She jerks her head up at him and then at me. “You’re not a magician? What are you? You don’t smell like a pixie. No offence.”

He laughs. “I’m a Talker. I mean—a Normal. I figured that was obvious.”

Mum’s got her wand pointed at him before her chin has finished dropping. “Let bygones be bygones!”

Shepard lurches back like he’s been shoved.

“Rock-a-bye, baby!” Mum shouts.

Shepard slumps forward. Mum and I catch him.

“Mum! What are you—”

“Penelope Leigh Bunce, have you lost your mind?”

“Have you?”

“You brought a Normal into our house?!”

“Mum, he needs help!”

“All Normals need help!”

“Mum—”

“You told him about magic? About our family?”

“If you’d just listen! Shepard is my friend. He helped me through—Well, I found myself in a very dicey situation…”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“Mum, that’s not fair.”

“Penelope, you’re so addicted to danger that you manufacture it as soon as things get quiet!”

“I’ve manufactured nothing! I wasn’t responsible for the Mage!”

“No, but you were one of three children in five hundred who couldn’t steer clear of him. You are recklessly bent on finding trouble.”

“That is an extreme and unfair mischaracterization.”

“Is it? So there’s not a demon-cursed, American Normal in my kitchen?”

Shepard is slipping out of our arms. We lower him to the floor. “Mum, he’s my friend.”

“I’m sure he is! I’m sure you befriended him the moment you realized what a hopeless disaster he is!”

“I didn’t know, actually.” I’m making sure Shepard doesn’t hit his head on the tile.

“It’s a sixth sense, then.”

“Your disapproval is well noted, Mother. I feel bad about my actions, and I won’t repeat them. Can you just help him now? He really is in trouble.”

“Penelope … no.” She’s standing up, looking down at Shepard with her hands on her hips. “There’s no way to help him without compromising ourselves.”

“He won’t tell anyone about us.”

“Now he won’t. He won’t remember you or me or any of it. He’ll spend the rest of his life wondering how drunk he must have been to have forgotten getting such elaborate tattoos. Get him on the next plane home.”

“You want me to abandon him?”

“Yes!”

“He’s my friend.”

“No. Penelope. He’s a Normal. Whom you’ve known for how long—a few days? A week?”

I don’t reply.

We both hear the front door open. My dad’s home, he’s calling up to Premal.

Mum’s face falls even farther, like someone has heaped another trouble on her back. “Wait here,” she says. “I’ve got to deal with this, then I’ll help you send Shepard on his way.”

She walks out of the kitchen.

I lay my right hand on Shepard’s forehead and whisper: “Rise and shine!”