The front door was unlocked. I let myself in, quietly latching the door behind me. I followed the threads of voices and candlelight into the kitchen, where my parents and Imonie sat at a table, waiting for me to come home.

My mother saw me first.

I stood on the threshold, where the firelight could wash over me, and I waited for her to ask who I was—a stranger in her home. She said nothing but her face went pale. She set her teacup down with a clatter in its saucer and that was when I realized she knew, somehow, that it was me.

“Ambrose,” she said, but it was too late. My father was turning in his chair, to see what had transfixed my mother’s attention.

He frowned and instantly rose, scaring Dwindle down the hallway.

“Who are you?” he asked, and while he was polite, I saw the gleam of fear in him. He sensed it, too, and he didn’t want to believe it.

“Papa,” I said, and he flinched. “It’s me.”

He took a step back as if I had struck him. Imonie buried her face in her hands and my mother was frozen, watching us with bloodshot eyes.

“What have you done?” he cried, and his devastation was like a dagger in my side. “Clem . . . what have you done?”

“You may want to live your life without magic,” I said. “But I don’t. You may be content to live in the city, working in the mines, but I long to go home to Hereswith. I’m not done fighting for it, Papa.”

My father tore his fingers through his hair. He shot a fierce look at my mother and asked, “Did you encourage this, Sigourney?”

“No,” my mother said. “Whatever magic she used to transform . . . it was not mine.”

Papa paced through the kitchen. “Why? Why have you done this?” he asked, coming to a halt before me. “You were perfect the way you were, Clem.”

“This won’t last forever.”

“How long, then?”

“The disguise will break when I want it to,” I answered, hoping my parents believed me. I didn’t know for certain how easily this magic would relinquish me. If my spirit was cold, then it might take a long time to chip away the stone in my chest.

“You still haven’t answered me,” he said. “Why have you done this?”

“I want to know why they chose Hereswith, why they chose to challenge us,” I whispered. “I want to know their secrets. I want them to feel the same pain as us—to lose something that means the world to them. To feel the sharp edge of their own selfishness.”

“Who are you speaking about?” Papa rasped, but he knew.

“I’ve become Phelan’s partner. He’s a dream warden in the southern quarter of the city.”

“Phelan Vesper?”

I nodded.