“I miss them, too,” she says. “And I’ll be home soon. Or I’ll bring them to stay with me. Smith hasn’t cast the spell on any children yet, but he’s considering it.”

I don’t even want to think about what that means. Surely, my father won’t let his children move onto a compound.

“You could call home,” I say. “Even the babies have mobile phones.”

Daphne shakes her head. “It’s too confusing for them. They just want to know when I’m coming home, and it’s too hard to explain. Better to wait until I have some clear answers.”

“Mum … they miss you.”

“Basil.” She puts her hand on my arm. “They’re so young, they won’t even remember that I was gone for a few weeks. They won’t remember missing me. Soon I’ll be home, and I’ll be strong, and that’s what they’ll remember.”

I can’t think of what else to say.

Simon clears his throat—to remind us he’s here, I think. “Hello, Mrs. Grimm.”

Daphne looks at him, and her face cools. (Fair. He did destroy her house.) “Hello, Mr. Snow. Did you enjoy the meeting?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Wow. Does he do this every week?”

“He tries,” she says, immediately warming again. Apparently one mention of Smith-Richards is all it takes to make Daphne forget her motherless children and her ruined estate. “It’s an enormous spell,” she goes on, “so he can’t always manage it. But he’s helped six of us so far.”

“And those people can all do magic now?”

“Well,” she says, “they could always do magic. But, yes, they’re all very powerful now. Not even just middling powerful,” she says to me. “They’re all at the top of the game.”

“Wow,” Simon says again, looking genuinely impressed. “Can anyone cast that spell?”

“Crowley, no,” Daphne says. “I mean”—she’s sheepish—“I think we’ve all tried. But it’s Smith’s gift. It’s part of what makes him special.”

“What else makes him special?” I ask.

She’s still sheepish. “You’ve seen him. He’s here to lift us all up. To bring equality to the World of Mages.”

“But that doesn’t make him the Greatest Mage,” I say. “The Greatest Mage is supposed to conquer the greatest threat to magic.”

Her eyes are wide and shining. “What if the greatest threat to magic is the thing that holds each of us back? What if the threat to magic was inside of us, all along?”

Well, that’s crap, and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to tell her so.

“Who’s that Jamie?” Simon asks. “The one they mentioned?”

Daphne practically beams. “Oh, Jamie Salisbury. He was one of Smith’s first believers—Jamie is his first miracle.”