“You don’t read Tia.” It wasn’t a question.

Nellie answered anyway. “No. It’s different, what I get from them—not thoughts, not even because of one of the Talents, I think. Not telepathy. It feels . . . unique. Concepts, images, wordless things. Wordless knowledge.”

“Okay. Are you using any of your Talents?”

Her chin firmed stubbornly. “No.”

So that was why the gloves still.

He sighed. “Nellie . . . that shield Bishop taught you to construct for yourself is a damned good one, but we both know what it’s supposed to be used for. You don’t need to call down a storm or use your telepathic Talent unwisely, but you can’t keep it all bottled up.”

“Says the man no one can read due to a shield built by generations of knowledge and experience.” Without pausing for his reply, if he had ventured one, she went on. “And stop trying to change the subject. If FBI agents are coming here, it’s for something other than to offer more training to you and your deputies. Or that isn’t the only reason. So?”

Genuinely uncertain of how she would react, he reported the visit by the Blackwood elder and his subsequent communications with Bishop and his teams.

“Aylia Blackwood.” Nellie’s tone was thoughtful, her face unreadable. But her gloved hands moved briefly, uneasily, fingers tightening around each other. “I would say it would take a lot to scare her.”

“I’d agree.”

“And she’s convinced someone is out to start picking off members of the Five.”

“ ‘Murder us brutally’ is, I believe, what she said. And in addition to not scaring easily, she has a very strong history of accuracy in her farseeing.”

“Has she ever seen anything like this before?”

“No, not that she told me. Killings weren’t so uncommon in the earliest days of Salem, the times being what they were, but until Duncan came along, murders had been all but nonexistent for at least a few generations. Deaths, naturally, and a few killings now and then, but nothing like what she saw.”

After a moment, Nellie said, “A stranger would be noticed, as I know all too well. And I haven’t heard of any strangers in town. I get the cover story you have for Bishop and his agents, but if there’s someone out there bent on murder . . . then they’re already here. Living here. Is that what Aylia saw?”

“I don’t think it’s what she wants to believe, but believe it she does.”

“One of the Five?”

“That she wasn’t as sure of. But like so much else in Salem, it concerns Talent of one kind or another. Psychic abilities.” He paused. “You and I both head up our respective families. No way to know for certain if elders and those like us are being targeted—and no way to know we aren’t. It would make sense if we were, assuming the goal is to take down the families.”

“Take down the families? That’s a lot of people, Finn. That’s practically Salem.”