Luckily, Dad thought to turn off the stove before we had any more disasters. When I finally emerged to look for food, several busy hours later, I found him sitting on the sagging couch by the fireplace, holding that small slip of paper in his hands and studying it thoughtfully with his puzzle book and pencils set aside.

“How did that get in here?” I demanded.

He looked at me, calmly, over the rims of his spectacles. “So you’ve already seen our neighbor’s invitation?”

“Pah.” I rolled my eyes as I opened the lid of the cheerfully humming new icebox I’d created last month. There was more to its design than would have been easily explainable to anyone who’d insisted on examining it closely, but it looked ordinary enough from a distance to be safely stored in our windowed main rooms rather than hidden in my workshop. “You know I’m not interested in any social invitations—especially when their messenger damages our window to deliver them.”

“Hmm.” Dad’s skeptical tone made me glance back at him—only to find his gaze moving thoughtfully to the window and the grass outside, which I’d so carefully lined with iron horseshoes on our first day here. “Did you leave any path for him to knock on the front door?”

“What kind of a question is that?” The ice box lid hung open behind me as I swung around, a cold chill skating up my spine through my coveralls. “We moved out here to get away from nosy neighbors, remember? Or have you already forgotten…?”

My words trailed off into a horrific silence. Shame suffused me like toxic gas billowing up to overflow a beaker.

Of course he hadn’t forgotten. How could he?

I opened my mouth to apologize—but he shook his head, stopping me.

“Here.” He held out the slip of paper as he rose, metal supports shifting smoothly all along his legs. “You should at least read the invitation before you make any decision.”

Biting my lip, I took the paper from him.

Your presence is requested tonight at eight o’clock.

Ha, I thought. But I kept my mouth shut under Dad’s steady gaze.

He sighed as he looked up at me. “Even the strongest iron can’t keep the world out forever, you know.”

Maybe it couldn’t…but I could send a message of my own.

No one would ever hurt my family or our home again. The townsfolk nearby might all cower when those great gates swung open, but I never would. I knew how to send flying messengers, too…and wasn’t it useful that all of those respectable townsfolk hid behind their high walls at night?

They wouldn’t see a thing.