italian accent, but not really.

"I wonder why," she muttered under her breath, loud enough for only me to hear.

I obliged with a well-timed snicker. If she was creating inner jokes (or whatever this was supposed to be) then I was going to do whatever it took to encourage her and let her know that I was on her side, even if the other side literally had the god of love. She could trust me.

Despite her quip, I wondered at his wording, "To begin with?"

Cupid smirked slyly, "It's been over a millennium since a Hale was matched. That sort of...stunt in a family will bring unexpected consequences. For example, as Evangeline pointed out, she cannot touch the string. Neither can I. The power in your bond is so strong that no one, except for my wife Psyche, can do anything whether you choose to cut the bond or accept it. And I must warn you, those are your only options if you want to stay alive."

The lasagna turned ashy in my mouth.

"Stay alive?"

Beside me, Evie had turned even paler than before.

"The purity and strength of your bond will attract...unwanted attention, if you will. It can only be shrouded by accepting the bond or cutting it." Cupid ran his fingers through his hair. "I estimate you have around two months. You may be attacked in this span, but you will certainly not be safe after that point. The strength of the bond will grow with time, and it might even have started eating away at the two of you from within."

I looked down at my hands. I didn't particularly feel eaten yet, but I did not want to wait long enough to find out what it felt like.

I wanted to do a very different kind of eating where Evie was involved, but I suspected we would be straying far away from eating anything at all. I had started feeling sick, and Evie didn't look any better.

Mama Hale extended her hands towards Evie, stroking them softly. "I'm sorry I have put you in this position, my pretty, but I cannot keep watching my kids not know the true comfort of matched love."

Evie did not move her hands away, staring at their junction intensely, "The family has seen what matching did to you, mama. We do not want to be matched. We're okay."

Mama Hale sighed dejectedly, almost as if she knew what Evie was going to say and did not like where it was going. "Not everyone in the family feels that way, my sweet. I know they feel left out and wronged. Cupid can attest for as much. We just want to see if the Hales can be matched again, or if it has become impossible, now."

Cupid crossed his arms, revealing muscles under the pulled sleeves of his white t-shirt. A tattoo of an arrow through a heart came to view at the revelation on his right tricep.

Cliché.

He smirked, as if he had heard my thoughts. "I did hear them, and it is a very recent drunken mistake. I lost a bet to Phobos, and let me tell you, it is incredibly hard to back out on a bet with a horse named Fear."

Mama Hale didn't seem surprised at the random piece of information Cupid had just given, but she did peer in my direction, making me focus back on my food.

"If the two of you don't mind," she began in a tone that let us know it didn't matter even if we did mind, "I would like to talk to Samuel in private."

I wondered how much she knew about me apart from my name. She clearly must've done a thorough profile check if she was making me a part of her family experiment.

Evie shrugged, letting me make the decision for myself. That traitor.

She got up, motioning for me to follow her towards the kitchen.

I did not really see a way out of it, so I did.

"Why don't you take out the ice cream from the fridge," she said, "I'll bring out the brownies. Eros is really good at desserts."

Again, it did not look like I had much of a choice in the matter, so I did as I was told.

"You must have been wondering why you were matched with Evangeline."

I wanted to reply with a sharp 'no, not really', but something about her voice made me relax a bit. Her eyes had unnerved me before, and hearing her story had made me want to throw up and travel back in time to break that son of a bitch who did this to her. But now, she just sounded like a regular girl who was trying her best to do some good for her family.

She truly believed that everything she was doing was right.

And it probably even was.

I still did not like their methods.

When I did not answer, she started talking again, "Long ago, after we had established our work in collaboration with the cupids, one of great-grandchildren came to me, talking about wanting to be matched to a woman he had fallen in love with. I told him I didn't have it in my hands, but he could talk to Eros about it.

'He followed through and went to Eros. Eros, of course, told him that he could be matched. Unlike what most of my family now believes, not being matched was a conscious choice my children made for themselves and the generations to come. It was not a trade for our gift of sight.

'However, Eros did tell him that entering the system for her would not do him much good. The system doesn't match people with whoever they ask for. The girl already had a match, and he wan't the one. He refused to believe it and marched straight back to his love, only to find that she had been betrothed to another by her father."

The ice cream lay forgotten in the freezer as I listened to the story enraptured. I had leaned against the refrigerator, and found myself becoming increasingly invested in the story of a man I had never met.

"What did he do then?" I asked curiously.

Mama Hale placed the brownies out of the oven, "Oh, he got upset. The situation reaffirmed his beliefs that Cupid was a monster, and that the cupid babies made mistakes in matchmaking. The progress he made with our business was immense."

I stared at her, more than just a little confused, "Why did you tell me this?"

She signalled towards the freezer and I stirred, moving to take the ice cream out.

"You should focus not on my child, but his love," she replied sadly, "She was matched with an ancestor of yours."

I froze.

"This isn't the first time our families have entangled?" I whispered.

Mama Hale shook her head, seemingly ageing a decade with that one action. Yet, even that action did not make her look that much older than me. Everything was bizarre.

"No," she simply said, staring back the table where Cupid and Evie seemed to be having a animated discussion.

As we picked the desserts and headed their way, I couldn't help but feel like an offering to appease the curses of the dead. Even ice cream and brownies couldn't uplift my mood.

My appetite pretty much died for the rest of the week.